Persistent Genius

Let’s look at another famous and super successful person this week, someone who had some very tough times and setbacks that, for many if not most people, would have forced them to give up and say goodbye to their big dreams and great hopes. I think you may have heard of him – his name is Albert Einstein.

Einstein didn’t even start talking until he was 3 years old and didn’t read at all until he was 7. That by itself wouldn’t be classified as tough times or a big setback but later, when he was in school, he poorly. He wouldn’t respond to the teacher when asked a question or he would take forever and then would whisper a response. He was also known for being incredibly forgetful and absent- minded. He would often forget to put on his socks and many other basic things. Many people believed that Albert Einstein was mentally retarded although he did excel at mathematics from a young age and even taught himself algebra and geometry one summer when he was 12 years old.

At the age of 16, he applied to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zürich but was turned down after he failed the entrance exam. He was advised to finish his secondary schooling, which he did, successfully enrolling in the four-year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Zürich Polytechnic school at the age of 17.

Quoting from Darcy Andries great book, The Secret of Success, Is Not a Secret, “It was not until after the first of Einstein’s theories, the ‘Special Theory of Relativity’, was published that the scientific community truly recognized his talent. However, even then many scientists attacked his theories, calling them ‘worthless and misleading’ and asserted that Einstein ‘has not a logical mind.’ None of these kinds of comments and failures stopped him. He became professor extraordinary at Zurich, and later a professor of theoretical physics at Prague. The highlight of his scientific career came in 1921, when Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics.”

So, here’s a guy who had many reasons to pack it up and not chase any big dream or goal but, wow, look at what he did and who he turned out to be. Even though I am pretty sure that good ole Albert didn’t have a clue that 100 years after winning the Nobel Prize he would still be famous and known worldwide. Alex Johnson, a reporter for MSNBC, said this about Einstein: “Albert Einstein’s impact on the world was so immense that any assessment must range beyond science to take in the multifarious ways he changed culture.”

These stories and many others certainly inspire and motivate me to never give up on my hopes, dreams and goals. I hope you feel the same way.

Success is Measured by Obstacles

The famous Booker T. Washington once said, “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.”  Darcy Andries, author of The Secret of Success is Not a Secret, certainly underscores that comment in terms of the obstacles that have often proceeded the rise of so very many famous and successful people. Her book lists more than 250 super successful people who persevered through huge setbacks and failures to become big-time successes.

Take Rowland Hussey Macy, who tried and failed many times before he found success. He tried to start and operate a needle and thread store in Boston, and later a store that sold European-made dry goods. He failed both times. Then, after an unsuccessful store in Marysville, California, opened with his brother during the 1849 goldrush, he returned to the East Coast to open another dry goods store in a town north of Boston, an endeavor that eventually forced him into bankruptcy. He then moved to New York City and opened yet another store which ended disastrously when it was robbed and then burned down. Ugh.

Most people, I think, would have given up at that point but not Rowland Macy. He rebuilt, opening a little fancy dry goods store at 14^th Street and 6^th Avenue in New York City, north of the city’s other dry goods stores, called R. H. Macy & Co. After initial encouraging sales, he expanded, eventually occupying 11 adjacent buildings, each selling different categories of merchandise and effectively launching what we now call a department store.

By the 1870’s Macy’s store was averaging more than $1 million in annual sales and it has grown ever since. Now known simply as Macy’s, would you believe that little shop has grown into more than 850 stores and has gross sales in the double-digit billions?

I don’t know about you or your significant other, but my wife certainly helps Macy’s stay in business and thrive. I don’t know whether to thank Rowland Macy or complain! Unfortunately, I can’t do either since he checked out of life in 1877 at the young age of 55. But I’ve got to hand it to him – with all those setbacks spanning a period of nearly 14 years, he kept at it anyways and, I think most people would admit, he did okay for himself in the end.

