This will probably blow your mind. It’s the greatest kept secret.
99% of the world is under the illusion that some people are luckier than others, have an easier time than others, and so forth…
People who live with this notion believe that some people are more fortunate while others are not.
As a result, millions of people live under the illusion that one day they’ll get the one lucky break, perhaps win the jackpot or lottery, that’ll get them to the ‘promised land’.
What misconception!
Of course this is all bullshit created by Hollywood movies, fiction writers and the media to hype the idea that some people are luckier than others. It’s the biggest lie ever told.
That’s why there’s a multi-billion dollar gambling industry.
That’s why there’s a multi-billion dollar betting industry.
Did you know that 90% of the world’s wealth is controlled by about 1,000 families?
You heard that right – 1,000 families. Can you believe that?
Strangely, these families did not get there by a stroke of luck as you might imagine. They worked hard and many of them faced many odds, failure and rejection to get there.
Now, let’s get back to our greatest kept secret. It’s the world’s most treasured secret. It was crafted by the wisest man who ever lived on the face of the earth and also the richest man ever. He was also the greatest king who ever lived.
This is what he wrote in his own words:
“I returned and saw under the sun that –
The race is not to the swift,
Nor the battle to the strong,
Nor bread to the wise,
Nor riches to men of understanding,
Nor favour to men of skill,
But time and chance happen to them all.”
- Ecclesiastes 9:11
If you think this is religion, think again!
At its very best, this is called wisdom – and without it you will never even come close to joining the list of 10,000,000 wealthiest families in the world.
Is it possible? YES!
Is it easy? NO!
No one ever had it easy in life. None. This is a fact you can take to the bank any time. And you better come to terms with this fact sooner or you’ll never make it. And if you think those who inherited wealth or won a lottery has it easy, think again. A survey of lottery winners in the US, found that a staggering 80% of all lottery winners had lost it all within only 5 years.
The industrial revolution is regarded as the first technology revolution because it revolutionized the way wealth was created by automating production.
Subsequent technology revolutions such as the computer revolution, the PC revolution and the information revolution completely transformed wealth creation. The information revolution has completely democratized wealth creation regardless of age, race, color or geographical location.
The Forbes list of 400 top billionaires in the US indicates that over 69% of new billionaires are self-made. Eleven of those billionaires are women.
According to king Solomon’s statement mentioned earlier, everybody on earth has a chance (opportunity). While your opportunity may not be similar to mine, some opportunities are hard to implement and take years to bear fruit, others are easy and can yield results within days, weeks or months.
Life never brings opportunities in any particular order. Opportunities are like sea waves – some high, some low. And events cannot be predicted with certainty. It’s up to you to choose which wave you want to ride. However, life expects you to choose at least one opportunity and implement it without complaining.
The problem is that most people want things to happen faster and under their terms. The difference between success and failure depends on how you implement an opportunity without complaining. The difference is in the implementation.
Most people prefer to have it easy in life but in reality, things don’t go the way we want them. And when they fail, they blame it on bad luck or misfortune. The fact that you have tried something and failed doesn’t mean you should abandon it. Falling doesn’t mean failure. You can always try again. You only fail when you don’t stand up again.
Before going any further, I’d like to make a bold statement:
SUCCESS OR FAILURE IS DETERMINED BY THE CHOICES WE MAKE, NOT BY LUCK.
If we were to take this one step further, we will remember what someone once said:
“I’m a great believer in luck. I’ve found that the harder I work, the more I have of it.” – Thomas Jefferson
Another important thing to remember is that when making choices in life, we should choose very wisely and carefully. The same goes for all life’s choices such as choosing a career, choosing a life partner, or making a business decision and so on… The reason is that a single mistake can cost you a lifetime.
This fact is further proven by surveying some people in history who despite many odds, made significant impact in life.
Let’s see a few examples:
See this guy here? His name is Thomas Alva Edison, considered America's greatest inventor.
Born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio, Edison attended school only for a short time. He was often sickly and went to school when he was eight. He did so poorly in school that his teacher said he was incapable of learning. His mother, a former school teacher herself, took it upon herself to educate her son at home.
At this point most people would have given up.
Edison developed a passion for reading at a young age, a habit he kept for the rest of his life. He spent most of his lunch times at the Detroit Free Library where he would immerse himself in books. Edison enjoyed the support of his mother, who often stood by his side, and he would study everything he could lay his hands on including history, economics, mathematics and science. He developed a particular keen interest in science and started making scientific experiments in their home basement.
Edison developed an entrepreneurial spirit at an early age of 12, when he started selling fruits, sweets, snacks and newspapers on a moving train as a newspaper vendor and even printed his own local newspaper called the Grand Trunk Herald.
At age 16, Edison became a telegraph machine operator and learned how to send messages using “morse code”. But even then, Edison continued to work on his experiments and noticed many improvements that could be made on the telegraph machine. What Edison really wanted was to become an inventor.
His first experiments such as the electric rat-trap and the electric vote-counter failed because nobody wanted his inventions.
