80 percent of success is showing up – Woody Allen

There are multiple versions of this quote floating online, you might come across any one of these variants:

Showing up is 80 percent of life.
Eighty percent of success is showing up.
Seventy-five percent of life is showing up.
Ninety percent of success is just showing up.
In life, 50% of it is showing up.

The quote origin:
The quote was printed in the New York Times in August 1977, in an interview by the journalist Susan Braudy, Marshall Brickman, said:
I have learned one thing. As Woody says, ‘Showing up is 80 percent of life.’ Sometimes it’s easier to hide home in bed. I’ve done both.

In 1989 Woody Allen was asked about this saying by the New York Times, and Allen replied with a letter in which he asserted: “I did say that 80 percent of success is showing up.”

80 percent of success is showing up

– Woody Allen

What does it mean?

Before you all take this quote and start basing your life’s upon it, take in consideration that Woody Allen was in the movie industry …
In the movie industry, it is not really hard work. Yes, actors have to repeat takes till they get them right, yes they have to memorize scripts, but it is far from the hard work and the risk taking required in many other industries.
In the movie industry, just showing up to the castings, and then to the movie planning and actor training should put you on the road to success. And if you put some real effort, you would be successful. Unfortunately, this is not true in other domain nor outside the U.S.A.