I would like to think that people who cheat never win but it’s usually only when they get caught that we find out what they have been up to. Cheating is indeed a what of life for some people. When you are honest it pays fairly at least for a while… until you are exposed to corruption. Would you take a bribe? I would love to think that people who cut corners, take money, rip off people and stab people in the back would pay for it. But ultimately it’s unfair to say that cheaters never prosper… they often do and wind up owning large corporations. Those of us who have a sense of fair play don’t always wind up where we should. Sometimes we wind up dead or in jail! Life is pretty far from fair. A sense of fairness and justice it’s a good thing but it’s a misconception to say that cheaters NEVER prosper. They often do… with devastating results.
Isn’t that great as I sit here typing this my house is overrun by mice. On the upside at least I have something to blog about. Yes my house has mice in it. I will leave you with a classic line from Flying High (Airplane).
[turns to the camera after being dissed by Elaine] Ted Striker: What a pisser!
I have had my fair share of back stabbings in my short life… more than I would want to count. Given that I am typing… I can’t count and I too overweight to see my toes. It has been my experience that the road to hell is not paved with good intentions… it’s paved with people trying to steal my stuff. People trying to take my job… (get off it’s mine!) and people undermining me at every turn. People murdering other people and so on and so on. Where is the good intention in that I tell you! Sure, this saying has merit. Many a good deed does actually backfire and create hell for the intended. But most of the time my dear friends you find people are, as the great Nick Cave postulates, just no good. The good intentions people may have had usually end up in something that has small consequences even though sometimes it does not.
We live in a world where ambition rules over love, good taste is blinded by mass appeal and people like Ghandi are shot in the street. This world leaves a taste so foul in your mouth at times that you want to surgically remove your tongue so at least it can be clean. Sure, I am ranting and sure it’s late. But you know what I find myself shortchanged more often by people who mean me harm as opposed to people who’s heart is in the right place. I could labour this but you know what I think I made my point.
I love the movie field of dreams. You know what… I have built plenty of things and the people never come. I have made websites, books, software and the like and people never came. I think I have reached the stage where I can say, “If you build it - you better have a plan to get people there otherwise they are likely not to come”. There is no magic here. Only work, promotion, SEO, people (thanks to all my readers) and the like. It’s like people who become good at something they say, ‘I just suddenly knew that I knew that I knew’ What the steaming hell does that even mean? I call it the breakthrough moment… but I digress.
Can I encourage that if you build something… you need to create clever strategies BEFORE YOU BUILD IT to ensure that people will come. It has to be something people want to talk about for goodness sake. If then won’t or can’t then as sure as the sun doesn’t set in the east they won’t come.
Gentlemen we can rebuild him… haha. Right, there is a saying in this business, the business of life and problem solving, that you make a dollar every day. Another day, another dollar. Well, that’s another one of my now relativity unfamous Common Misconceptions. You see, as each day passes you are making less and less. Allow me to explain. If you add up what you made (as in earned) you probably have spent that money on something by now. AND… if you really earned a dollar each day you would be broke. Especially considering the world is a dire economic state at present. I know of people who earn lots more than that. John Chow reports earning $30,000 a month! How much does Elvis make and he has been dead for years (at least according to the media). We must not limit our earning potential to a dollar!
There is a saying with age comes wisdom… I am here to tell you that is a croc. It’s built on the assumption that you will get smarter as you get older. Of course you will… IF YOU LEARN. If you don’t learn from your mistakes you will be as dumb as you were 50 years ago. I know plenty of people who have aged and are still dealing with the same issues on a daily basis. From a distance you can just see they won’t learn from their mistakes. Hey, before you say anything I am in the same boat. You only get ‘wisdom’ through the learning you get when you reflect on what you have and move forward. Don’t look at what you have done, milk it for the lessons and don’t make the same mistakes again. You will get wisdom ‘with’ age at an alarming rate if you have the capacity to learn.
I have heard it said that success is a matter of hard work. Hard work is definitely a matter that relates to success (there will be hard work… I am sure) BUT is it the only thing that assures success? Let’s take an example of my favourite entrepreneur… Richard Branson. Compare Richard Branson to yourself. You work hard like him? If this was the way success is measured then you should be as rich as he is… but you are not. Are you?
Let me extend this question and ask you if you could work harder would it bring you success? Probably not. You may be working hard at a job that has limited prospects (like I am at the moment) or you may be someone who has endless potential. My great aunt could play the piano by ear for example. She had one lesson in her entire life and could hear any piece and then play it back knowing intuitively where to put her fingers. She never became a famous musician, neither did she go on to become the world’s greatest piano player. She died.
She had a natural inclination to music that was freakish yet she never stepped out of her world to do anything more. I think success is a matter of conceptualisation. What you think you have to do in order to obtain it, ironically, is what you will do in order to obtain it. I cannot speak beyond this point because it would make me a hypocrite. What about being in the right place at the right time… *coughs* Digital Research DOS… *coughs*.
So what can we do to obtain success? I don’t know. But what I can tell you is this… if hard work is the only thing that brings success then I would be a billionaire eight times by now.
