Under Armour just released a powerful video featuring Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. You watch him training, sleeping, training more, sweating, grimacing in pain, putting in long hours at the gym and in the pool, often in the very early morning when the sun isn’t even shining.
That’s why he’s a legendary champion who holds more Olympic gold medals that any other athlete in history (18 medals to date).
Because of the focused, devoted work that he puts in… in the dark. In private. Alone. When nobody is watching or cheering him on.
Final line of the video:
It’s what you do in the dark… that puts you in the light.
This sums up what I have been mulling over for the past several months.
If I had a dollar for every time someone says to me, “Oh, Susan, all you have to do is post something on Facebook and your programs sell out instantly—you don’t even have to ‘market’ yourself…” Or, “It’s easy to wear a bikini when you look like that…”
Those people see me “in the light” and they feel irritated, jealous, or defeated.
What they are not seeing is everything I’ve done “in the dark” when nobody was watching, cheering, or purchasing a damn thing.
What they are not seeing is 9 years of showing up every single day for my online tribe. The thousands of hours of content creation. The risk to my ego and finances that I take every time I invest in one of my own ideas. The 5am runs and the 7am smackdowns with weights.
Yes, it looks “effortless” when Michael Phelps soars across the pool to smash yet another record and claim yet another gold medal. But whenever things look “effortless,” that’s usually because there’s been ten, twenty, or thirty thousand hours of intense effort bringing that person to this point in time.
It’s what you do in the dark… when no one is watching… that determines your success.
What do you do in the dark?
P.S. If you’ve ever thought, “I want to produce amazing retreats like Susan Hyatt! But how??”, I’ve got JUST the thing for you. The Dream Boat Cruise – NYC to London – Oct 25-Nov 3, 2016. Board a luxury cruise ship and sail across the Atlantic Ocean—while learning how to plan and sell out a workshop, retreat, or conference. You get public speaking lessons, personalized coaching, and it all culminates with a guided tour of Downton Abbey filming locations. OMFG. Deets here.
