Success … it’s Within Your Grasp, IF You Believe

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We all have goals and dreams. We want to achieve something with our lives. We want to make a difference. We want to be successful. We want to be good providers. We want to be rich. None of this is unusual. What is unusual is the person who wants these things and actually achieves them. That isn’t just unusual, it’s extraordinary.

How is it then that of a hundred people with dreams and aspirations, only a handful will ever achieve them? What makes them so special? Indeed, are they special? Or is it just that they approach things in a different way?

success - make it happenThe person who wants to achieve something, and I mean really wants to achieve it, will do whatever is necessary to make that dream become a reality. He or she will stay motivated … and that means doing whatever it takes to keep that motivation high. He will treat failures as mistakes, and steps on the road to success. He will sidestep things that get in his way, or force his way through, if necessary. 

He will do the necessary things even when he doesn’t feel like it, or he will take a break and mentally prepare for tomorrow, in the definite knowledge that tomorrow he will take care of it. There will be no place for endless procrastination. One way or another, he will make things happen … instead of hoping that they will happen.

Richard Branson makes things happen

Sir Richard BransonSir Richard Branson is this kind of person. He wasn’t born particularly bright, academically. He was dyslexic, as a matter of fact, and of course, still is. He hasn’t let that stop him. He readily admits he can’t read a profit and loss account, and doesn’t really care to learn how to do it. He gets by without it, somehow.

He started a small record business while he was at university, and made it successful. He went on to create other businesses and eventually, with his business partner, he created a business empire, which they named Virgin, because they thought of themselves as virgins, in the business sense. The name has stayed the same, but they’re no longer virgins!

The Virgin Group is a worldwide success

Branson’s personal wealth is now probably in the region of $5 billion, and the Virgin Group Employs about 70,000 people worldwide and has a global revenue of over $20 billion annually. It is now valued in the billions and consists of hundreds of companies around the world. The list of his former businesses, some of them not so successful, is almost as long.

Virgin AtlanticRichard Branson is not afraid of failure. He’s not afraid of success either. Everything, to him, is a venture. It might prove successful, it might not. He accepts that. When he considered starting an airline, everyone told him he was out of his depth. He knew nothing about the industry, and it was huge, and controlled by giant corporations, so he would fail miserably. They gave him all kinds of reasons it was a bad idea. He went ahead anyway, and took on the challenge of competing with the ‘big boys’. And, in time, he made Virgin Atlantic one of the world’s major airlines.

He was always ready and willing to do whatever was necessary to publicise his businesses, even if it meant dressing up in a wedding dress (to publicise Virgin Brides). He went on exciting and dangerous ventures in hot air balloons, partly for business reasons but also because he thoroughly embraces adventures, even when they involve great personal risk. That’s all part of enjoying life, as he sees it.

To infinity … and beyond!

virgin galacticNow, among many other ventures, he’s venturing into space, with Virgin Galactic. His company’s mantra says it all: “We are at the vanguard of a new industry determined to pioneer twenty-first century spacecraft, which will open space to everybody – and change the world for good.” And that’s it, right there … he isn’t just doing this to look good, or to become richer, he aims to change the world, to leave it a better place than he found it. And there can hardly be a better reason to do anything really.

act boldlyIf we can learn anything from Richard Branson, and individuals like him, it’s that life is incredibly rich and multi-faceted, if we just reach for the stars. We don’t have to settle for the nine-to-five, or for taking tiny, tentative steps into the business world. We can go forward boldly, in the knowledge that we might be successful and we might not, but we’ll almost certainly enjoy the ride, and, who knows, we might even achieve what we had in mind.

Schwarzenegger didn’t want to settle for ordinary

The alternative is to be ordinary. As Arnold Schwarzenegger said, “The worst thing I could be is the same as everybody else … I’d hate that”. And he certainly pursued his dream of being extraordinary. He’s among the most well known and most highly respected individuals in the entire world. And not just because he was an incredibly successful bodybuilder, but because he aced that and then turned his attention to being the best he could possibly be as a film actor and filmmaker, and then to being a successful politician. He continually extended his reach, and never settled for resting on his laurels. It’s a fair bet that if he’d been born in the United States he would have ended up as president.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Everything he has turned his hand to has been successful, because everything he has pursued has been successful first in his mind. He always sees himself as successful. And he doesn’t stop at that … he consistently takes action and does exactly what is required to achieve the success that he craves. He took a business course while he was a competing bodybuilder. He also found the time, with his buddy Franco Columbu and a few others, to run a small building firm.

Arnold, broodingHe filled 24 hours of every day with training, learning, earning, and focusing on success in any and every way he could think of. And that’s why he’s still a guiding light to countless people around the world. They know he’s not just a successful bodybuilder (probably the most successful bodybuilder there ever was) … no, he was like an intelligent guided missile homing in on its target his whole life, whether that target was bodybuilding, acting, politics, or whatever. Oh, and as soon as he was earning big money he invested it wisely. Not bad for a musclehead!

But hey, he’s Arnie, he’s unique! There’s never been anyone like Arnie, right? And there probably never will be. Mmm … I can see how you might think that, but there are successful people all over the place. Arnie is exceptional, that’s true. And successful people aren’t as thick on the ground as they should be, but still, there are plenty of them.