Pattern for Success
Daniel B. Honigman shared a bit of Sunday morning wisdom:
The world bursts at the seams with people ready to tell you that you’re not good enough. On occasion, some may be correct. But do not do their work for them. Seek any job; ask anyone out; pursue any goal. Don’t take it personally when they say “no” — they may not be smart enough to say “yes.” (Keith Olbermann)
When I was younger, I believed that success = capability + luck. This implies that the more capable you have, the less luck your require to be successful. Since you cannot control luck, the rational path to success would be to build your capability. This is the reason parents send their children to college, right? Sure, there is some abstract notion of broadening horizons blah blah, but nobody pays $25,000+ a year (plus room and board) for “broadening horizons” — they pay $25,000+ a year so that their child will land a good first job.
Thus, an observation of successful people should indicate that the majority are exceptionally capable at their professions. But this reasoning has other consequences, too. If the role of luck is to be minimized, then failure is a reflection on the person, not the circumstances. Thus, failure is feared and the drive to avoid failure can easily overshadow the drive to be successful — and so we take the safe bets, work 9-5 jobs, take shelter in big companies, dread change, and avoid risk. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
However, my observations of successful people — entrepreneurs in particular — indicate that greater part of success is simply not fearing failure. The role of luck is accepted and managed by trying again and again.
Keith Olbermann is right. And his advice is just a coffee-cup-length, modern regurgitation of the timeless insight eloquently made by Teddy Roosevelt:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. (April 13, 1910)
All of us chooses to either be ruled by circumstance or to create our own. Each day, decide anew which is the right path for you.
