If you know me personally, I’ve spent this past weekend entirely dedicated to moving. And as much as I hate the process of packing and unpacking, it was a needed change of pace.

Despite being the old age of 25, this is the third house I’ve lived in with my fiancé. And looking back, I still love my first home.

It wasn’t anything special. Just a one bedroom house in the middle of what some people would call a bamboo forest. What’s funny is that almost every day I would walk out to seeing a new 10-foot bamboo sprout or an empty plot of land filled with sprouts.

I remember looking up why bamboo tends to grow so fast. And surprisingly, bamboo doesn’t really grow at all during the first 6-9 weeks of sprouting. It isn’t until about the third month that the sprout can shoot up in height and grow nearly four feet every day.

Turns out, this concept is used a lot over in Japan to highlight the importance of persistence and holding out for that term we know as overnight success.

I’ve never really been one to believe in overnight success, but I do believe in the idea behind success happening quickly to those who have put in the work leading up to it.

Susan Boyle—Became an overnight singer after her 2009 Britain’s Got Talent audition. But spent nearly two decades already singing in privacy afraid of rejection.

Colleen Hoover—Became a bestselling author practically overnight when she released her book It Ends With Us despite having to self-publish her first one and only do marketing on TikTok.

Russ—Released 11 albums over a span of ten years, all self-published, until his hit song What They Want put him on the map.

This list could be a lot longer, but if you know any of these people, it almost seemed like they did gain overnight success. One day they didn’t exist, and the next, they were at the top of charts and all over television.

But despite gaining their popularity overnight, it took these people years of buildup in order to get there.

What I’m getting at is, don’t get discouraged just because you’re not seeing results right now. Just like with compound interest, eventually, you’re going to see the results come in all at once.

Just like with the bamboo, it might take months or it could even take years like Susan Boyle. But as long as you know it’s coming, don’t stop putting in that daily effort. You might be surprised at how well it pays off.

Until next time,
Isaiah Taylor

Dive Deeper

What I’m Currently Reading - I’m now reading some of Epictetus’ Fragments. Remnants of his work that has luckily survived over the last 2,000 years.

Quote Of The Week - “Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.” — Aubrey de Grey