Someone gave Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser) this advice before his career took off. I think it applies to life in general though.

 “A career is like surfing. You paddle out and paddle out and get wet and hit by these waves. When you finally get out where you’re supposed to go, you have to sit on a surfboard for a long time, just waiting. If you’re really lucky, you’ll catch a wave, and it’ll be the most amazing feeling. But the key is that that wave will inevitably crash to the sand. Then what you have to do is paddle back out and get hit by a bunch of waves again. But trust that in the long term there will always be waves to catch.” To a young family from New Mexico, you can imagine our reaction: “What the hell is surfing?” But thinking back, it was a very impressive thing to hear as a kid and, as it turns out, absolutely accurate.