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When you become successful, you change. How people relate to you also changes tremendously. Some people are afraid of being great because of those changes that are going to happen when they reach that level of success.
This person I’m talking about is really smart. It finally hit me. He is afraid of being great.
We’re right on the edge of doing some generational successful stuff. What I mean by that is, this person will be the most successful one in the family across the board. With that comes a lot of expectations. Often, when someone in the family starts to do well, you hear that they suddenly stop talking to the rest of the family. It’s always portrayed in a narrative that involves that successful person being villainized.
I’ve always considered mindset to be the critical ingredient for being successful. When I relayed this thought to this person, they confessed and said, “I have thought about that because I already have people hitting me up for this, wanting that.” Believe it or not, people will hold back their own success so they won’t have to deal with these types of negative ramifications of success.
So, my question to you is, “Are you afraid of being great?” Is that the reason you can’t get your act together? Is that the reason you can’t sit down and have a goal that you work on until you are successful? Ask yourself, “Why am I doing the things I am doing?”
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. We don’t do things for money. There’s some type of emotional component to everything we do. Once you realize what your emotional components are, you become extremely powerful. You become a different kind of cat.
So, I want you to think about being great this week. When I talk about “great,” I’m not talking about the Queen of England “great” or becoming the best athlete of a certain sport “great.” Those are icons. That is iconic greatness. When I say “great,” I mean you’ve improved your life 10 or 20 times over what it used to be. For numbers people, say you’re making $25K a year. Then you increase your earnings to $225K. That’s 10 times what you used to make.
$225K a year is a huge income. Only seven or eight percent of people in the country make that much money or more. You get into some very rarified air. With this kind of income, you can satisfy all of your wants, unless you want a new Ferrari every year.
Another aspect of getting to this level of greatness is that you gain control of your life. You become the type of person that chooses to go to work. You don’t have to go to work.
A person’s drive is often related to environment. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you have a kid who grew up in a very wealthy family and he has a ton of drive. A lot of people will explain his success by saying, “He got lucky.” No. Drive is usually related to something in that kid’s life. There is someone who is telling that kid, “These are the things you need to do to be successful.” There is someone that kid is modeling in the family.
It’s not always the parents that have the biggest impact on a child. It could be Uncle Jimmy or Aunt Beth. It’s someone they have seen that inspires their drive.
You also have Broke Dick Pooky who grew up in a bad neighborhood. Mom ain’t doing shit. Dad ain’t doing shit, so by default, they decide they won’t do shit.
Now, there’s another group. I grew up really poor. I had a ton of role models showing me about drive. My grandfather had a full-time job and a side hustle his whole life. He was very good with money. There was no such thing as “We don’t have money to do this.” So, I learned a lot through environment. Environment is huge.
That’s one of the reasons you need to get the fuck out of the “hood” if you are in the “hood,” because environment can hold you back. A lot of people recognize that fact and get the hell out. When they do move out, they get a lot of flak about not staying to become a model for the neighborhood.
We used to live in a society that encouraged greatness and that encouraged scholarship. Currently, we live in an extremely narcissistic society now. You don’t have to be successful today. You can merely look successful. For many people, that is enough. That attitude is a problem. It’s a big problem.
There was a saying I heard when I was growing up. “Fake it until you make it.” Now it’s just, “Fake it. Fake it. Fake it.” That’s one of the reasons so many people with a degree are catching hell.
I’ll just say it. A lot of people cheated their way through college so they don’t really have the skill sets or intellect derived from doing the work. That’s why they’re catching hell.
This is what I call pseudo greatness. They look great on paper, but in the practical application of life, they suck. They can’t do shit. They’re not good with concrete thought. They think mostly linear and don’t even know about dynamic thought. This is one of the reasons they’re having problems.
It you want to be great, understand that it takes time. What that means is that the sooner you start working on being great, the better off you are. Even the people selling the magic jelly beans are hard workers. Even those guys have a work ethic.
Now, let’s talk about the big issue of being great. Many people think they are not worthy of certain accolades or treasure. They don’t think they’re worthy, so they don’t aspire to it.
Many people pick a certain economic level they will aspire to and don’t want to struggle past it. They won’t do it because it would require more of them than they are willing to give.
Understand, we live in a country that is pretty much a system. The USA is a system. If you want to be great in the USA, you have to realize it’s a system and understand the system. I’m not going to tell you to go out and get a degree. If you’ve been following me, you know how I feel about that. But, you need to know how the system works.
Another aspect to aspiring to greatness, is you may need to change who you are. A lot of the time, our habits define us. People don’t get the results that yield the joy they want, because they don’t want to change.
I had to make a lot of changes. In 1999, I made the biggest change in my life. I changed how I thought about the world. It makes a big difference. You have to make changes.
This week, ask yourself, “Do you want to be great? Are you willing to put in the time and effort for your greatness?” This isn’t about money and it’s not about fame. This is about creating a life where you are happy to wake up every day.
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