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Quoted by Matt on April 15 2011:

Almost nothing worthwhile is easy, and it’s hard to just jump in and be good at something difficult right off the bat…“Get big and popular, then just flip the switch and start making money when we feel like it”. There is no switch. The only reliable way to succeed at anything is to actually do it, repeatedly, with concentrated effort. True for individuals, and true for organizations. Athletes, artists, businesses.

John Gruber in Cutting That Cord
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12 comments so far

GregT 15 Apr 11

Do you guys (37s) have some crawler that constantly searches The Internets looking for people who quote you or otherwise make favorable references to you?

For those who didn’t click, this is a pretty interesting article about iOS’s reliance on an iMac connection. It’s nothing to do with business, really.

Mark 15 Apr 11

This seems inconsistent with the no-risk idea a few posts back. Starting something new that you aren’t good at and working at it repeatedly with concentrated effort, takes a big commitment and risk banking on the idea that you will eventually get good at it and be successful even though you suck at it now.

The revised version would be ‘The only reliable way to succeed at anything is to actually do it sometimes on the side, repeatedly when you have the free time, with only as much effort as you can spare while you are doing your real job so you aren’t risking anything.’ Much less inspirational.

Donny 15 Apr 11

@GregT: You don’t really need a crawler, Google alerts for the WIN ;) !

Joe 15 Apr 11

+1 on Google alerts.

Passioning 16 Apr 11

Right on the button. In order to know which is the right way to go, we need some patience (sometimes to significant degrees). We must give it its due : time and efforts.

But my question is how long? Any criterion? How do you know whether this is enough and I must be off to another thing or this is the time for patience and perseverance?

Berserk 16 Apr 11

I’d guess that most of 37s reads Gruber every day? No need for no gAlerts there.

But it’s a bit annoying to quote someone quoting yourself to prove your own original point. The pond looks quite small that way.

Dmitry Mazin 16 Apr 11

JF says something Gruber agrees with, Gruber Riffs on it and says something interesting that Matt likes, Matt posts that. Matt’s not posting JF’s actual point.

That’s not circular.

Paul Montwill 18 Apr 11

Entrepreneurs are like athletes – long hours of exercising, without any guranatee of sucess, very often repeating the same tidious stuff…

Homer Simpson 18 Apr 11

If something’s hard to do, the it’s not worth doing.

Richard 18 Apr 11

@Homer: like checking what you write before you click the submit button?

Cleavon J. Blair 18 Apr 11

Someone please send this quote to the LA Lakers!!!

THERE IS NO SWITCH – YOU HAVE TO PLAY HARD EVERY GAME !!!

Peaches 19 Apr 11

Dmitry why use the word ‘riff’ are you trying to be all hipster. I’ve noticed several of you are using it since it was quoted by 37s a few months back. It doesn’t make you cool.

Comments are closed