I don’t entirely agree with Woody Allen’s famous quote
“80% of success is just showing up”
But it does contain an amount of truth to it.
I’ve struggled with this concept of “showing up” for a long time in my career. I think part of the reason is due to my technical roots. In my mind, doing the best work should mean that I get the best opportunity. It’s a 1 to 1 relationship. But, unfortunately, life isn’t entirely as fair as a simple ratio.
People want to work with other people they know – commonly referred to this work as “networking”. Networking gets a bad rap, but you have to think about it logically. Would you rather spend your time doing business with someone you get along with who also has the skills you need or someone who has the skills but an unknown personality? It isn’t a debate. You’ll go with the person you know 100% of the time.
When starting find I jumped straight to getting stuff done. I executed. The problem is that I was executing in a space where I was an unknown. If I was building a company that was related to my past, I could recall the successes I had in the space, I could call on my contacts, I could sell to known customers. Hell at the very least I could’ve stayed in a city that I had some ties to, as opposed to moving to a brand new one.
I am now of the opinion that you should first ensure that you have some level of a network before kicking off pure execution. This network can be through your family, your friends, previous colleagues, etc. But it has to exist.
Showing up is about 50% of success. The other 50% is individual execution. First, you need to be known. Then you need to be known for getting the job done.