 

Never Giving Up

Last week I talked about the fact that there is really no big secret to big success. In the beginning of the great book by Darcy Andries, The Secret to Success, she quotes a very smart and very successful man, Colin Powell. He said, “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” Then Darcy made the wise comment that “You can learn a lot from failure, but that requires you to continue moving forward despite having failed.”

As promised, I want to share with you some of the setbacks and failures of a few famous people who never would give up and who eventually were very, very successful. I want to start with the great basketball player Bob Cousy, who was my hero when I was a young man playing in a great basketball tournament in the Olympic stadium in Rome, Italy.  I wanted so badly to be like Bob Cousy and play professional basketball. We won the Rome tournament and I got a basketball scholarship to Utah State University but that’s as far as I got. No pro basketball for me.

I wish I had known back then Cousy’s story of all his setbacks, turndowns, and losses.  I really think that if I had read that story back when I was struggling as a University player, I would have doubled down and not given up. I think I would have done more and practiced more and pushed myself to the limits, maybe even seeking out a personal coach. Here is a summary of Cousy’s story.

Bob Cousy didn’t pick up a single basketball until he was 12 years old and although he tried, he was cut from the school team twice back then. He kept practicing and practicing though. Then he slipped and fell and broke his right arm but he still didn’t give up. He just switched to using his left hand to shoot ball. Wow. He was now ambidextrous and became the star player of the team. After high school, he went on to play college and earned an All-American statue 3 times, helping his team win 26 straight games. He turned pro in 1950 and went on to be voted MVP in 1957 and then received many other great honors including induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1970.

Think about that and what huge determination and perseverance it must have taken for him to stick with his dream. We all have setbacks and losses so the real key or secret to success for almost any goal or venture is to NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP! It’s a very wise person who seeks help from others through books and seminars, or pushing super successful people to be your coach, your teacher, and your inspiration.  So, bottom line here is, if you have set big goals and dreams and you haven’t yet been successful yet, rededicate yourself to those dreams and never give up.

Try, Try Again

My beautiful wife, Kimberly, gave me a great book not too long ago. I read it and set it aside but then couldn’t find it, until last week. Yay! The book, by Darcy Andries, is entitled The Secret of Success…It’s Not a Secret.  The book gives the details of the struggles, the setbacks, the failures, and the great losses that many eventually successful and now famous people had. Elvis Presley, Billy Crystal, Michael J. Fox, John Grisham, Tennessee Williams, Colonel Sanders, Andrew Carnegie, Al Pacino, Oprah Winfrey, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Bob Cousy, Sylvester Stallone, and Robin Williams are just a few of the names from the list Andries gives of over 200 people who were initially rejected and pushed aside, only to come back strong and become super successful.

One name from that big list of super successful people is a guy I know by the name of Richard Paul Evans. He wrote the immensely successful book, The Christmas Box, which sold over 7 million copies. What is so fascinating about Richard’s beginning as an author is that it’s so similar to mine. We both got rejected and turned down by many, many book publishers. Nobody seemed to care or be interested in our books at all.

Both Richard and I did the same thing after all those rejections. We both went to print shops and paid to have our book printed. I printed 1,000 copies of my book and began selling and giving them away. Richard, however, really out did me on that one. He eventually printed 700,000 books – although not all at once – and sold them over time.

The big news was that after we had our own publishing successes, we each had big time New York publishers contact us, eventually getting contracts with them to print and distribute our books to bookstores. Richard’s publisher actually paid $4.2 million for the rights to his book. No, my book deals were not that profitable, but I must say, selling all those books myself did lead me to doing seminars and publishing a newsletter which itself became a huge part of the fortune that I’ve been so blessed to have amassed.

It is so amazing that so very many big time famous names and people had huge struggles when they started but they stuck to the old proverb, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” I would add that if you keep trying, and never give up, you will most likely end up with your big dreams coming true.

I think, in the next few weeks, I will share with you some of the stories of these famous people who had big time failures but went on to have super successful lives, people who dug themselves out of a deep hole because they never gave up.