Are You Willing To Do What It Takes To Succeed?
Hughism: Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
The man I overheard at the concert said: “I would do anything to be able to play the piano like that“.
Anything, apparently, but take lessons and practice.
“It costs to be the boss” - James Brown
If you want to drive a ball like Tiger Woods, you have to drive thousands of balls a month, for years. To take a picture like Ansel Adams, you have to take thousands of crap pictures. Stephen King started getting rejection letters from the time he was 13; he was 27 before he published Carrie, his first novel.
Everything has a price; everything. It costs time, effort and [tag]commitment [/tag] to succeed. You can have all the [tag] talent [/tag], all the [tag]potential[/tag], all the education in the world, yet if you are not willing to pay the price of commitment, if you are not willing to submit yourself to all the hard work required, you will fail. As an early mentor of mine once told me: “Potential, minus commitment, equals zero.”
The bright side is that so few are prepared to pay the price that the field is flush and eager for those who will.
John Wayne Knew The Truth
In the movie The Shootist, John Wayne plays an aged gunfighter, John Books, who is eaten up with cancer. The movie is all the more poignant because while he was filming this movie, Wayne himself was eaten up with cancer.
My favorite scene in the movie comes when the young boy, an aspiring gunfighter himself, remarks about how fast a draw Books must have been when he was younger. Wayne looks at the boy and tells him,
“It’s not always being fast or even accurate that counts, it’s being willing. I found out early that most men, regardless of cause or need, aren’t willing. They blink an eye or draw a breath before they pull the trigger–and I won’t.”
Are you willing?
When you posted some examples at the start of the post, I could relate to this:
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. ”
- Michael Jordan
Hugh… I just love your Hughism, keep them coming.
@Ashwin- I love that quote as well.
Fantastic post. I got some insipiration today from reading a lecture Marshall Brain (founder of howstuffworks.com) who says basically “every time you take a risk you have a chance of success. Take enough of them and eventually you will succeed.”
http://marshallbrain.com/million.htm
Great success always happens quickly … especially after years of hard work!
Yes was my answer to that question. Sometimes it’s hard because you need someone to motivates you to be hardworking and thanks because my family and some of my close friends are there to support me. It takes sacrifice and attitude to be successful. People will criticize you but this is me. I do not always conform to what others think.