How To Become An Overnight Success.

Rob Bell:
Hello, and welcome to Sketchplanations The Podcast, where we discuss the many facts, topics and ideas explained through Sketch at sketchplanations.com to help fuel your own interesting conversations.

I'm engineer and broadcaster Rob Bell, and of course the team is here as well.

Jono Hey, the brains, talent and creator of Sketchplanations.

Jono Hey:
Hello.

Rob Bell:
And Tom Pellereau, business owner and past winner of The Apprentice.

Tom Pellereau:
Hi there.

Rob Bell:
Firstly, can we say a huge thank you to everyone who's responded to the podcast survey that we sent out a couple of weeks back?

I will include a link to it in the show notes if anyone who hasn't yet does still want to respond in the last few days that we're going to have it up but hasn't quite had the chance to yet, or maybe didn't even see the link in Jono's weekly Sketchplanations newsletters that we put out.

But it's really useful to get your feedback on these fortnightly episodes that we put out.

And we'll be doing a full analysis on all those responses in the coming weeks.

So thank you for all of that.

Tom Pellereau:
In Sketchform, I hope.

Rob Bell:
We'll be doing a full analysis in Sketchform, yes, when I say we.

And so on to this episode's topic, which is overnight success, or perhaps I should say the illusion thereof.

Jono, over to you.

Can you tell us a little bit about this sketch, please?

And what it means to you?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, so I've done a number of quotes and sketches.

And in fact, in the book, there are also a number of quotes from sketches, because they mean a lot to me.

And I think they're quite valuable to share.

Rob Bell:
And when you say the book, are you talking about Big Ideas, Little Pictures?

Jono Hey:
Sorry.

Yes, I am.

Tom Pellereau:
The book.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, that one.

Rob Bell:
By Jono Hey.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, of course.

Rob Bell:
Okay.

Jono Hey:
Available in all good bookshops.

Rob Bell:
Lovely.

Jono Hey:
So, yeah, this is a quote by Biz Stone, who is the, I would say, lesser known Twitter co-founder.

So, I didn't know he was a co-founder of Twitter.

You hear about, I think, Jack Dorsey, who was co-founder of Twitter and CEO for a long time and went to do all sorts of other cool stuff.

And I came across this quote by Biz Stone, which I really like for a number of reasons, which no doubt we'll get to.

And the quote is simply, timing, perseverance and 10 years of trying will eventually make you seem like an overnight success.

And it speaks a lot to me because I think that, essentially, I think as all of the things I've learned, which I've basically spent my life so far studying design and innovation and how can you come up with cool stuff that people actually want?

And I think there are two really prevalent myths or legends perhaps, because it does happen, but on the whole, it probably won't happen to you, which are everywhere but quite destructive in a way, which is one is the lone inventor, which is this is not about that.

But the second one is the overnight success.

And I think in this quote, he just gets to the heart of it so quickly and easily.

And in a sort of way that surprises you that I loved it.

And drew a little chap sitting on top of an iceberg with this little flag like he succeeded.

And ideally, I hope that you get that all of the work is the bottom 90% of the iceberg.

Rob Bell:
It's 90% typically 90% of the ice below the water and 10% above, right?

That's what you see.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

And that is purely to do with the density of ice versus water, which is about 90-10.

So it is a sketch on that, isn't it?

There's a sketch on that.

Rob Bell:
I'll link to it in the notes.

Jono Hey:
Thank you.

Rob Bell:
As always with these, with the quote sketches, Jono, it's really interesting.

Well, I find it interesting to know where you came across the quote.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

You know, I wish I knew exactly where it was.

I believe I read it in a book, but I wanted to track it down.

There's a book that he wrote, which is kind of his autobiography about at least his business career, called Things a Little Bird Told Me.

And it goes through his career.

And he said Biz Stone has a really fascinating and remarkable career in some way.

So he was heavily involved in the teams that made Blogger, which was essentially one of the first mainstream blogging sites.

And the thing about blogging, I don't know if you were ever involved in building early website.

But I remember one of our tasks back at university was to build a website, which was actually...

Tom Pellereau:
Really difficult.

Jono Hey:
Difficult, but extremely valuable.

