By Matata Mercy
Do you know what it takes to be successful?
Today i will share with you a few stories that show the mindset of successful people among us.
1. You will always have a choice.
One woman called Ursula Burns grew up in the outskirts of Newyork in the 1960s and 1970s.
The odds of being successful were against her. She was black, female and also poor. And therefore life was going to be hard.
Her mother worked hard to the extent of taking on extra jobs and she saved as much money as she could.
She did this inorder to take care of Ursula and her siblings.
Above all that her mother did, her mother most importantly told her and her siblings that where they are right now should not define them.
They always had a choice. They could do the best with what they had.
Ursula Burns worked her ass off and studied engineering at Brookyln polytechnic school.
She managed to graduate although she had alot of catching up to do in her studies and social life.
After graduating, she worked herself up from bottom to become the chief executive officer of Xerox.
She has since been sitting on the boards of some of the largest companies in the world including Exxon Mobil, Uber and also Veon which is one of the largest telecommunication companies in the world.
After being inspired by her mother's words of encouragement, Ursula Burns believed in what the psychologists call a growth mindset which is actually the belief that you have some degree of personal influence over your life.
This is incontrast to a fixed mindset where you have little or no influence over your life.
The truth is that there are things in your life that you can control and the things that you cannot.
You do not have any control over where you were born, whether you are male or female, black or white, whether your family is rich or poor.
These things do matter and they will obviously impact your life in many ways.
While you may not be to blame for these situations, you are responsible for your situation.
It was not Ursula's fault that she was born into a poor family or that she was black and female.
But instead of developing the victim mentality and defining herself as poor, she turned that around and used it as an inspiration to succeed.
She decided to own her scars and wear them openly instead of using them as a reason to not even try.
Similarly, you might be fat, poor or prone to mental illness.
But it is your responsibility to fïgure out how to deal with your situation.
No one else can figure out your emotional wounds but you. No one else can fix your toxic relationship with money but you.
No one else can make that person love you but you. No one else can make you lose weight but you.
Am not saying that you should do it alone, you can find help through a mentor or financially.
But the truth is that for better or worse the responsibility lies on you.
2. You should be biased towards action.
One man called Chuck Close was orphaned at a tender age of eleven.
When he was a teenager, Chuck was told not to go to college since he had multiple learning disabilities to the extent that he could not add or subtract.
His teachers told him that he could only succeed in trade since he was good with his hands.
Chuck close has become an internationally renown painter and graphic artist whose works are hanging on famous walls around the world.
That is an amazing achievement given his early childhood struggles. Chuck Close wrote in notes to his younger self that inspiration is for amateurs.
You can wait for inspiration for the rest of your life. The rest of us show up and get to work.
Most people approach work in a completely different way, they wait for inspiration to hit them before they start work. Ideas are easy. Everyone has ideas.
But what matters is the execution of the ideas.
Few people can deal with the possibility that their ideas are bad. Their ideas remain just ideas.
Successful people don't just sit around and wait for inspiration.
They show up and get to work. So you better do something. Good luck.
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