Tag: success Page 2 of 3

As we go through life sometimes we are told, “You get out of life what you put into it.”

I hear that, but it doesn’t always hold true. Actually it hardly ever holds true.

Let’s face it.

I’ve lived long enough to understand that you can be a hard worker.

You can be persistent.

You can be incredibly talented beyond compare.

But, still you struggle and find it difficult, challenging to get anywhere.

Because there is no book on life that demonstrably teaches success without failure in foolproof fashion, there is another school of thought that adheres to a knockoff of the sentiment, “Nobody ever has it figured out.”

I suppose no one does.

That doesn’t prevent the multitudes who profess to having figured it out from trying to sell their system for success to you–because, they insist, their system actually works!

Get rich quick schemes have been around since the dawn of mankind.

They proliferate today. And they fleece millions out of hard-earned money.

If nobody ever has it figured out, then we all share in common the toils of our every day lives. We all continually attempt to figure out how best to achieve a life well lived–some more stridently than others.

I would caution anyone who believes certain icons of the business world at one point in their careers had it all figured out, to dig deeper and below the surface of what you think you know about these individuals.

The biggest aid or ingredient, if you will, to anyone’s makeup who becomes successful and earns big money, is luck.

Luck is what makes the difference between someone who gets the girl or the big client and someone who does not.

Luck, like hittingthesweetspot by Bob Skelley comes in many forms.

Sometimes luck comes in the form of timing.

You might have the greatest idea or invention in the history of the world. But if you are born too late or fail to meet the right investment people to stake you when starting out, your idea will never come to fruition before you all too soon run out of time and money.

Ralph Kramden was an example of someone who had many ideas for success and never even saw one of them realized.

In Ralph’s case, his timing was either poor or nonexistent. Or, he had bad luck during the idea’s implementation, which forced him to quit entirely and prematurely.

Ralph was the ultimate starter of projects who never finished a one.

He also wasn’t the most talented guy.

While he did work hard at driving a bus, and his wife Alice always stood by him, even though that would be enough for most men, Ralph kept working at trying to figure out how life could be better for he and Alice; he never accepted his lot no matter how good an individual day he might have had.

So, where does the motivation to get out of bed and go through the grind of another day come from?

Blind faith

I’m not talking about religious faith. I’m talking about faith in yourself, your ability and your own life’s outcome.

Even after a string of abysmal days you should not get discouraged.

Since you’re figuring things out as you go just like everyone else, the probability for at least many things turning out alright for you is higher than not.

People like to hear that everything will be OK.

It used to tick me off to hear that when I was younger. My inner Bob would scream, “No one knows that everything will be alright. It’s just something people say when they don’t know how to make things OK, but they are hopeful they will be.”

And that was as close to figuring out this crazy thing we call life as I ever came.

Because I’ve found success can be overrated–especially by other people’s definition of the words, what is even better than perceived financial or business success is the feeling that everything is or will be OK–one way or the other.

It gives me a peaceful, easy feeling to know that while most of us may fail more often than we care to admit, our collective shortcomings as we go through this world are more easily endured together.

That’s why I can tell you unequivocally that everything is going to be alright.