And it was a lot of work.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

And oh, God, yeah, yeah.

Jono Hey:
And it was later that things like Blogger and WordPress came about, which was basically you filled some information on a web page and press publish, and there it was live on the web without having to create HTML and CSS files and things.

Upload them to a server, and then it was live on the web.

Tom Pellereau:
And it could have paragraphs in without you having to do a massive amount of code just to have a paragraph in, for example.

Yeah, exactly.

Jono Hey:
So HTML, hypertext markup language, is amazing at saying, this is what this is, and CSS, which is Cascading Starships, is amazing.

This is how you should present it.

And Blogging and tools like Blogger and WordPress made that just really easy.

And he was one of the early co-founders with a chap called Evan Williams who made that.

And then they got bought by Google when he became a member of Google at that point, early on.

Rob Bell:
Computer is not my thing.

CSS, did you just say Cascading Starshoes?

Tom Pellereau:
That would be a better name.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, it might have sounded like that.

No, I said Style Sheets.

Rob Bell:
Style Sheets, gotcha.

Jono Hey:
And there was a big thing.

Tom Pellereau:
Sparkling Shoes, much better.

Jono Hey:
Cascading Sparkling Shoes, pretty lovely.

Yeah, and I guess the idea was there was that you had content and then you marked it up with like, this is what this is, this is a paragraph, this is a heading, this is a caption, whatever.

And then you had a separate thing, you separated the presentation from the content and said, if you have a caption, display it like this.

If you have a paragraph, display it like this.

And so there were some really early, nice early websites.

I remember one called CSS Sen Garden, which was like, you had one set of content and then everybody could provide these different style sheets and it could appear in all sorts of cool ways.

But it was part of the early magic of the web.

But on the other hand, it was a lot of work to do all that.

And I think that was actually some of the magic of things like, you know, the early blog sites was like, hang on, I can get published by like typing something on this web page and pressing a button and go.

And later on, it's not a coincidence that it became another project that he worked on along with people like Jack Dorsey was Twitter.

Which is essentially the same thing.

I can type something, press a button and there it is live on the website.

And I think we might mention this before, Tom, but like really early days when we were in San Francisco, I remember hearing about this service called Twitter and sending an SMS and you could send a text message from your phone and it was now live on a web page and that was an incredible thing.

And anyway, Biz Stone was heavily involved in that kind of work.

Rob Bell:
So I can't remember how quickly Twitter got big, but where I've probably been, I've definitely been naive in the past thinking that something has been this overnight success in the realms of Twitter is the likes of Uber and Airbnb.

They weren't there and then suddenly they were.

It's just in my mind, someone's come up with a really good idea at the right time and then just suddenly bam, it's everywhere and everyone's using it.

Having done, you don't even have to do that much research into the guys who set up both Uber and Airbnb to realize that that's not the case.

It is, as you say, with Biz Stone's quote, it is the persistence, it is previous failed businesses near bankruptcy and developing these businesses over a long period of time and years of hard graft.

Jono Hey:
Those are great examples, Uber and Airbnb.

And you know, some things, the whole word viral is that things suddenly spiral and become successful in a very short period of time.

And I think that can happen.

And yet, when you, and which is what I love about this quote, is the Twitter co-founder, because that's such a classic example of something that was like nothing and then suddenly became huge.

Suddenly was everywhere and everybody was posting to Twitter and presidents are posting to Twitter and all this stuff.

And, you know, he'd been working on this, this kind of thing and this thing for years.

And there was an enormous amount of, you know, perseverance that was involved.

And, you know, things went by the wayside and a lot of people tried other things and they didn't work.

And there was incredible timing, you know, sometimes you're just lucky with, you know, people tried to do this kind of thing 10 years before the time.

You know, tried electric cars 20, 30, 40 years ago.

Tom Pellereau:
And Edison did some of the first electric cars and was convinced that that was going to be there, but it wasn't ready.

The systems weren't there at the time.

Rob Bell:
Before internal combustion.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, it was bigger.

Sorry, Rob, you literally did a TV program about this, didn't you, I think?

Rob Bell:
It's the kind of thing that I probably would have done, yeah.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, it's so easy to think of those examples and go, hang on, somebody came up with a great idea.

