Eighty percent of success is showing up.
TrendTracker's retweet of me -- that 80% of success is showing up -- made me truly wonder if Woody Allen really said that. So I googled it and found that I was not the only one who was confused...
"I believe it was Woody Allen who said, 'Half of life is showing up.'"
"Showing up is eighty percent of life. -- Woody Allen, from The Harper Book of Quotations 3rd ed."
source: newsgroup post hosted by Google Groups: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet&selm=36ddeab1%240%24216%40nntp1.ba.best.com
"Seventy percent of success in life is showing up. - Woody Allen"
"Comedian Woody Allen once said that 80 percent of life is showing up."
"Woody Allen has been quoted as saying something like, 'Seventy-five percent of life is showing up.'"
"It's like Woody Allen said: 90 percent of life is showing up."
One page asserts that the quotation is from Allen's film "Play it Again, Sam" (1972):
"In one particular movie, Play It Again Sam, he says to the character played by Diane Keaton, 'I've figured out the secret to being successful in life.' She looks at him as if to say, 'You can't even tie your shoes. What do you know about the secret to being successful in life?' And Woody Allen utters the following words, 'Being successful is eighty percent showing up. Eighty percent of being successful in life is showing up.'"
And in a documentary film that aired last year on Turner Classic Movies channel, Woody Allen apparently acknowledges that he is the originator of the quote. From a review of the film:
"He's baffled that his advice to young playwrights -- '80 percent of life is showing up' -- is so well known. 'That quote has been used 10,000 times all over the world to represent me with some kind of profound insight,' he says. 'As if I could determine the percentage.'"
source: Orlando Sentinel; Orlando, Fla.; May 4, 2002 http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/orlandosentinel/abstract/117802322.html?did=117802322&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&PMID=33577&desc=ALLEN+FANS+WILL+WANT+TO+SEE+THIS+%3b+A+TCM+DOCUMENTARY+MIXES+FILM+CLIPS+WITH+COMMENTS+FROM+THE+MOVIE+DIRECTOR
Which led me to Google some more...
"Eighty percent of success is showing up." -- Woody Allen
"Eighty percent of success is just showing up." -- Woody Allen
"Eighty percent of success is NOT just showing up." -- Elizabeth Gilbert, TED Talk
So what have I learned today? Life and success depend on lots of things. Just show up, okay? And while you're at it, you're likely to do better if you show up on time and with a decent attitude, thankyouverymuch.
