Overnight Success

I was speaking with my daughter’s dentist.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with her about various topics ranging from family and vacations to religion and work.

In the last year, she had moved from renting office space to owning her office space that better caters to her young clients —even down to the rooms with different happy colors. Her move was similar to one I was to make a few months later.

So I used the opportunity to ask her a lot of questions.

When we had last seen each other, I filled her in on all the things that I would be doing. I would be speaking on faith and obedience in a morning program, then speaking about finance and retirement in the afternoon.

A few days after that, I would share my faith journey at a conference and then discuss financial planning at a women’s retreat.

She was amazed to hear all the things that seemed to be happening so quickly for me since I left my previous corporate role. I chuckled a bit and told her that I had been writing for a number of years, and I’d been in the financial profession for nearly twenty. Of course, this got me thinking, How often do we see “overnight success” and wonder how we can attain that too? I was recently on a Zoom call, and as the other financial advisors introduced themselves, it was clear that they were well established.

I had just ended year one as an independent advisor.

Many of them were much older.

I had to keep reminding myself that I could not compare year one of my journey to their fifteen or twenty years in business.

Many of these overnight successes that we see are built on years of failure, tears, and a decision to keep persevering no matter how it may seem to others. In those trying and discouraging times, we are being prepared to do what God has called us to do. Dear heavenly Father, please stop me in my tracks when I start complaining about things not happening quickly enough.

Please remind me that there are fundamental processes that You need to take us through to get us to where You want us to be.

Kaysian C. Gordon