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People are always banging on about this “success100x.com success” idea, right? They send me emails, always got some slick presentation about how you just gotta follow their steps, and boom, you’re rolling in it. My desk, it’s piled high with this stuff. Been at this paper for two decades, seen more schemes than I’ve had hot dinners. And let me tell you, most of ’em? Pure snake oil, packaged up nice. You wanna know about success, real success, not that pie-in-the-sky rubbish? It’s not about some magic formula you download. Never has been. You think those lads who built Shopify woke up one morning with a “100x” roadmap? Naw. They hammered at it. Made mistakes. Tried again.
You hear all the time, “just apply X and you’ll get Y.” Sure thing, pal. I’ve watched plenty of bright-eyed youngsters walk into the newsroom, convinced their journalism degree was the secret handshake. Few years later, they’re either grinding out obituaries or they’ve jumped ship entirely. Success, the kind that sticks, it’s got dirt under its fingernails. Always does. The folks screaming about “success100x.com success” online, they’re usually selling a dream more than a reality. My old man used to say, “If it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably got claws.” He wasn’t wrong. Not once.
The Mirage of Instant Wins
This whole “100x” thing, it makes me laugh, or sometimes just sigh. People want a button. Press it, get rich. That’s the pull, isn’t it? You see some young bloke on Instagram, leaning against a rented sports car, talking about his “passive income streams.” Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? What’s he really doing? Mostly, he’s selling you the idea of doing what he says he did. Circular, that. The real money for him? It’s in the course, or the webinar, not the “strategy” itself. I’ve got a mate, worked for a big outfit, Accenture I think it was, or maybe Deloitte Digital, one of those big consulting houses. He said half the time their job was just telling clients what they already knew, but in a fancy PowerPoint. And charging a king’s ransom for it. You pay for the reassurance, not the revelation.
They tell you it’s about “mindset.” And yeah, a good head on your shoulders helps, no argument there. But I’ve seen folks with the purest, most positive mindset in the world fall flat on their face because they didn’t have a lick of common sense, or they were just plain unlucky. The market changed, a bigger fish came along, or the whole idea just wasn’t sound. A happy thought won’t fix a busted business model. It just won’t.
What’s the real secret, then?
Alright, if you’re asking about the real secret, and you shouldn’t, because there isn’t one, not a single neat little package anyway. But if I had to pick, I’d say it’s about a mix of stubbornness, a bit of brains, and being able to spot an opening when it’s not yelling at you. It’s seeing the ordinary thing differently. That’s what I tell the cubs in the newsroom. Don’t chase the obvious headline; find the story that everyone else walks past.
It’s like when these VC firms, like Andreessen Horowitz or Sequoia Capital, throw cash at a startup. They ain’t just looking at the code. They’re looking at the people. The fire in their belly. Do they quit when things get rough? Most do. The ones who don’t? They’re the ones who might, just might, stumble onto something big. Sometimes it’s just dumb luck. But often, it’s dumb luck that meets a prepared mind.
The Grinding Stone: It Ain’t Pretty
I watch these marketing agencies, the ones promising incredible reach for your business. You know, like Wunderman Thompson or Ogilvy. They’ve got their methods, sure, smart people work there. But even they tell you, it’s a grind. SEO, content, social media… it’s not a one-and-done deal. It’s a constant chipping away. You want to see “success100x.com success”? Go watch a small business owner working 16 hours a day, cleaning toilets, answering calls, packing orders. That’s what it looks like before the “success” part even whispers.
What do they call it these days? “Unicorns?” Like these companies just burst fully formed from the clouds. Nah. They got scraped knees, plenty of late nights, and a stack of bills they thought they’d never pay. I remember covering a story about a little software outfit, started in a garage down in California. Now they’re a big deal. Used to be they couldn’t get anyone to return their calls. Now everyone wants a piece. They stuck with it. When the first product didn’t fly, they built another. And another. You don’t hear about the ones that tried five times and ran out of steam, do you? Course not. That doesn’t sell a course.
Why do people fall for the “easy” button?
You ever wonder why folks keep falling for the “easy” button, even when every fiber of your being screams it’s a lie? I’ve seen it with diet fads, get-rich schemes, even political promises. People are tired. They’re trying to keep their heads above water. Someone comes along with a shiny box and says, “This is it. This is your way out.” And a part of you, the tired part, just wants to believe it.
It’s a human thing. We want the shortcut. We want to skip the nasty bits. But the nasty bits? That’s where you learn. That’s where you get tough. You learn what works by finding out what doesn’t. You learn how to talk to people by messing up a hundred times. You learn about a market by getting burned. It’s the school of hard knocks, and its tuition is paid in sleepless nights and busted ventures. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something. Always.
