Everyone Wants to Succeed Until . . .
When I was a kid I wanted to be President of the United States. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with this ambition. As an adult I realized that to become President I’d have to:
- Meet and connect with a lot of people.
- Remember names and faces.
- Fundraise.
- Spend many evenings away from home.
- Have my private life constantly scrutinized and broadcast to the entire world.
I’m not very good and #1 and #2 and I don’t like #3, #4, or #5, so I’m happy that I never acted on that particular priority.
While making money was one of my priorities, at some point I decided that I was not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to compete with those who wanted to become a billionaire. I knew I would need to ignore many other aspects of my life until I was retired, and I didn’t want to do that.
Years ago, however, I told a friend that she could become a millionaire.
“How?” she asked.
“You would have to work every Saturday and every other Sunday for fifteen years, then save and invest every weekend dollar you made.”
“Every Saturday? Every other Sunday? No thanks. I don’t want to work that hard.”
But some people are willing to put in the time. Sprite knew in the seventh grade that she wanted to help people by becoming a journalist. She won her first speech contest in the sixth grade. She was willing to start at a minimal salary in a small TV market and move around the country every year or two as better jobs became available. She was willing to work on weekends, early mornings, and late evenings. She sometimes had to take her daughter into work when there was breaking news. In short, Sprite did whatever it took to succeed on the highest level. Ultimately she became a network anchor on both ABC and NBC.
I asked her, “Was it difficult?”
“No. I had a calling. I knew I would do whatever I needed to in order to be the journalist I wanted to be.”
Will you succeed? That depends entirely on you. First you have to figure out what you want to succeed at. Then you have to be willing to do whatever it takes.
When Barack Obama hired David Plouffe to be his campaign manager he asked David, “Do I have to campaign all the time? Can I go home on weekends?”
“Sure,” David said. “If you don’t want to win.”
In a newspaperk article recently I read the story of an immigrant couple who wanted to save money to pay for their son to go to college when he was eighteen. To raise what was needed they worked six nights a week for more than a decade, scavenging through dumpsters for recyclables. They were able to pay for their son to attend an Ivy League school because they were willing to do whatever it took.
You can succeed. You will succeed.
As long as you’re willing to do whatever it takes.
Alan
P.S. I think that anyone who wants to be President is a little crazy.