The Superman Effect: The Superman Effect is the thought that there is someone who will provide an up and coming entrepreneur with their big break. The one day, where all of the struggle will go away and they will be successful.
It’s the combination of never having done something before and not having confidence that draws young entrepreneurs into a place where they blindly trust anyone who has more experience than them. And usually, this isn’t a bad bet to make. After all, people with more experience typically aren’t as prone to rookie mistakes.
However, the fallacy with this thinking is believing there is someone out there that can guide you through the process of building your business.
If nobody’s built the exact business you’re building before, the sad truth is that there’s nobody out there who can help you. If you think you’re doing something innovative, nobody’s got the answers.
I’m not saying that there aren’t people out there who can give you meaningful advice. In fact, you should be out there looking to learn as much as you can from people who have been out in the trenches longer than you. People who have succeeded and people who have failed.
My point is that as a young entrepreneur, you’re probably waiting to meet the person who provides you with all of the big connections and “blows you up.” You’re probably expecting someone to come along and provide you with a big break. The metaphorical Kanye to your Big Sean.
As you make incremental progress, you’ll have hundreds of people who make small introductions for you that turn major down the line, but you’ll never really find that person who you can blindly lean on who makes your business happen. And even Big Sean had to find his own path. A Kanye feature a great artist does not make.
It’s up to you to decide whether you want to succeed or fail.
Then put the work in to make that happen. That’s the bottom line. You might be able to piece together a map of the route you need to take by talking to everyone you can, but you still need to do all the walking. You still will find obstacles that nobody has ever experienced before. It’s your journey.
And to expect someone to arrive in your life and make all the difficult times go away is naive. You will be faced with hard decisions and moments where progress feels like it drifted away in the wind. You’ll look at your peers and wonder how they keep going, and without knowing details of people’s lives, you’ll perceive the Superman effect.
Once you reach a point where other people look at you and define you as successful, you’ll wonder if they see the work you put in every day, or whether they only see the “overnight success” and the person that “put you on the map.” You’ll wonder why people don’t realize that every step forward was filled with blood, sweat, and tears. You’ll wonder why people think that you were whisked to a place called success where there’s no hard times or struggle.
You’ll wonder why people don’t realize that every step forward was filled with blood, sweat, and tears. You’ll wonder why people think that you were whisked to a place called success where there’s no hard times or struggle.
If you think Superman is around the corner to turn you from a nobody into a somebody. Think again. The success you experience is ultimately up to you, not Superman.
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