Marketing Guru / All-Round Guru Seth Godin seems to be in the business of regularly handing my ass back to me. Whether on his blog or in books that he has authored or co-authored, like The Big Moo he reaches this Goldilocks-like balancing point of common sense, wisdom, shame-on-you, and inspiration.

In his today’s post entitled Do you deserve it, he reinforces the fact that it’s not about egos, reputations; it’s not even about intelligence or ability – It’s about results.

Just about everyone in my address book received a copy of a recent Seth Godin post titled Is effort a myth?

I think we’ve been tricked by the veneer of lucky people on the top of the heap. We see the folks who manage to skate by, or who get so much more than we think they deserve, and it’s easy to forget that:

a. these guys are the exceptions
and
b. there’s nothing you can do about it anyway.

And that’s the key to the paradox of effort: While luck may be more appealing than effort, you don’t get to choose luck. Effort, on the other hand, is totally available, all the time.
Effort is a choice, at least make it on purpose