How Successful People Really Become Successful

Ever feel like everyone else is becoming an overnight success while you're still waiting for your breakthrough? In this episode, I'm unpacking why success rarely happens as quickly as social media makes it seem. The truth is, the biggest achievements come from playing the long game not chasing instant results.

I share the incredible journeys of MrBeast, Vera Wang and James Dyson, and what they taught me about patience, consistency and trusting the process.

In this episode, I cover:

• Why overnight success is mostly a myth.
• The power of consistency and playing the long game.
• What successful people do before anyone notices them.
• How nature reminds us that good things take time.
• Why becoming the person who achieves the goal is just as important as reaching it.
• A mindset shift that will help you stop rushing your journey and start embracing your evolution.

Whether you're building a business, growing a podcast, trying to lose weight, changing careers or working towards any big goal, this episode is your reminder to keep showing up. Your hard work isn't going unnoticed you might simply be evolving into the person who's ready for the success that's coming.

Follow me for more on Instagram @mindyourownbeeswaxpodcast & TikTok: @mindyourownbeeswaxpod

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Mind your own beeswax.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome back to Mind Your Own Beeswax. My name is Grace, and this is the podcast where together we are changing our mindset and living our best lives. Thank you so much for hitting play on today's episode. This last week I have been sick as a dog. I've not been well. I actually had laryngitis. So the old voice, it was not good. And if you listen to my last episode, I listen back and I can like start to hear my voice getting all crackly. So I've had a week off, the voice is rested. I would say I'm like back at 95%. So we're nearly there. But I tell you what, being sick, it makes me feel so bloody grateful because at one point my nose was totally blocked. And you know when you have a blocked nose and you just think, I can't even remember what it was like to breathe through my nose. And I was just laying in bed and I was like, I'm never gonna take breathing through my nose for granted ever again. And I tell you what, oh, it's bloody lovely. So if you can breathe through your nose right now, that is a privilege that me a few days ago could not even fathom. But being sick, it makes you feel so grateful. And I promise myself, I ain't taking my health for granted anytime soon. So I'm popping the vitamins, I'm resting, I'm getting back to full health. But that's not what we're talking about today. I wanted to chat about this TikTok trend that I have seen because when I was sick, I did unfortunately do a lot of bedrotting and a lot of scrolling on TikTok. So there's currently this, I guess it's like a challenge or a trend. It's called the Beyoncé Partition Challenge. And I'll insert a bit of the audio in a second, but it's basically like how Beyoncé wrote the song Partition, and she kind of was just inspired and she just like hit the microphone and was a one-hit wonder. So I'll play it now. I didn't have a pen and paper.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

I got to the mic, I'm like, oh, press record. Ah, ah, ah, drive a roll with the partition, please.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