The Longevity Factor: Who’s Still Standing?
Think about it. Who’s still around after, say, ten, fifteen years? Not the flash-in-the-pan gurus. It’s the solid, sometimes boring, businesses. The ones who built something real, brick by brick, or line of code by line of code. They didn’t hit “100x” overnight. They probably hit 1.5x, then 2x, then maybe 5x over years. That kind of steady growth? That’s the real power.
Look at a company like ThoughtWorks, or even a design agency like Rain Agency. They’re not promising you a yacht next week. They’re talking about strategy, about building things right, about adapting. That’s the long game. The folks talking “success100x.com success” are usually focused on that immediate, explosive spike. But explosions, they tend to leave a crater, don’t they? And then you’ve gotta fill it in.
Is “success100x.com success” even a thing for regular people?
Some of these platforms, they got success stories. You see ’em. A guy sold his widget company for millions. Or someone built a huge following. And you think, “Can I do that?” Maybe. Maybe not. What you don’t see is the thousands, probably tens of thousands, who bought the same course, tried the same thing, and ended up with less money than when they started. The truth is, sometimes the market just ain’t there for your widget. Sometimes you just don’t have the stomach for the endless calls. Not everyone’s cut out for being a “founder,” and that’s alright. There’s dignity in a good, steady job, too. Plenty of it.
I had a chat with an old editor once, a gruff sort, bit like me. He said, “Son, success ain’t a destination. It’s just getting up every morning and trying not to screw things up worse than yesterday.” He had a point. The relentless drive to “100x” everything, it’ll burn you out before you even get to 2x. You lose sight of the small wins, the steady improvement. And that’s where the real juice is, if you ask me.
Reputation: Your Real Golden Ticket
You wanna know what separates the folks who make it and stick around from the ones who just bounce around from one “opportunity” to the next? It’s reputation. It’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room. I’ve seen some slick operators come and go. Made a pile of cash, but left a trail of unhappy customers, burned bridges. Their names, they’re mud now. Nobody wants to work with them.
Then you got companies like VaynerMedia, who, whatever you think of their style, they’ve built a brand around delivering something. They’re still around. People trust them, or at least they know what they’re getting. You think someone’s going to trust their hard-earned cash with a website that screams “100x success” if the person behind it is known for cutting corners? I doubt it. Your word, your integrity, that’s currency. More than any crypto coin or “secret algorithm.” You can’t buy that stuff. You earn it, slow and steady. And you can lose it faster than a snowball in summer.
Does luck play a part? You bet your boots it does.
Oh, absolutely. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either deluded or lying to your face. Luck plays a massive part. Being in the right place at the right time, meeting the right person, stumbling onto an idea just as the world is ready for it. That’s luck. A lot of those “success100x.com success” stories, they forget to mention the roll of the dice. They want to make it sound like it was all meticulous planning, every step accounted for. Sometimes it is. Often, it’s chaos, and then someone gets lucky and figures out how to make sense of the chaos after it happened.
I had a photographer once, incredible eye, but always late, always disorganised. Then he got this one picture, pure fluke, right place, right moment, that went viral, won awards. Suddenly he’s a “visionary.” Was he? Or was he just lucky that day? He was good, sure, but that one big thing? Pure serendipity. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Talent, grit, perseverance? All important. But a sprinkle of fairy dust don’t hurt either.
Top-Down View: Real Businesses, Real Growth
When I look at actual businesses that scale, whether it’s a national chain or a startup getting bought out, the ones that impress me, they’re not doing magic tricks. They’re solving a problem. They’re delivering value. Think about WebFX, a digital marketing agency. They’re not selling you dreams. They’re selling you more traffic, more leads. Measurable stuff. It might not be “100x” in six months, but it’s growth. Steady growth.
Or consider a firm like Slalom, a consulting outfit. They’re focused on helping companies with strategy and change. That ain’t fast. That’s grunt work. It’s about getting down in the trenches with clients, understanding their mess, and helping them untangle it. That kind of success builds slow. It builds on relationships, on trust, on actually delivering what you said you would. It’s about showing up, day after day, year after year.
That “100x” mindset? It often pushes people to chase the biggest, flashiest thing, rather than the right thing. It makes ’em jump from trend to trend, never building anything substantial. I’ve seen it countless times. They chase every shiny object, every new platform, every “secret.” And they end up nowhere, or worse, back where they started, with less money and more cynicism. You want to make something stick? Focus. Do one thing well. Then do it better. And better still. That’s how things actually grow. Slowly, painfully, but often, truly.