Exactly, built something and all of a sudden it just came good for them.

And what I love about this is somebody who's really been there, done that, and this is what he's saying.

It sounds like an overnight success, but this is what it took.

Rob Bell:
Tommy, I'm very keen to hear what fresh angles you might have to add on this conversation.

Not only as somebody who has achieved success by growing your business, but also someone who I know reads a lot of books by people who follow that kind of timing, perseverance, 10 years of trying model, if you want to call it that.

Tom Pellereau:
Thank you.

Yeah, I find this area fascinating.

I really enjoyed this way of presenting it, though, with the iceberg.

Some people talk about the 10 years of graft or the thousand hours or 10,000 hours, isn't it?

It's sort of other ways of looking at it.

Now, for me personally, I first invented the Curved Nail File in my flat in 2004, and then it kind of really became successful post-apprentice, which was then like 2011-12.

So I've kind of experienced that in a kind of seven-year sort of period.

People are like, oh, wow, that, you know, well, that's just out of nowhere, but it's sort of taken not quite a decade in that respect.

And then I've since been working with Lord Sugar, just bought him out actually, a few months ago, but that's been 14 years.

And I feel that I'm only just sort of really starting to understand certain things and still have a huge amount to learn.

We've just launched an LED mask, which was one of the best sellers in some of the big retailers in the UK.

And it sort of seems like that's fairly come out of nowhere.

But again, you look back and the history of the company and what we've done and all that sort of stuff has allowed us to be there.

So at a personal level, I've experienced some of these things.

And then, as you say, reading.

So GoPro is another one of those examples.

It feels like they weren't there and then suddenly they were everywhere.

That's quite an old example now.

It's about maybe it's 10 years since they had their overnight success almost.

But that guy was a surfer.

He was in Australia at the time and he just was determined to try and get angles and was just like mocking stuff up really.

He didn't particularly have experience in electronics, but it took him literally a decade to get the device right and to the right purpose.

Then all of a sudden GoPro was seemingly everywhere, but very much started as a ground swell movement.

There's Dyson and there's so many examples where something suddenly becomes, but it's taken so long for that group or that person to get anywhere near where they are now.

Rob Bell:
Can we go a little bit meta, Jono?

Are you happy to do that and reflect on how this relates to Sketchplanations?

Jono Hey:
I'm very much of a slow burn kind of person.

Rob Bell:
You are, aren't you?

That's one of the things I really like about you.

Jono Hey:
Well, yeah, it's a blessing and a curse.

But yeah, I mean, I sometimes write these days that I've been working on, I've been doing these sketches for over a decade.

It's now nearly 13 years.

And it's funny if you just come across something now and you realize, oh, they've been doing it 13, 15, 10, 12 years or whatever.

But yeah, I don't know, it's something I have experienced.

One with Sketchplanations, I think, not that I would say that anybody would call it an overnight success.

Rob Bell:
That's why I asked it, if we could ask about it, because I knew you'd be humble about that.

Jono Hey:
Well, both the businesses that I've been closely involved in over the last 15 years, I was at for like seven and six and a bit years each time.

And I just think that if you're trying to do something important that has impact, it does take quite a significant amount of time.

And it's quite naive to think that you might come in in six months, a year, even two years, and make a big dent in that.

And that can happen, of course, and that's sometimes what you hear.

Rob Bell:
That is the perseverance part of it, right?

To keep going through those early months, years.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

And I think of both the previous business I've been involved in, there have been companies who were doing similar things at about the same time that we started.

And over the years, most of those folded.

And then we came out five or six years later, and then suddenly you're like a thing.

You've built up something which is actually good at that point, and then the press might get a hold of it.

And then all of a sudden, you've come out of nowhere, and you're like, no, I've been sweating my ass off for years to try and make this work.

And it's the perseverance, and it's the timing, and it's all those years of trying.

I just think if you look into the stories of most founders of companies, and just people who've tried to work on their craft for a long time and had a success, if you actually go listen in to their stories, and I do love doing that, and I read a lot of biographies and autobiographies, there is always so much depth to the stories.

There's some passion, and often things people were fascinated about as kids.

