Just Showing Up

This week I am in Vancouver to meet with my HTG group and continue the great discussions that we have around building our businesses. A few of us in the group had the opportunity to drop in on Jas and the VanSBS User Group last night and take in the fellowship and excitement that each of those in attendance had for growing their businesses. Stuart Crawford spoke on the topic of “Stepping Out On The Right Foot in 2009″ and Arif Mulji from Popcorn Technologies presented on how they can partner with the local VARs and meet their customer’s needs with MOSS and other customized Microsoft technologies. Throughout the evening, either Stuart or Arif made the comment, “80% of success is just showing up.” It’s amazing how true this is in so many different areas.

Over the past few months, I’ve had the great opportunity to work a team of people at our church in Beaumont to start a Young Adult and Newly Married’s ministry. We’ve had an event almost every month for the last 6 or 7 months. I am always amazed at the number of people who sign up to come to and event, but never show up. Jasminder Rai at VanSBS was saying the same thing about the user group. They had 37 people signed up for the event last night, but only 16 were in attendance. This seems to be a common trend in this day and age. More and more people see it as okay to just not show up.

If 80% of success is “just showing up”, how can we expect to get ahead in life and grow our relationships with others. I can’t help but think of fishermen that Jesus told to go back out onto the water and fish even though they had just got back to land and spent hours with no success. Those fishermen who went back out caught more than their nets and boats could handle. All they did was show up!