Do you honestly think you will succeed?

I hear people talk a lot about success and the glamour that comes with it – the jets, women, travel, high-powered parties, influence, recognition… and I cannot help laughing sometimes.

The truth is most people are not ready for success.

Success, you see, is the exclusive preserve of the passionate loner. 

That is NOT true, many people will be quick to say, but people confuse the aftermath of success with the journey that gets one there.

From musicians like Michael Jackson or Kirk Franklin, to legendary sportsmen like Bruce Lee or Mohammed Ali, or world-renown entrepreneurs like Branson, Bill Gates or even teen tycoons like

Farrah Gray or Mark Zuckerberg, from studying them,  you realise that the throng of followers, fans, enthusiasts (from a business perspective) and investors, all came AFTER the ‘star’ had paid the price to be successful.

Success is about deciding to get ‘somewhere’, and achieving something that many have not, or do not have the strength to achieve, or attaining the uncommon – or even, the unseen.

That is why few are outstanding. Outstanding means you stand out.

It means you become a pariah.

It means you are going to be alone.

It means people will not understand you, will not accept you, will try to tell you what you want to achieve is impossible. If you DARE move on, people will shun you and some will even become enemies.

That journey means you will ‘shed’ friends. It means you decide to step out of your comfort zone to take on the capabilities needed to excel at your craft and to achieve, not just talk about, your dream. It means that you will get all grimy and dirty as you immerse yourself in what you believe in, for long enough to achieve lasting results – and then, finally, catch the spotlight, stand before the crowd, receive the awards, not be seen as ‘odd and weird’ but ‘unique, creative and thinking out of the box’!

But honestly, there is a greater chance that YOU will be a mediocre and will never stand out.

There is a greater chance that you will read this, and feel a verve from a chord that has been struck inside, but you will never act, you will never find the strength to change your life, you will keep on talking and laughing with your old friends, stuck in the sameness that you call your life, chanting the clichés of hope on the lips of everyone, assuming that a ‘breakthrough’ will happen one day, till you stand in front of the mirror and see a strand…of grey.

Most people will not succeed at anything.

Will you?