Even 10 years of trying is sometimes like a lifetime of interest in order to make something significant happen that touches a lot of people in the world.

And I don't mean to put this people off.

In some ways, I think it's great that you can believe in the overnight success.

We did an episode on optimism bias a long time ago, and that's great because if everybody believed everything was going to be mega hard, you wouldn't probably do it in the first place.

And so there is something lovely in the naivety, but there's also something, as Biz Stone says here, in the perseverance, maybe Edison's classic 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration is a bit cliche these days.

But I think that is also where he's targeting with this.

And I do hope, and I guess by sharing something like this, that people get that message and you have to stick with stuff.

I think that's really important.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
How do we feel about that?

Because I get quite a lot of satisfaction, I think.

Now we're talking about it and I will reflect that on my own efforts in various projects and ambitions.

On the odd occasion where you do sit down or just acknowledge, like, I'm really persevering with this.

This is taking its time.

I find a lot of an emotional reward in acknowledging the perseverance.

I don't know about you two.

I find it quite a positive thing to acknowledge that I believe in this.

Tom Pellereau:
The thing is though about someone like you, Rob, is you're also someone who did seven marathons in seven continents in seven days.

So perseverance, you're kind of next level of perseverance, stroke almost glutton for perseverance.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, but that's seven days, we're talking about 10 years here.

Tom Pellereau:
But you have great persistence and that's hugely important, but you are at a very high level on that and it's cool to hear.

Rob Bell:
But have you guys ever acknowledged through the times that you spent on those businesses, on those projects, whatever it might be, are there moments where you acknowledge like, yeah, I'm really persevering with this and that feels quite good?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I think perseverance is a funny one because you can look back on it and go, well, that was pretty dumb.

I was working on that and long past all the indications that it wasn't doing anything.

Tom Pellereau:
I have absolutely had a few of those.

Yeah.

We're currently clearing out the warehouse because we're having to expand the office size.

I'm looking through the kind of, I spent months on that device which we then didn't do anything about.

I spent years of my life just going in a skip here of projects that either weren't good enough.

Jono Hey:
Which is great and also paved the way for the ones that succeeded, right?

Also did that.

But I guess I feel like when you said about the perseverance, yeah, I think there's something about, yeah, it's great.

I'm persevering here.

But also I think the thing that gets you through it is belief.

You have to believe that what you're doing is worthwhile and good.

I couldn't do it if I didn't think that it was worth doing.

I can only persevere if I think it's good, and yet nobody else has yet realized it's good.

Somebody asked me a question the other day.

He was like, what about when you do sketches and they're poor performing?

I was like, well, I don't really think about them as poor performing.

Because I've learned over the years, so many times, maybe I share something and nothing happens, and then somebody else shares it and it takes off.

So my view is, at some point, maybe other people will see what I see in this, and I need that belief to help me with the perseverance.

This is worth it.

I'm doing something good here.

I don't care if you like it or not right now, but I hope you do in the future.

Tom Pellereau:
Then to your question about timing, which is so unknown and underestimated in terms of its importance.

It didn't Gladwell write a very good book all about this in terms of timing of the age, for example, of the key tech originators, the Bill Gates, the Steve Jobs, the guy who is Schmidt.

They're all born within a few months of each other, I think, aren't they?

They happen to be the right age when certain computers became slightly accessible, and then they reduced in price rapidly.

I've really seen it in my life with products where we've launched a certain time and it just happens to have been incredibly fortunate that that's what the demand was suddenly became for that as it were.

Timing is huge.

Rob Bell:
We're talking earlier about things that go viral, right?

In inverted commas.

And if you think of a video or a meme that goes viral overnight, how much of that is down to the timing that it has tapped into the zeitgeist or someone's responded to something that's happened in the news and it just goes.

That is probably an overnight success, right?

But we don't know, maybe that person has been posting videos and memes trying to get some kind of reaction for years along this time, but they just nailed it at the right time for it to go massive.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

On the whole, I think almost everything is like that.

I mean, the founder of Pinterest all of a sudden came out of nowhere and everybody's like, wow, this is amazing.

I can make mood boards of pictures and save my picture boards.

And Pinterest was everything.

And the guy's like, I've been doing this for years and years.

Yeah.

