On Saturday I got to hear author Malcolm Gladwell speak at Town Hall about why some people succeed at things and others don’t.
One of the key points reminded me of this book I read a couple years ago, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be. It’s by Paul Arden.
Now I’ll tell you why.
Arden says ambition is really important. You have to envision being better than you could be in your wildest imagination. Like, better than good. (Even though Voltaire said better is the enemy of good.)
But I think Arden makes a good point. Think about how many times you didn’t do something because you didn’t think it would work, for some reason.
Ultimately, we’re our own biggest obstacles to getting where we want to be.
Fear is the thing that holds us back
Maybe fear of success, maybe of failure. But without considering the very fullest of your whole potential, without seeing the whole horizon stretched out and ready to jump into, you can’t ever get very far.
Without drive, you don’t move.
There’s a little scribbled quote on the inside of my address book that I found one day in a library somewhere. It says, “Be afraid of nothing and nobody. Fear is the thing that holds us back.”
Straight As
How does Gladwell figure into this? I’ll tell you.
The biggest thing that sets apart people who achieve “success” from those who don’t, Gladwell says, is poverty. By his measure, “success” appears to mean “making it” as a big name in some field like medicine, law, or engineering. Things that most American people would consider high status. Careers that earn lots of money.
But the thing that keeps people from getting there is attitude.
Attitude determines who makes the cut.
Math
He gives this example about schoolkids doing math.
If people say they suck at math, then they will earn Ds in math.
But if they accept they can comprehend it, as long as they sit down and work at it long enough, that’s different. Gladwell argued there’s no real thing as “innate talent.” Asian kids are better at math because they have the right attitude.
Qs
What do you think? Howcome some people succeed while others fail?
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