And the trend that I've seen a lot of influencers specifically doing is it's kind of like a play on what was your one thing that made you go viral or made you famous. So a TikToker I follow who's like a food creator, she sort of put the caption the day that I um said, we don't waste anything, and then that's her new thing. And then a couple of other influencers had like these big fashion moments or they said really funny things, but they're basically using this audio to talk about the thing that made them go viral, changed their life, made them an overnight sensation. You know the vibe. And it really got me thinking that it kind of gives you the wrong idea. You're like, oh, they just did this one thing and boom, they were famous. No, they probably were grinding, TikToking, posting for years and years before that, but we didn't know because they had this one-hit wonder that became an overnight sensation, and that's when it took off. And that's what I wanted to talk about today is that unfortunately, life is not like that. You don't just become an overnight sensation. Good things take time, and we've got to play the long game. I can put my hand up for this and say I'm absolutely guilty because this episode that you're listening to now is actually my 20th podcast episode, 2-0. So snaps for me. I'm actually really proud of myself for making it this far. But I can be totally guilty of being like, when am I gonna explode? Who is even listening? Is anybody listening right now? And you just get that instant gratification. That's what I'm looking for is that instant popularity, that instant boost, that instant success. But in reality, that is not the case. Life is not like a packet of popcorn that you just throw in the microwave two minutes, boom, done, you're there. Life is about playing the long game. To give you an example of this and keeping with the theme of influence as content creators, have you ever heard of Jimmy Donaldson? Probably not. He started uploading YouTube videos in 2012 when he was just 13 years old. And for six years until 2018, he posted videos and he basically got no traction. He was posting videos of gaming and vlogging, and so for six years he posted consistently, and then he blew up overnight. Now, who is Jimmy Donaldson? If you don't know, he is the one and only Mr. Beast, who I think now is the biggest YouTuber in the whole world. He has currently 508 million, 508 million subscribers, and he's allegedly worth $2.6 billion. But he started with no success. He was not a hit immediately. He had to graft for six years before he had that viral moment and he took off. Now, as a little old podcaster here, obviously someone like Mr. Beast, absolute goals, who wouldn't want to be that famous and that successful. But if I apply that same trajectory to his success to mine, I've got five and a half more years of this of just hustling, putting out episodes, staying small before I'm gonna take off. And when you think about that, one episode a week for five and a half years, I can't do the math, but that's a few hundred. I think that's a few hundred episodes that I would have to put out, which is insane. But that's what you've got to be committed to doing is playing the long game. Another story is the wonderful designer Vera Wang, so she's a bridal designer, and I did not know that Vera Wang actually worked as an editor for Vogue magazine for 17 years. 17 years, that is a long career. I don't know anyone that's worked anywhere for 17 years. But Vera was an editor there for that long, and towards the end of her time there, she was up for the role of editor-in-chief, and she didn't get the job, so she thought, fuck it, I'm leaving. I'm gonna start my own business. And that's when she started designing. So before she became this world-renowned best ever bridal designer, she worked for 17 years in a random job. Like that is such a lifetime of experience, of meetings, of emails, of editing, of all the shit she would have done. And then she had this massive career pivot, and then it took off. And she didn't even start designing until she was 40 years old. You know, people say 40 is middle age. I don't know if that's truly correct, but she didn't even start her true calling, her true career, until she was 40. So I mean, I'm 31, I've got nine years to go before I start hustling. Again, if I was on the same trajectory as Vera Wang, I got nine more years of fucking around before I hit the big time. And my final fabulous example is James Dyson, and the Dyson name might give it away, but I did not know this. James Dyson built 5,126 prototypes before he created his first vacuum. That spanned a time period of 15 years. 15 years, 5,126 examples. Oh my god, imagine for me 15 years of doing this, 5,126 episodes before it works. That is just madness. Like I cannot fathom doing something that many times. Like, do it once, do it twice, 10, 20 times, maybe 5,000 times, over 5,000 times. That feels like madness, but that's what it took for him to get his product to work. And if that ain't having faith and having a big dream and never giving up, I don't know what is. So I ask you right now, what is something that you are tempted to quit or you're tempted to give up on because it's taking longer than you expected? Is it applying for a job? Is it starting a business? Is it losing weight? Is it starting a family? Is it finding a partner? Is it finding the perfect home? Whatever it is you're tempted to give up on, please, please don't. Instead of asking yourself, why isn't this working? What is going on? Have you asked yourself, have I given this enough time to work? Have you really? And I would guarantee the answer is probably no, because if you're not given it 15 years like James Dyson or six years like Mr. Beast, or 