Nobody was paying any attention.

And all of a sudden, everybody's paying attention.

Rob Bell:
Do you think that there's some resent about that kind of thing?

I've been doing this for years, you know.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Bad body time.

Rob Bell:
Oh, yeah.

Jono Hey:
You think that's good, do you?

Well, I knew it was good years ago.

Tom Pellereau:
Jesus.

Rob Bell:
How much of your guys...

Come on, let me call it success so that it fits with the subject matter of the podcast.

So how much of your guys' success or the success of the businesses that you have been involved in was down to a turning point?

Tom Pellereau:
What?

Mine's enormous.

I won The Apprentice.

I know.

I know, Tommy.

Rob Bell:
That is quite a loaded question towards you.

Tom Pellereau:
I'd done some inventing before.

And then 10 million people watched me on the telly.

I got quarter of a million for Lord Trigger.

And yeah, so that mine is unbelievable.

That mine maybe is, although obviously the past through it.

But Jono's got some fabulous examples as well.

Jono Hey:
Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.

Rob Bell:
Can we dig a bit deeper on that turning point, Tommy?

Yeah, if you will.

So when that happens, right, in the, if you can, let's call them the invisible years before that.

Tom Pellereau:
Very good.

Rob Bell:
Were you working towards a turning point?

However, that may have looked, it may not have been The Apprentice that you had in mind at that time.

Tom Pellereau:
Yes.

So I suppose I'm pretty certain the reason he picked me was because of the nail file that I had managed to get to market before.

Rob Bell:
Right.

Tom Pellereau:
And so, and that actually started about, you know, eight years before the Apprentice.

And then you could say, well, that started before that when I studied engineering and did consulting.

And before that, when I enjoyed design technology, and before that, when, as a young 10-year-old, I'd go and work with my granddad in his wood workshop, making things.

Because ultimately the first mold has made out a bit of wood that I could then make the nail file in my oven, which allowed me to do prototyping and get market research.

And then ultimately sell a small number.

And then that helped me.

And then the perseverance in terms of getting the meeting with boots and the funny story about that and the fact that I didn't have an appointment.

I turned up, I found out the name of the buyer and it turned out she wasn't there.

And there in Nottingham and I had to drive all the way home and then back again, because she was there the following day.

And the sort of ridiculousness of that.

So I'm fairly sure that the reason he did pick is because I had done something that had done it in the previous 10 years.

So yeah, it does very much fit with Jono's statement here.

Even that seeming overnight success.

Rob Bell:
And yours is a bit different, right?

That turning point, because it is quite well defined.

It's very well defined.

Tom Pellereau:
Yes.

Rob Bell:
But to think back, was it 15 years ago now?

Tom Pellereau:
Yes.

Rob Bell:
Roughly.

Tom Pellereau:
Yes.

Rob Bell:
So to think back 15 years, did you acknowledge it that it was a turning point at that time?

It's probably a silly question, because as I've just said, it was so...

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, it was...

Rob Bell:
It's an obvious turning point, right?

You win The Apprentice.

Tom Pellereau:
And also the world was quite different.

Back then, it was very much every week and people really watched it because there wasn't like demand TV available.

So my timing was also incredible.

And I won the first one that was an investment as opposed to a job.

Rob Bell:
Which played to your favor as well, right?

Played to your strengths.

Tom Pellereau:
I had applied three or two years earlier, but couldn't make it for whatever reason, couldn't do one of the interviews to actually fully apply.

And if I'd gone on the one which was a job, I would never have won the one for a job.

I'm a hopeless employee, but investment and starting a product business is something that I definitely had done history doing and had the chance of winning.

Rob Bell:
Which is why I love talking to you about this.

This is such a great subject for you, Tommy, the overnight success with that turning point and everything that's involved in it.

Jono, can you think of turning points within the successes or was that not really, well, they won't be as obvious as winning The Apprentice, right?

Or maybe they will be.

Maybe it's a good investment or whatever it might be.

Jono Hey:
I don't know.

I just really like Tom's.

I've been such a massive fan of Tom's since I've known him.

And so, you know, it was like all of a sudden, everybody else found out he was good as well.

But, you know, he'd been brilliant for years and of course he was going to do well.

