“What is the secret to success?”
Folks ask this question, in various forms, of every great person or those who interview great people. Whole massive tomes have been written about this subject.
What does Larry King – who has performed over 40,000 interviews over a 60-year career with worldwide celebrities, politicians, athletes and newsmakers from JFK and Vladimir Putin, to the Dalai Lama and Lady Gaga – give as an answer to this question?
“Get started”.
I am sure you’re saying to yourself, “Is that’s it? There should be further to it than that, right?”
Correct. Accomplishments involve greater than just a beginning. But, just putting one foot in front of the other puts you in an elite group. Why? Because most people never do.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed up in overalls and looks like work.
– Thomas Edison
History is made by those who show up
– Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli
Decisions are made by those who show up
– President Harry Truman, or Comedian Woody Allen, no one seems to know.
Nat King Cole told Larry King:
There are two kinds of people in the world: Ninety-eight percent sit on the porch and watch the fox hunt. And whoever catches the fox, they applaud. Two percent chase the fox. I always chase the fox.
According to Mr King Cole you multiple your odds by nearly fifty, just by entering the chase.
This same sentiment is echoed by Jocko Willink (@jockowillink), a legend in the Special Operations world. Willink enrolled in the Navy US at 18 years old and spent 20 years initially as an enlisted SEAL operator and then as a SEAL officer. During his second tour in Iraq, he led SEAL Task Unit Bruiser in the Battle of Ramadi–some of the toughest and sustained combat in the SEAL Teams since Vietnam.
Under his leadership, Task Unit Bruiser became the most highly decorated Special Operations Unit of the entire war in Iraq and helped bring stability to Ramadi. Jocko was awarded the Bronze Star and a Silver Star.
In his book, ‘Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual’, Willink states:
People want to know how to stop laziness. They want to know how to stop procrastination. They have an idea in their head, maybe even a vision, but they don’t know where to start, so they ask and they say, ‘Where do I start? When is the best time to start?’ And I have a simple answer. Hear and now.
That’s it. You want to improve? You want to get better? You want to get on a workout program? Or a clean diet? Or start a new business? You wanna write a book or make a movie or build a house or a computer or an app? Where do you start?
You start right here. When do you start? You start right now.
You initiate action. You go. Here is the reality: that idea isn’t going to execute itself. That book isn’t going to right itself. Those weights, out in the gym, they ain’t going to move themselves. You have to do it. And you have to do it now.
So, stop thinking about it. Stop dreaming about it. Stop researching every aspect of it and reading all about it and debating the pros and cons of it. Start doing it.
Take that first step and make it happen. Get after it! Here and now
Most persons are always scheming their entrance. They are constantly chattering about their plans, what they are “gonna do.”
“Speak to me next year, I’m gonna write my book, then my fame is gonna really get going.”
“I’m gonna start a business, mate. It’s gonna be the hottest ticket in town. I cannot wait to amaze you!”
And when you see them the next year, they always have excuses why they couldn’t start this year, but very soon, they’re gonna…
And the next year…
And the year after that….
The depressing thing is that several people might be effective if they obeyed Nat’s guidance. “Get off the porch… Chase the fox”. Get after it. That is an everyday trait of successful people and effective leaders. They are go-getters.
Few persons typify this characteristic above Bill Gates. In an interview with Gates and his father in 2010, when his father was questioned if Bill ever disappointed him, his father said that it was the gloomiest day of his life when Bill left Harvard to build computers. Stuff worked out fine.
What is extraordinary about Gate’s choice to practice with computers is what preceded this choice. Bill in his third year at Harvard when his lifelong buddy, Paul Allen, brought him a magazine piece on the “Altair 8800,” the world’s initial ‘micro-computer’. These days, we may just refer to it a computer, but at that time they were much larger than what we expect today, that is why “micro-computer”.
Identifying the chance, Gates and Allen called the constructer and informed him that they had generated a version of the trendy computer language BASIC for the Altair. Consequently, they were asked to come to Albuquerque to display their creation. The only issue was, they had not actually programmed the software! Before going to Albuquerque, Gates and Allen had to construct it from thin air. Their demonstration was the initial time they had a chance to try it out! Incredible!
Not many persons would have dared do that? Even if someone had the software programming abilities of Gates and Allen, not many would have spotted an item in a magazine and made an attempt of phoning the business and constructing a program out of nothing. Even fewer would have had the cojones to go untested into their initial live demonstration. But that’s what made Gates and Allen unique. Their determination to “get off the porch” was a crucial junction for them — a crossroad that would go on to make them $110-billion-dollars.
A similar moment happened for Larry King himself when he was 23 years old, employed as a delivery driver in New York, helping to support his mother. He badly desired to be on the radio. One day, he had a chance meeting on the street with the head of announcers for CBS on the street. Brazenly, he asked him for some guidance. The CBS employee told him that there might be was growing opportunities for inexperienced radio announcers in Miami. King had an uncle that lived there so he packed up and moved south. He relocated his whole life based on a random discussion with a stranger on the street. He travelled with $11 in his pocket.
Business did not work out instantly. He had to bide his time. He worked at the station, doing menial work until he got his chance on the air. Even then, he did the crappy time slots and it was decades until he gained national recognition. But it all would not have happened if he didn’t ‘take the plunge’, stop dreaming about it and go get it!
He got off the porch. He got started.
The majority of persons allow defeat before they even make an attempt. They never get off the bench. If you have a objective that’s essential to you that you have been postponing, stop procrastinating. Seize the moment – carpe diem – and get off your arse. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking the first steps. With that one step, you will leave ninety-eight percent of persons in your wake. Once you have got off the bench, in the game, you will discover things that you would never have whilst you were chillaxing.
I will finish with another quote, perhaps apocryphal accredited to the German writer and poet, Goethe:
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
This is great advice. Goethe does not implore us to accomplish our dreams. That may be very difficult or require too many stars to align. He merely says to start. Only once you do, can it be possible for all those stars to align and lead you to situations you dared not dream possible.
That is how it worked for Larry King. That is how it works for Jocko Willink. That is how it’s worked for all the ‘winningest’ persons and leaders in the world. met.
And, if you get started now, it may just be how it will work for you, too.
Take care,
Scott
PS. If you enjoyed this post, please Share it using the social media links at the top bottom and sides.
PPS. If this blog post was not enough and you are looking for some reading matter to help inspire you to get started, why not try any of the titles below, or there are several other in my Books Club…