17 years like Vera Wang, you ain't given it time. So have faith and play the long game. And maybe success isn't about finding the perfect strategy, but it's about staying in the game long enough to see that strategy work. And we live in this world right now that celebrates overnight success. But when you look to nature, when you look to the world around, it doesn't work like that. You know, an oak tree, right? One of those trees that produces acorns. Did you know it takes between 20 to 30 years before it ever produces an acorn? What? Pearls, pearls that grow in the ocean, they take one to two years before a pearl will produce. Imagine if you went up to an acorn tree or a pearl and you were like, brother, where are you going? It's been overnight, what's happening? Nature knows. Nature takes it slow. Nature doesn't rush things because it knows it'll happen in the end. And what would happen if you had that unwavering faith and you knew that it was going to happen, but you have to stick with it. I love this quote from Bill Gates. He says, most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years. And I think I'm really guilty of this because I love goal setting. I'm all about setting goals for 2026, planning your life out, and living year to year. But when you think about what you've done in 10 years versus what you do in one year, there's a vast difference. If you think right now, think about who you were and where you were 10 years ago. So we're in 2026. Where were you in 2016? I know for myself, I don't think I'd quite finished university, so I was still a student. I would have killed to be where I am today, you know, working full-time in a job I love, in my own home. I've got a cool car. I think about all the things I've achieved in that time, and I'm like, God, so worth it. Such a long time and so many hurdles that I had to jump through. But it is so worth it to be where I am now. And when I look at things over the years that I set out for my New Year's Eve goals and I achieve throughout the year, they're pretty small. But when you look at the bigger picture over those 10 years, I'm a totally different person. And so in one year, you might not change that much, but in 10 years, I guarantee you will be a totally different person. So can you apply this lens? Think about 10 years' time. In 2036, god damn, where will you be? You will be in a totally different space, a totally different mindset, a totally different body. Where will you take the next 10 years? How can you play the long game and stick with it? Albert Einstein, who famously invented the light bulb, I think he also took over a thousand tries to get that right. He says, it's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with my problems longer. Can you stick with something for a long time? Stick with your problems for longer. Play the long game. So keep showing up, keep putting in the reps, play the long game, because one day somebody will look at your success and they might call it overnight success, but only you will truly know how many years of grinding that it really took. And isn't that the goal to be called an overnight success? I think, is that the goal? I'm not sure actually. Saying that, I'm like, well, if you've put in all these years' work, maybe it's not the goal. But are they gonna call you a long time success? Probably not. So this is a message to you, and this is your sign to stick with it and play the long game. And I'm trying to tell myself this. 20 episodes in, I've got 5,106 episodes to go if I'm gonna do the same amount as James Dyson took to do his vacuum. I've got a long way to go. But you know what I also believe actually is that success will find you when you're ready. I perhaps am not ready right now. Perhaps you are not ready right now. Whatever it is that you are wanting that is not happening, maybe you're not ready right now. And you've got to go through that process to become the version of you that is ready and that can handle it. Maybe you can't handle success. Maybe if your goal is weight loss and you're not in your dream body yet, maybe you can't handle looking that hot, you know? Maybe you cannot handle what is yet to come. And you've got to grow and evolve and become that person. It's all about the journey, right? You've got to become the person who has achieved that goal. And I know I say that in a lot of my episodes, it's from atomic habits. I love it. You've got to become the version of yourself that has already achieved that. And that takes time. You can't become a new person overnight. You can't form new habits overnight. You've got to play the long game and you've got to evolve. Ooh, maybe we say we're evolving instead of I'm losing weight or I'm buying a home or I'm doing this. I'm evolving. I'm evolving into a person that lives in a better home. I'm evolving into a person that has a new job. Maybe we say we're evolving. It's our evolution. I think when I say that word, I feel like it takes the pressure off. It's like not something you've got to do overnight because it's an evolution. It's gonna take years. The evolution, revolution, people. Oh, I think that's great. I might make a TikTok about that. That feels like a great vibe. That just came out. That wasn't in my notes. Evolution. I'm here for it. So, how can you evolve? How can you start your evolution? How can you play the long game and become that version of yourself? Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I hope this has found you at a time that you need it the most and reminded you to have patience to play the long game, and the reward will be so worth it. Thank you so much for joining me. Love you, bye.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Mind your own beeswax. Hey, count up. Lean back, yeah.