But then all of a sudden, there's this thing that kickstarts you.

And then even then, it's still a massive amount of work to get to where you are now.

But in terms of timing, you know, how much is luck and how much is timing and how much is picking the right thing?

I don't know.

A lot of people pick great things before their time.

On the other hand, in order for things to reach their time, people have to work on them before it's their time.

So, yeah, I've been quite lucky in many ways.

But as have we all in this period where we live, where tech is computers and software is transforming so many industries, I've worked in at least two of those, which is transforming those industries.

And so in many ways, that's really lucky.

Now, it's not quite as fundamental as the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs era was.

But maybe if you're living right now and you're in your 20s and AI is kicking off, it's going to be huge in different ways.

Like there's different opportunities at every different age.

There are many, there are many moments, but a lot of it, I can't tell how much is luck and how much is not, which is why I like Biz Stone's things.

Like the sum of it is just timing.

But yeah, there's all sorts of moments in both of the, or all of the roles that I've done where you're like, that was lucky.

Rob Bell:
We've talked a lot about business so far, but it's not just strictly business that this applies to, right?

All the creatives, like music, acting, art, sports, you know, any kind of, any industry really, or any endeavor.

Tom Pellereau:
Sport is a really fascinating one, especially something like football, where you've actually got quite a short period, you can be at the top of your game as well.

You know, because you're kind of after the age of about 35, 36 in, certainly in football, it's kind of too late.

And so you often see a lot of these footwork.

Rob Bell:
Oh, sorry mate, sorry.

Tom Pellereau:
Your timing is off.

And so you kind of look at that and the fact that they've got of like at age 16 or 14, they've kind of got to have been doing that 10 years.

So it sort of starts so early for some sports.

And then you read about Tiger Woods, who was starting in Cray.

I think he was sort of five when he was really playing quite regularly and kind of them followed through.

And the Williams sisters as well, you kind of, you read about them and they were so young when they were starting, because in order to have got that sort of 10 years of, you know, graft and grit and timing to then be ready at the sort of 14, 15, 16, which have to be as a professional sportsman in some areas, a snooker and darts, probably have longer.

Rob Bell:
I'm trying to think of sports stars who fit the overnight success.

Like Pellé, in a, I don't know which World Cup it was, but he was a 17 year old and wasn't known to the world.

No.

He would definitely have been known, like in his local community as being like the best amazing footballer, but he wasn't known to the world.

And then he just did amazing things at this World Cup.

Suddenly.

Yeah.

Emma Raducani, more recently, no one really knew her.

No.

Unless you're in the tennis world, you might have been aware.

And then she won the US Open.

Jono Hey:
It was, oh my God, where did she come from?

Rob Bell:
That's an overnight success.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

But she didn't start playing tennis.

Rob Bell:
No.

Jono Hey:
A few weeks before, did she?

No.

Rob Bell:
Exactly.

Jono Hey:
She'd be working pretty hard at it.

Rob Bell:
Exactly.

I mean, it applies to everything, doesn't it really?

Jono Hey:
I'm always very conscious of something called survivorship bias in any of these stories.

And so whenever you hear any stories about success, you hear the successful ones and you don't hear all the people who did exactly the same thing and didn't succeed and didn't get a book written about them and didn't get a sketch of a quote they made.

Tom Pellereau:
Or got injured before that vital trial.

Jono Hey:
So I've come to be rather sceptical, should I say, of the lessons you can learn from all of these things.

Maybe in broad, if you read enough of all of these stories, perhaps there are some common patterns.

But to read any few of them and go, okay, well, this is what I need to do in order to become a success is probably misguided because there are probably thousands of other people who did exactly the same thing and didn't become a success that you don't hear about.

There were all the golf players who started at age five and didn't become Tiger Woods.

Rob Bell:
Do overnight successes actually exist then in any context?

I've got one.

Lottery winner.

Are you about to say, yeah, but you've probably been paying the lottery for 10 years and you really believe that every time that's the persistence and what's the timing?

Yeah, and the numbers came up.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, no, it's a good example.

You could go buy a lottery ticket and win for the first time.

Rob Bell:
It has happened.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, I'm sure.

