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No matter who you are, you’re not going to be successful overnight – and the sooner you get used to that, the better, says film director Spike Lee.
“One of the worst lies told to young people is that there is such a thing as ‘good night.’ That has done a lot of harm to people,” Lee, 66, said at the 2023 LinkedIn Talent Connect Summit in New York earlier this year. “It does not mean that you are alone outside, but the hand of God will come down from heaven and say, ‘You are the next one.’ That’s BS.”
For the luckiest people, success often comes first with a lot of work, Lee said — even if it doesn’t seem obvious on the surface. His message: If you are waiting for the right opportunity or enlightenment, but you do not do anything to prepare or hasten its presence, you will probably not achieve what you want.
In Lee’s case, he is a famous actor with an Oscar, two Primetime Emmys and many other award nominations. But he should have “observed” to be taken seriously in the first place, he told LinkedIn chief executive Daniel Roth in an interview months ago.
“When I graduated from Morehouse College (in 1979), I knew I wanted to go to art school,” Lee said. “But that whole thing of … going to LA and working up from the post office, it doesn’t work for black people.”
Lee was rejected from film schools at the University of Southern California and the American Film Institute, but was accepted at New York University – based on the quality of his work, rather than his results in art exams such as the GRE, he said.
Lee’s story is unusual, in most industries. Mark Cuban, a tech entrepreneur and entrepreneur, started cutting his teeth as a marketer at the age of 12 – but he didn’t feel “successful” for the first time until he was 28 , or become a billionaire by the age of 40.
Many of the world’s largest companies have also spent years struggling with budget constraints to exit, from tech giants like Microsoft to apparel behemoths like Nike.
Often, an “overnight success” looks that way because you haven’t seen the work that went into it – especially in today’s digital age, where awards and winnings are more important. on social media than the full story behind the victory of the people. That situation contributes to poor mental health and low self-esteem in young people, exposure assessment.
You can deal with that by accepting the ebb and flow of your journey, and letting go of the idea that your dreams will come true quickly, Lee said.
“It won’t happen overnight. There are times when you want to cry and you want to quit,” he said at the LinkedIn Summit. “You can’t give up, you have to keep going!”
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