What do you really know?

With the huge amount of information we have at our fingertips nowadays, it is easy to fall in the comfortable delusion of thinking you know and can understand anything. Reading the first two or three search results on a specific issue give us a pretty good general idea, but it’s a general idea that if left unchecked can quickly snowball into a false sense of comprehension.

It is only until you put that knowledge to use that you can test it.

Wikipedia as research, superficial knowledge assumed to mean mastery

When we get understanding, typically some questions are answered and insights are generated. As we go along, we often like to think we are learning how things are.

Today I would like to posit that *maybe*, what you are really learning about is yourself and the way you look at things and not the other way around.

The reason why a lot of quick fixes fail is because they do not generate an internal change that the person can get behind. It is easy to fake character, knowledge or even empathy, but fake yourself into a real situation where your character, knowledge or empathy are tested and you will be in for a real disappointment. Anybody who’s tried confidence-boosting tricks can surely testify that it’s no good psyching yourself up if deep down inside you still feel like you have very little to offer whether as a friend, partner or colleague.

The people who advance successfully work on themselves first and the way they look at the world. It is only when you have a different point of view that you can change your attitude and actions accordingly. Sure, at first you will be looking out for opportunities to act upon on purpose, and that’s fine when you are trying to get into a routine or a habit. But I would draw the baseline for success a little bit further along, where the insight has caused you to rethink your prejudices, values and priorities.

We all want to be successful at what we do. Building something out of nothing is one of our primordial pleasures; to affect the world around us with our own creations gives us immense satisfaction.

Nowadays, the world is our stage. Find an interest and I’ll show you a platform where you can showcase your skills. Whether you want to make it in the world as a designer, marketer, carpenter, actor, copywriter, programmer or musician, there’s a community waiting to hear from you and give you feedback.

There are personalities coming out of these environments that are commonly referred to as becoming successful “overnight”.We normally revere them as out of the ordinary, smart, as someone who has gamed the system to their own advantage. And we want to learn their secrets.

Let me tell you, it’s a dangerous path to walk on.

I think we project this wacky fantasy onto others for a variety of reasons, first and foremost because we love the affirmation that you can do something simple that will resonate with everyone out there, of finding that pure idea that everyone can relate to instantly, projecting you into celebrity and even stardom. But there’s another side of the coin nobody ever talks about.

People who make it “overnight” seldom do so. If you dig deeper, you will find that these people have endured an inordinate amount of failures, setbacks, accidents, honest to god mistakes and plain old poor judgement. To make it overnight you still require an amount of experience and understanding that no quick fix could ever provide.

Paradoxically, making it overnight is the result of years and years of hard work.

We live in what most people would easily consider the most exciting time in humanity. Internet has brought around a social revolution and today we can support a lifestyle that just 10 years ago would be considered pure science fiction. Everything’s in our phone and we are connected to it 24/7. Our physical world no longer restrains us, being able to communicate with people halfway around the world like they were sitting next to us. It still is truly fascinating to me that we take all of this for granted.

These services come at a cost though. The instant gratification framework we’ve been slowly settling on spills into our daily, real world life. We want to be attended promptly at the DMV or the post office. It feels like the people in front of us are in line at the grocery store are deliberately taking forever out of spite. We rush to close a project thinking it’ll take just a couple of minutes. This would be so much easier if I could do it online.

We have things to do, places to be, people to see. We don’t have the time to wait. Time is money.

We have lost the concept of building towards an objective. We slowly forgot what it means to build something, putting the hours day after day and see it come together. We are so focused on the end result that we’ve become disinterested with the process. The process *is* the end result as far as I’m concerned, and something becomes the end result when you stop working on it.

Students today fail to grasp the concept of going to a library to do research. Googling a question has become the golden standard for becoming an “expert” on the matter.

The concepts of society, conformity and sharing have been around since the dawn of mankind. We are all programmed to come together and join forces towards a common goal or vision. It’s a basic trigger for survival.

At the same time we all crave recognition, a well developed identity, one that will resonate with others. We want followers, we want people to value our opinion and remember us for the things we’re good at. We want to inspire.

Rarely, though, do we ever value the outcasts, the loners, the people that stand out. We mock them for their differences whether visual, behavioral or cultural, but in reality they give us invaluable perspective over the status quo and the unexpressed potential that resides within us.

All great visionaries have characteristically endured the mocking of their community, some even had to wait long after they were dead to be considered eminent personalities in their field. Can you picture your core beliefs being that strong in the face of collective mockery? You might care or not, but you have to appreciate the resilience and conviction of some of these people.

Growth can only come from challenging your beliefs and practices out of your comfort zone.
What have you done today to separate yourself from your peers?