Jono Hey:
I don't know exactly what you're a success in, but things worked out well for you.

Tom Pellereau:
Winning the lottery.

Rob Bell:
I did read about a girl who bought a lottery ticket for the first time, won millions, a life-changing amount of money, which then allowed her to pursue her hobby as a business.

So in that sense, yeah, overnight.

Because then how long did it take her to turn her hobby into a business?

Is it overnight?

But it was it was instantaneous that what allowed her to do that.

Jono Hey:
You're right.

Lottery is a great example of about the only time where you can...

Rob Bell:
I can't think of any others...

Jono Hey:
.

one day here and another day there.

Rob Bell:
I was trying to be really creative about this.

I couldn't think of any others.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

I've been trying really hard buying lottery tickets for decades.

Yes.

I knew it would pay off.

Rob Bell:
99% perspiration.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

No, you hear of some incredible successes, right?

Instagram had five employees when it was bought for a billion or something like that.

Yes.

Rob Bell:
That was pretty quick.

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

These things can happen for sure.

And if you're smart and you're on it and you're trying as many things as you can, you might get lucky.

I think one of my favorite quotes is Abraham Lincoln's, I will study and get ready and perhaps my chance will come.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
Which is really, I mean, you know, probably other people look at it and go, that's a really dour, boring quote to have.

But I think there's a lot in that, that, you know, you have to do all the studying and the getting ready.

And maybe things will go your way, but you never really know.

You do your best.

But yeah, it does happen.

But I think there's danger of going, you know, I want to be the next five employee billion dollar company.

And you might be, but there will be a handful.

And most people, even the co-founder of Twitter, thinks it's like this.

So, you know, Good luck.

Don't stress yourself out about it too much.

Rob Bell:
What else would anyone like to add on overnight success we haven't talked about?

Tom Pellereau:
I sort of feel like maybe that we should offer some kind of advice or some encouragement to people who are trying to achieve this.

Rob Bell:
Like, I mean, when I was thinking about this earlier, Be lucky.

Tom Pellereau:
Is that what you should say?

Be lucky.

Rob Bell:
Be lucky.

Jono Hey:
It's perseverance.

Rob Bell:
It's perseverance.

You know, this is it, right?

We talked about earlier how good it feels to believe in something that you are persevering with.

I talked about that because I feel that really strongly.

And I think that if you do have ambitions with a project, I do feel like this is a really good reminder to check against this quote every now and then for reassurance.

Because if you have that faith in a project and a determined mindset, I always tend to feel positive about the project's success overall, even if there isn't a metric that tells you, well, this is a success.

And it might, you know, waver and go up and down along the way.

But if you stick with it and you work hard, like you say, Abraham Lincoln, hope for the best, of course, and look out for the opportunities that could be a, if not the turning point.

I think there is a positive message about all of this.

And I think this is a lovely quote to reassure people who are working hard towards something.

Tom Pellereau:
Timing, perseverance and 10 years of trying.

Rob Bell:
You know, give or take, plus minus.

There's no guarantee, we can provide no guarantee about 10 years of trying will bring you success.

Tom Pellereau:
That's brilliant.

Jono Hey:
What this tells me also is like, go a bit easy on yourself.

And some of the stuff that you'll read as overnight successors were people working really hard for a long time.

So if you're working really hard for a long time and you're not an overnight success yet, that's fine because it's not really true that people suddenly become overnight successors most of the time, right?

In my eyes, it is advice for me to keep going because I think if you're doing something worthwhile, there can be recognition and value for it even if people don't see it right now.

Tom Pellereau:
That is a good place to stop.

There we go.

Rob Bell:
Thank you very much, guys.

Lovely chat.

I've really enjoyed that.

I'm feeling pumped, actually.

But that's it for this episode.

Jono Hey:
Nine more years.

Tom Pellereau:
Nine more years.

Rob Bell:
Join us in two weeks time on the podcast when we're going to have a hundred times more listeners than we have this week.

Go well, stay well.

Bye bye.

Tom Pellereau:
Bye bye.

Jono Hey:
Bye.

Rob Bell:
All music on this podcast series is provided by the very talented Franc Cinelli.

And you can find many more tracks at franccinelli.com.