Who Is Really Successful

The successful man is the average man, focused. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

So many people think that anyone who is successful is different in some way.

Better genetics, or up-bringing, or work ethic, or friends, or discipline, or education, or . . . .

It’s not true.

People who are successful work harder, longer.

True, there are certain variations, that, in certain fields, give people a slight advantage, but to be excellent – in any field – people must work very, very hard, for a long while.

But that only explains why Michael Jordan is a better basketball player than you – not why the person you work with got the promotion, instead of you.

*  *  *

The simple fact of the matter is that you could do more to be better.

You could learn more, practice more and give more to those around you.

When you do, wisely, you will be successful.

And if you do, you’ll be given the opportunity to do again and again, over and over, time after time.

Similar Posts

  • What Are You Putting In?

    The average person puts only 25% of his energy into his work.  The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%. – Andrew Carnegie Implicit in Carnegie’s words is that to be…

  • What Really Limits Us

    “The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein The idea that our language creates our world (each of our worlds… ) is very compelling for me. I have long said that humans are meaning-seeking and meaning-creating creatures. We must not only understand our world, but make sense of it,…

  • Beyond Responding

    I’m not sure if it is a word, or even if it could be a word, but I want to offer you the option of “pre-ponding.” There’s responding and reacting (and there’s over-responding and over-reacting, but those options are for another post… ), and there is pro-acting. I want to create a distinction between pro-acting…

  • Weeding the Garden of Character

    Character is like a garden. It matters what you plant and how you care for it. You must also regularly weed your “garden,” being mindful of non-resourceful habits (little or big) compromises and your standards. If you let these things slip (i.e. you don’t weed your character garden), your character, and life, will suffer. It also…

  • The Certainty of Nothing

    “What I’ve experienced is that I can’t know the future. I can’t know if anything that I do will change what happens tomorrow. I can’t know with certainty, but what I do know is if I do nothing, nothing will change.” – James Orbinski This is true, rather bleak and incredibly inspiring. I know what…