Andy Weir is one of the most successful science fiction authors of our time.

His list of mega-bestsellers includes The Martian (later adapted into an award-winning drama starring Matt Damon), Artemis, and Project Hail Mary (soon to be released as a film starring Ryan Gosling).

He has achieved a top-0.01% outcome. A true outlier.

But Andy Weir’s success in the field was anything but expected.

15 years ago, he wasn’t a household name. He wasn’t even a full-time writer.

In fact, in 2012, Andy Weir was working as a software engineer by day and publishing a series of science-heavy blogs about an astronaut stuck on Mars by night.

Commenting on the period in a ​2015 interview​, Weir said, “I slowly accumulated this core group of about 3,000 readers over ten years of posting stuff to my website. And they’re all dorks, hard-core science geeks – because that’s the sort of stuff that I wrote.”

He was getting constant input from those early readers. Feedback to improve the scientific credibility of his story. Ideas to tighten the plot.

When his readers complained about the pains of reading the blogs on the computer, he compiled the series into an e-book for Kindle.

And then, something happened...

As the self-published e-book rose up the top sellers charts, a literary agent read it and reached out.

“So after three years of not being able to get any traction with literary agents, I had one knocking on my door! He sold the book to [Random House], and then at the same time, Fox became interested in the movie option.”

Ten years of showing up. Ten years of action. Ten years of effort.

Andy Weir stayed in the game long enough to get lucky.

I think about that idea as a useful lens for our most meaningful pursuits in life:

The most meaningful, unexpected breakthroughs are often found on the other side of long periods of methodical, daily effort.

The breakthrough is never a sure thing. You can’t predict when it’ll come. You can’t even be certain it ever will.

Success demands an embrace of that uncertainty. It demands that you show up every single day with no guarantees. The one who can tolerate the most uncertainty is the one who will eventually win.

And in my experience, having an intrinsic energy for the game itself is how you build that tolerance.

Andy Weir had an energy for the game that didn’t rely on the applause of a crowd.

Do you?

Perhaps the recipe is simple:

Choose your game wisely. Then stay in it long enough to lucky.