The Myth of The Self-Made
Success isn’t determined solely by natural physical attributes and “God-given” talent, as the movie would suggest. Although these are of great assistance to achieve success, they are not enough. We are caught in the myth that the best, the brightest and the self-made all spring naturally from the earth but that is simply untrue.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak were brilliant, yes, but they also had the opportunity and more importantly, the passion and obsession to build on their brilliance. These men were born in the perfect time for the rise of the personal computers such that when they were emerging adulthood, they were not too old such that they would already have had found a living nor were they too young such that they wouldn’t have had the competence, ability or funnily enough, the parental permission to take advantage of the rise in popularity of the industry of personal computers that they would later dominate and make millions off of.
These men were brilliant in their own right but lots of people are innately brilliant, it was the opportunity and preparation that they had that really separated them. Our world only allowed one thirteen year old unlimited access to a computer terminal in 1968. If a million other teenagers had access to the same opportunity, imagine how many more Microsoft’s we would’ve had today.
However, the third key factor, and arguably the most important feature, is preparation. Success is the product of the willingness and obsessiveness of an individual to work hard for months to make sense of something that other people might give up on after thirty seconds. We’ve all heard of the golden number, “10 000”. To be masterful, an individual needs 10 000 hours. It is the consistent grind practice and determination that is asked of an individual to become successful. The difference between a world class violinist and your local high school music teacher isn’t the length of his fingers nor the capacity of his brain to memorize notes but it is in the number of hours of mindful and purposeful practice that either have had.
Note how I had said mindful and purposeful practice. Mindful practice is different from ordinary practice. Being mindful means to have a singular focus, to be free from distractions or to have the self-discipline to stay away from procrastination. It is practice with the sole purpose of becoming better at the end of a session than when you had started. How many times have you gone to the gym but never really pushed yourself? Would you say that you really exerted full effort over the course of the work out and that the whole session wasn’t a waste of time? Will you be stronger the next time you visit? If you were purposeful, your answer would be a resounding yes and it is exactly this purposeful practice and repetition that breed success.
Success, therefore, isn’t determined solely by talent but also by opportunity and preparation.
Opportunity and innate talent are both characteristics that are determined by luck. You don’t have control over these but you do have control of what you do on a daily basis. Preparation is something we can all control but often take for granted. When we don’t achieve something, we blame luck: “It isn’t my day”, “this went wrong”, or “that went wrong”. Rarely do we ever internalize our losses and blame ourselves, “What could I have done better during and before the event, test or game?” is a question that we should be asking ourselves. My father taught me to never blame external factors because if you were truly prepared for something, any obstacle thrown at you could be easily overcome.
Personally, I can attest that success, in anything, is not easy to achieve. Ironically, of the three criteria, the hardest to prepare for is preparation itself. I find that the hardest thing to do is to just get started. It is incredibly difficult to find motivation, especially when what I have to do is something I do not find inherently enjoyable like studying, for example.
I’ve found this year to be one of the hardest in my life. I’m not used to having to study mathematics on a daily basis, but I have to now. I’m not used to coming home late at night only to find an empty table without any food on top of it, but I do now. Preparation, practice, and repetition of solving exercises and are all key to passing my course and I’m not used to this. Sure, I’ve grown accustomed to having to train my body but my mental capacity is an entirely different field. Growing up, academics came naturally to me, I’ve never been tested as much as I’ve been this year. The worst part? My grades have shown it. Assuming that my grades were to be consistent until the end of the semester, I would be forced to shift out of my course.
It was only recently that I told myself that this cannot happen. I decided to organize my life and get it together as best as I could. I’ve noticed results only after I’ve been studying more. Being consistent, answering math exercises on a daily basis, reading my textbooks, these have been key to getting my grades up.
You know how people always say “practice makes perfect” and “knowledge is power”? I finally get it now. It does help. Practice makes possible what is impossible through innate talent. Knowledge makes understandable what was previously confusing. Combined, practicing knowledge, learning on a daily basis makes life so fulfilling and I’ve never been happier. From now on, I promised myself to never take for granted any opportunity. If I can study right now and learn something new, why not?
Ultimately, my life goal is to write my book. We’re all writing books and every day is a page in it. What does your book look like it? If I can fill my book with pages upon pages of the amazing things that I’ve done: “Gave money to this”, “Wrote a number one bestselling book”, “Donated computers to this school”, “Directed a movie”, “Donated money”, “He did this such that it benefitted these people”. I would say that this is a pretty good book. If by the end of my life my book would be filled with different activities that I’ve done over the years, then I’d have lived a pretty complete life. To succeed, however, I’d have to prepare. I’d have to do the work and focus on a single goal. As of now, the work that needs to be done is to focus on my school work but during my free time, figure out what I need to learn to get to the next level in my life. Despite being a management student, I want to build apps. So I spend some of my free time learning about computer programming.
It’s all about thinking ten steps ahead. What can I do today that will help me out tomorrow? Practice and repetition in order to achieve a goal. Studying hard and doing whatever it takes to achieve something because I’ve learned that sometimes, it’s not about whether or not you’ve achieved your goal, but what you’ve learned along the way.
When people achieve something, they ask “What’s next?” and don’t come up with an answer. At the end, it’s what you’ve learned from the grind to excellence that you take away, carry with you, and apply as you fill out your book of life.
