Born Lucky...
Personally I believe pure luck has very little to do with it. Well that isn't true, what I mean is luck is actually something you attract, not something that lucky people stubble upon. I mean if you really look into David Beckham he was the guy still down at the training pitch practicing free kicks when everyone was back at home.
The ‘luck factor’ also has a massive amount to do with
educating your mind. I was with a friend the other day and he gave me a great
analogy – the more you learn, the luckier you become. By feeding
your mind with positive ideas and knowledge, you will then be able to recognise
luck when it comes your way.
It is like being able to understand another
language. If you walked into a room with lots of French people telling you the
secret to success but you didn't speak French, how would you understand what
they mean? The same applies to understanding luck when it comes your way.
A great way to become lucky is to learn from people who
have been on the so called 'lucky' journey. For example, Richard Branson has written six books
telling you how he has achieved success. Whilst learning some great tricks, you will also likely realise that on most occasions, a big reason they achieved success was the
amazing amount of dedication they gave. It is often at the end when they achieve everything people then say, 'yep they are lucky', not seeing all the things they gave up to follow their dreams.
Achieving Your Potential – One Simple Fact
I’m a big believer that if you want to achieve your potential – one of the best ways is to learn from others who already have. This first blog is on Steve Jobs. I can already hear the hoorays and hmmm’s ringing out but bear with me (or at least for the duration of this blog).
Everyone seems to have an opinion on Steve Jobs – from genius and visionary to a bully. He was a person who divided opinion. People also talk about Apple, the business he founded in a garage with Steve Wozniac in 1976, and how it has transformed industries from personal computers, to mobile phones, music and film.
So what was Steve Jobs’ legacy – was it changing the world of technology, music and film? I would argue it was none of these things; it was to inspire people to achieve their potential.
I think an interview he did in 1990 sums it up the best when he said;
“When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is"
He goes onto say that,
“life can be much broader than this when you discover one simple fact, that the world was made up by people no smarter than you and that you can change life once you shake off the notion that life is there and you are just going to live in it, over embrace it and change it.”
For me, what he was saying is people grow up with a glass ceiling and that we are also programmed to follow a predetermined path, when in fact we are all capable of much than this.
I think everyone has different starting points in life however I also don’t believe that simply because you had a good start, you have the right to achieve success and if you didn’t then you are doomed to fail.
Maybe it is too simplified a view of the world but I believe everyone is born with potential, the secret is unlocking it. I think it is only when you start achieving your potential, that you really come alive.
I’ll leave you with a few simple thoughts if that is okay with you.
If you were to sit quietly for a moment and score yourself out of 10 in terms of where you are right now on achieving your true potential, what would you score and if you were to ask yourself, is there more I could achieve in life, what would the answer be….
Achieving Potential – Brian, Michelle, Jo and Steve…
The potential of Brian, Michelle, Jo and Steve…
The definition of ‘potential’ relates to either science or human. For Brian, he might be talking about things like energy and mass, however if you are talking to Michelle, Jo or Steve they might be talking more human potential.
Actually ‘human potential’ also has everything to do with Brian, as he is now a Physics Professor at Manchester University and part of The Large Hadron Collider project in Switzerland working out things like what happened when the Universe was formed a few billion years. So how was it that a local lad from near Oldham, who got a D in his Maths A Level, achieve so much in science? Ironically, maybe it had something to do with a band he was in called ‘D Ream’.
Then there is Michelle who grew up in a tough part of Glasgow and went onto be one of the UK’s top entrepreneurs. When Michelle left school at 15, what would people have said her potential was?
And what about Jo? It is true Jo did go to University and wrote some of the most successful books ever written. Not only this, these books were made into films grossing $8 billion. The thing is when Jo wrote her first book she was a single mum, unemployed and living in a council flat. If you were being honest, what would most people say Jo's future was?
And then there is Steve. Back in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, a little known Brit athlete by the name of Steve won an Olympic Gold. Then in 1988, 1992, 1996 and finally in the 2000 Sydney games he won his 5th Gold, making Steve the only endurance athlete to ever win gold in 5 different games. Not bad for a guy who left school with a Woodwork O Level in a sport dominated by university graduates.
So what is achieving your potential really about? I am not saying education or talent doesn’t count because it really does help but more importantly it is how much you want to achieve your potential that matters. Just ask Professor Brian Cox OBE, Michelle Mone OBE, JK Rowling OBE or Sir Steve Redgrave. These four people achieved their potential through extraordinary dedication; that is the real difference and it is this dedication that should be the thing that inspires us, not what they achieved in the end.
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