Karen Restivo
In Other Words....
Success stories are the best! Millions of books researching the backgrounds of successful people, at the top of their game globally, sell like hot cakes.
Everyone wants to find out the secret kernel of magic that can mean the difference between an eight to five job, sitting behind a desk for the next 30 years, and living life as a billionaire traveling the world over.
After reading James Clear’s article Successful People Start Before They Feel Ready, I knew I hit gold.
Clear’s person of interest, a young boy who dropped out of school and kept starting things despite his inexperience and lack of knowledge, just so happened to be billionaire, Sir Richard Branson.
Clear met Sir Richard Branson in a conference room in Moscow, Russia.
The author was so impressed that despite the fact there were a hundred other people in the room, it felt like they were having a conversation in Branson’s living room.
The billionaire was smiling and laughing, and his answers seemed unrehearsed and genuine.
In his article, Clear (as best he can) shares Branson’s version of how he started Virgin Airlines:
“I (Branson) was in my late twenties, so I had a business, but nobody knew who I was at the time.
“I was headed to the Virgin Islands and I had a very pretty girl waiting for me, so I was, umm, determined to get there on time.
“At the airport, my final flight to the Virgin Islands was cancelled because of maintenance or something. It was the last flight out that night.
“I thought this was ridiculous, so I went and chartered a private airplane to take me to the Virgin Islands, which I did not have the money to do.
“Then, I picked up a small blackboard, wrote ‘Virgin Airlines-$29’ on it and went over to the group of people who had been on the flight that was cancelled.
“I sold tickets for the rest of the seats on the plane, used their money to pay for the chartered plane, and we all went to the Virgin Islands that night.”?
Clear remembers after listening to him, “Branson sat on a panel with industry experts to talk about the future of business.
“As everyone around him was filling the air with business buzzwords conjuring up complex ideas for the future, Branson was saying things like: ‘Screw it, just get on and do it.’
“Which was closely followed by: ‘Why can’t we mine asteroids?’”
Clear realized, then and there, that the person who sounded the most simplistic was, the only billionaire on the panel, which prompted him to ask the question:
What’s the difference between Branson and everyone else in the room?
He concluded, “When everyone else balks or comes up with a good reason for why the time isn’t right, Branson gets started.
He figures out how to stop procrastinating and takes the first step - even if it seems outlandish.”
You see this common thread though out his life.
According to Clear, Branson was a dyslexic 16-year-old boy in 1966 that dropped out of school and with the help of a friend, started a magazine for students and made money by selling advertisements to local businesses.
Four years later, Branson grew his small magazine and started selling mail order records to the students who bought the magazine.
Sales were going well, so he built his first record store the next year and two years later opened his own record label and recording studio.
His first record label release was by a local artist named Mike Oldfield who created the hit song “Tubular Bells.”
It sold over five million copies.
Eventually Branson added bands like the Sex Pistols, Culture Club, and the Rolling Stones.?
Clear notes, “If you want to summarize the habits of successful people into one phrase, it’s this: ‘successful people start before they feel ready.’”
Branson’s business empire, Virgin, was chosen because when Branson and his partners started they were “virgins” when it came to business.
Branson has a long list of businesses, ventures, charities and expeditions that more than likely he didn’t feel completely prepared to run.
He started an airline company but had no background in plane engineering or much less how to fly a plane.
Clear concludes, “Branson is a perfect example of why the ‘chosen ones’ choose themselves.
“A side effect of doing challenging work is that you’re pulled by excitement and pushed by confusion at the same time.
“You’re bound to feel uncertain, unprepared, and unqualified. But let me assure you of this: what you have right now is enough.”
In other words, take this grand success scheme and bring it down to the every day level.
Even if your goal is to lose weight, write a book, sign up for the next C.A.S.T. audition, run for school board, city council or mayor, James Clear reminds his readers that who you are, what you have, and what you know right now is good enough to get going.
Karenrestivo57@gmail.com