In my twitter, facebook, email and other feeds I get a least one “Top X things Successful people do” Articles, and like a sucker I read each one.
- http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/10-things-successful-people.html
- http://www.businessinsider.com/what-successful-people-do-friday-afternoon-2016-10
- and over 3 million other links.
I don’t know why I read each one, hoping there is some magic pill that makes me turn from who I am to uber successful. Then I woke up. I finally realized, these articles are no better than the “fitness” in a bottle, or even lose weight on a DVD. It does not take a genius to realize that you cannot lose weight by taking a pill, that no workout is going to rescue you from eating a crappy diet. There is no study ever proving any of it, no matter what Dr. Oz or other idiot on the TV says. Losing weight is purely about 1 thing, finding a calorie deficit, aka. burning more calories than you take in. (If you read my fit.lrau.com blog you will see there are some questions about what is a calorie and a lot of interesting side thoughts but I digress)
So if you cannot lose weight in a $19.95 purchase, what made me think, I can suddenly become successful by reading an article and suddenly giving myself 10 new traits/practices etc. And yeah it took years of reading these articles to wake up. I woke up to the reality that anyone can find dozens are so successful people, find a few things they have in common and say “Hey guess what, do these or act like this” and you will be successful. I chose to see what I hide in common with Bruce Lee to prove a point. Lets assume we are both “successful” here is what i found we have in common.
- We both took fencing
- We both believe our children are our greatest accomplishment
- We believe the relationship with our spouse is one of a team
- We both had a miniature schnauzer for a pet
- We both read a to on non-fiction to learn
- We both multi-tasked often (reading / listening to music)
- We both were constantly fidgety
Now of course I went for stuff that really seems insignificant, and that was done intentionally. Success does not happen due to having some list of traits. In fact I wish the articles would find people that had the same 10 traits and were not successful. To me it would be like athletes are musicians. I know 100s of musicians that I think are really good at playing or singing. But very few “made” it. Same with Athletes, 100s that are talented, work hard and look like they should be playing at the next level. But only few of each ever make that ‘next’ level, and fewer stay there.
So what are you supposed to do. Later in life my daughter had a hockey coach who carried around a saying in his wallet. “My name is Josh Esformes, and I make a living being myself” To me it is something that sank in, to be successful, you need to be yourself. Taking the athlete example again, look at Borg, McEnroe and Connors as tennis players (Google them if you don’t know who they are) They were as different personality as they could be, Borg was quiet, and just went to work, McEnroe somehow had to get enrage and angry to play well, and Connors needed energy from the fans and pumped his fist often. Yet they were all successful. You don’t have to be someone else to be successful, you need to be yourself, who that is, you must find out. It is your inner journey, and Bruce Lee would be proud of that, as he always believed reaching up and learning (guess that is another thing we have in common) I now carry that same saying in my wallet (changing the name of course) and will let others determine how successful I am.
My world famous disclaimer… so, this blog has nothing to do about my current employer. I provide the information without warranty blah blah blah. I make no money from this blog, there is no advertising, or charges to anyone. I do this as a brain dump, to leave something behind. If you want to support me, instead of doing that support one of the charities i care about, the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital and Hockey in Newark. I do moderate all comments, and try to remove anything that is not in the spirit of the site. Thanks for reading.