How many of you have either said, thought or heard any of these statements? I know I've said at least one of these statements out loud or quietly in my thoughts. I can remember thinking as a kid how lucky the rich kid's in school were. Then I'd assumed their parent's were extremely wealthy. Thanks to television shows and movies, the rich were portrayed as scam artists, liars, or that they cheated their way to the top. But I was glad to find out that was not the case for the majority of rich folk.
I'm now 28 years young and have a entirely different perception of the supposed "Privileged".
It feels like there are way more rags to riches stories these days. Everyone from my grandparent's generation and before constantly made references to family dynasties like the "Rockefeller's" or the "Vanderbilt's", or "Mr. Carnegie".
On the surface people only see the lavish lifestyles, the immense power, and the seemingly unlimited control. I'd argue that when the successful people are on their journey to success, they are not surrounded by the critics and so called "friend's ". So they never see the struggles and failures asking the way.
Why Few Become Successful & Many Don't
Failure, Humility & Persistence. These are critical factors for success. I'm not talking about persistently avoiding failure or humility. If you think I'm going to argue that the greatest men and women in history avoided failure, then you are wrong. In fact it is the exact opposite.
Failure is the alma mater of success. To fail is to be given a opportunity to prefect one's skill. Failure allows us to tweak and master our craft. Humility is humbling.
I have known many young men & women who had prefect record's in their life or craft, i.e. Football, Basketball, etc. Perfection appears to be a blessing, on the surface. Yet perceived "perfection" lead to their demise as adults. You can't grow if you don't learn, and you won't truly learn unless you fail.
School's do a fantastic job at conditioning kids to feel shame when they experience failure. This is completely and utterly wrong! It's during the times of defeat that you dig deep to make sure and avoid a repeat of that feeling.
School's do a fantastic job at conditioning kids to feel shame when they experience failure. This is completely and utterly wrong! It's during the times of defeat that you dig deep to make sure and avoid a repeat of that feeling.
10,000 Ways NOT To Make A Lightbulb
Thomas Edison was famous for figuring out how to harness the power of electricity and then use it as a source of light for various reason. Prior to this discovery "burning the midnight oil" was required, in order to conduct business after sunset.What Thomas Edison was not famous for, was failing some 10,000 times before getting it right. It took him 10,000 starts and 10,000 disappointing failures, before having an ounce of success. Lucky for him, J.P. Morgan was the venture capitalist, if you will, who funded this operation. Which allowed Mr. Edison to continue his work. But was it really luck?
You can have all the money in the world to back your idea, but if there is no drive after hitting a bump in the road, you will fail.
Pioneer of Social Media
Facebook is now the most recognisable company the world over, and it all started in the mind of a young man by the name of Mark Zuckerburg. If you haven't seen the movie "The Social Network", where Jesse Adam Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerburg, I highly recommend it.Zuckerburg dropped out of college to run Facebook full-time. Although he was faced with much controversy with the launch of Facebook, i.e. Being sued by the Winklevoss twins for ownership rights, he didn't quit. The suit resulted with Zuckerburg shelling out $65 Million to the Winklevoss estate, but that's pocket change to the now $1.6 Billion Company.
There is absolutely no way to tell if anyone will have the next billion dollar idea. But that shouldn't stop you. It's much better to have tried and fail then to have never tried at all. Life is full of adventure, success, disappointment, and sometimes setbacks. There is no avoiding that.
So in the good times and especially the bad times, remember that we all put one pant leg on at a time. We all face adversity, but we won't all respond the same way. Embrace failure and expect it as a naturally inevitable occurrence. Then learn from it.
I'll leave you with my favorite quote about Life...
- "Life is 10% of external source's that are out of your control. The other 90% is how you respond to the 10%."
