Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired Magazine, has a weekly newsletter called Recomendo.  This week he wrote, “Most overnight successes take at least 5 years.  As Dave Perell notes in his newsletter Monday Musings, ‘[Marques Brownlee] is one of the most popular technology-focused YouTubers in the world.  As I write this, he has 13.6 million subscribers and his videos have been watched 2.4 billion times.  But when he recorded his 100th video, he only had 74 subscribers.’  In other words, he made and posted his first hundred videos with the tiniest possible audience.  To make something great, keep showing up!  As Perell noted in another of his issues:  ‘If you create something weekly for 2 years, you will earn an audience.’  That is, make 100 creations before you have a big audience.  Every ‘overnight’ success I’ve ever seen was preceded by years of relentless, and sometimes unappreciated, hard work.”

All those stand-up comedians who told jokes to two regulars and a couple of employees working at the bar.  Bloggers who posted and received a handful of likes.  Authors who saw the dragon in the blank page and defeated it with words day after day.  Sculptors who released the vision from a block of stone.  Painters who swept their brush across the canvas and unveiled a scene that many have somehow seen before.

Do what makes your heart sing even when no one is watching.  Do it because it is your gift.  Do it because it fuels your soul.  Never stop trying.

Because every word you write or picture you paint or creation you create strengthens you.  Sharpens your vision.  Teaches a lesson.  And that is why we are here.  To evolve into everything we were meant to be.

As writer and lecturer Dale Carnegie said, “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”

When there seemed to be no hope at all.  It’s a new day.  The only thing that matters is that you do you.  Everyone else is taken.  And the world needs to hear what you have to say.  You are the hope you’ve been waiting for.