With the $40,000 the Western Union Telegraph Company paid him for his innovations, Edison decided to set up a small workshop in Newark, New Jersey.
At this workshop, Edison invented major improvements on the telegraph and the telephone. This workshop became his base for subsequent inventions including the new stock ticker, the phonograph, electric hearing aid, and his most famous invention – the electric light lamp.
Edison was so obsessed with the electric light bulb project that, he is said to literally spend many hours working on it, and failed about 10,000 times.
Edison also worked on X-rays, storage batteries, and the first talking doll. He also worked on one of his greatest ideas: motion pictures (movies).
Edison’s inventions changed the way we live even today. He held many inventions and patents to his credit.
By the time of his death in October, 1931, aged 84, Thomas Alva Edison held or controlled a total of 1,093 US patents in his name, and a total of 1,239 foreign patents.
Steve Jobs
Born in 1955, Steve Paul Jobs was put up for adoption at birth by his biological parents who could not get married due to interracial barriers. His biological father was Syrian while his biological mother, Joanne Schieble Simpson, was a Catholic Swiss of German descent.
Jobs grew up against many odds, which most people would consider a streak of bad luck. Growing up as a child, Jobs lived a troubled life at home and in school.
His adopted parents put him to Reed College in 1972 but he soon dropped out of college so he could drop in to the more interesting subjects like calligraphy and typefaces. These being the hippy days of the 70s, Jobs found himself caught up right in the middle of the hippy culture, using marijuana and LSD. In 1974, he started on a journey, travelling through India to find enlightenment and also studied Zen Buddhism.
In 1976 Jobs and his friend, Steve Wozniak founded Apple and released their first computer, the Apple I, to the market. A year later, Jobs and Wozniak followed with the Apple II computer, which became very successful, making them both famous and wealthy.
Jobs story didn’t end there. In 1985, under intense pressure from John Scully, then Apple’s CEO, resigned and formed a new company called NeXT. His former company, Apple didn’t do very well after Job’s departure, and was at the verge of collapse when the board decided to buy Job’s new company, NeXT.
In 1997, Apple merged with NeXT Inc. with Jobs becoming CEO of the new setup. Later that year, Jobs introduced a blueprint that would culminate in the hugely successful range of Apple products including Mac OS X, iMac, iPhone, iPad, iTunes, iPod, and Apple Store.
At the time of Jobs’ death in 2011, Apple’s market capitalization was about $500 billion.
Apple’s current market capitalization is more than $945 billion.
Jack Ma
If there’s a man who has been undermined by a streak of failures and misfortunes, it’s this guy right here.
His name is Jack Ma, Chairman of the Alibaba Group and the richest man in China with a fortune of US$42.4 billion as of March, 2018.
If there’s anyone whose life was characterized by challenges, failure and rejection it’s Jack Ma, who through determination, resolve, hard work, agility, and vision, has built a multibillion-dollar global e-commerce technology giant called Alibaba.
Born in September 1964 in Hangzhou, China, Jack Ma (Ma Yun), showed traits of revolutionary ideas since childhood often being branded as crazy by his detractors. His father was one of his greatest detractors often warning him that his ideas might one day land him in jail.
When he was 12, he got interested in learning English. For eight years, he would ride his bike for 40 minutes every morning come rain or snow, to a hotel near Hangzhou's West Lake district, a distance of about 100 miles southwest of Shanghai, to show tourists around as an unofficial tour guide and they would teach him English.
Jack Ma learned more from his failures than through the conventional systems of education.
He failed a key primary school test two times.
He failed the middle school test three times.
He failed the college entrance exam three times, and only passed after attempting the forth time.
After college graduation, he was rejected for most of the jobs he applied for.
He was the only one who was rejected out of five applicants to the police force.
He was the only one who was rejected at KFC out of 24 applicants. All the other 23 applicants were accepted.
He applied to join 30 American universities (including Harvard) and was rejected by all of them.
In the late 1990s, after starting Alibaba, Jack Ma tried to get funding from several venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and got rejected for “running an unprofitable business model”.
Not being deterred by the failures, Jack returned to China and assembled a group of 17 friends to build Alibaba.
With a net worth of US$42.4 as of March 2018, Jack Ma is currently one of the wealthiest people in China and also one of the wealthiest people in the world
Looking back at the lives of these people, no one would ever have imagined that one day, they would have an easier time. Not by any stretch of imagination.
Later on, however, most people would probably agree that these people were very lucky, perhaps even fortunate.
Were all these people lucky? At one time NO, but generally, YES.
Were all these people unlucky? YES, at one point you’d say they were, but generally, NO.
Did they do anything about it? YES, they kept trying without regarding failure and not looking at the odds up against them
Were they successful? Again, YES, beyond anyone’s wildest dreams including themselves.
This post was originally written by Flavian Nwasi (Serial Entrepreneur, Business Advisor, Success Couch).To read more articles by the same author on Quora please follow this link. https://www.quora.com/profile/Flavian-Mwasi
