Looking at someone else’s success is a curious thing. What one sees is the finished product, the outcome, the achievement. It is easy to mistakenly believe that the “someone else” simply woke up one day and just decided to be where they are today. This is why one of my favourite quotes is “the man at the top of the mountain did not fall there.”



If there is one woman who embodies the spirit of this quote, it is Yasmin Sewell. The road that her career has followed has not been a nice and easy journery, but what is clear from her experience is that focus, hard work, making mistakes and learning from them, determination and humility are some of the essential ingredients that go into attaining whatever it is on which you have set your sights. Sure, there may be the odd lucky break, but even then, an effort must be made to make the most of them.



Yasmin shared many important, bite-sized lessons and home truths about the current age of seemingly microwavable success.  I think we all are very much aware of the trend towards pursuing fifteen minutes of fame, generally without actually are contributing anything useful or tangible to the table.



It is easy to forget that the only reason why people such as Yasmin Sewell are a part of our general consciousness is because they have achieved some level of celebrity as a result of what they do/have been doing for a while. Most of us knew nothing about them during their anonymous years, the years when they were laying the foundation of and building their own castle. There are those that see their figurative castle on the hill and decide that they want one, too, without realising (or wanting to accept) that it did not just appear there one fine day – the proverbial blood, sweat and tears, setbacks, and triumphs all went into its creation.



Yasmin has a blog, which you can find in the Vogue.com (UK) blog hub.