Be consistently good

Original post:  Oct 22, 2015

We're all seeking for success. Everyone wants to be a winner. While no one can guarantee that we will reach the ultimate prizes that we seek, we can certainly maximize our chances by giving our best efforts.

In this article, "Secrets to Success: 6 Tips From the Most Successful People", you might be able to pick up a tip or two that can help you increase your odds of winning.

The first tip talks about the need to be creative. I found it rather eye-opening. The city of Chicago in the 1800s was suffering from serious disease because of its sewage problems. They also realized that they couldn't dig tunnels under the city for new sewers with the existing technology. Ellis Chesbrough came up with a novel solution:

But here Chesbrough’s unique history helped him come up with an alternate scenario, reminding him of a tool he had seen as a young man working the railway: the jackscrew, a device used to lift multiton locomotives onto the tracks. If you couldn’t dig down to create a proper grade for drainage, why not use jackscrews to lift the city up? Aided by the young George Pullman, who would later make a fortune building railway cars, Chesbrough launched one of the most ambitious engineering projects of the nineteenth century. Building by building, Chicago was lifted by an army of men with jackscrews. As the jackscrews raised the buildings inch by inch, workmen would dig holes under the building foundations and install thick timbers to support them, while masons scrambled to build a new footing under the structure. Sewer lines were inserted beneath buildings with main lines running down the center of streets, which were then buried in landfill that had been dredged out of the Chicago River, raising the entire city almost ten feet on average.

Nothing was shut down. As a 750-ton hotel was lifted, people went about their lives inside — perhaps only taking a second to marvel at the surreal experience going on beneath them.

The title of this post is picked up from tip #2. Steve Martin, the brilliant comic, discusses the importance of honing our craft through diligence and hard work in his autobiography:

I learned a lesson: It was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: Like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the abominable circumstances.

Here is a summary of the tips for success on a grand scale:

• When the going gets tough, the tough get creative. Don’t do more, do different. Lift a city.
• Don’t be great, be consistently good. Don’t worry about the big break, worry about being good enough.
• Use rejection as motivation. And remember the compliments you receive. You’re charming, right?
• Working hard is the best way to network. Bring coffee and tea.
• Don’t wait for permission. Don’t poison anyone, but test and prove.
• If you can’t be #1, be clever. Energizing others with style can beat “the best way.” (Mimes are nodding right now.)