Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.
—Bill Gates
That quote reminds me of my high school algebra teacher’s:
It’s not enough to be smart. You have to have good work habits! Good work habits!
Good for him. I still remember him over 60 years later.
Angela Duckworth elaborates more in Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance:
..grit grows as we figure out our life philosophy, learn to dust ourselves off after rejection and disappointment, and learn to tell the difference between low-level goals that should be abandoned quickly and higher-level goals that demand more tenacity. The maturation story is that we develop the capacity for long-term passion and perseverance as we get older.
Yep, passion and perseverance sounds good to me. In fact, it always has. Commitment and practice, patience and persistence, and watching your skills grow. The upside is you never wish you could go back to a younger age — you would have to give up too much.
that’s an interesting take on “success” – almost as if going the hard yards and taking a few knocks along the way is your best way forward… I have two minds on the matter, as I sit here and muse at the summary at Amazon on the book mentioned above – as always with me it’s “what if life had been better for me in my earlier days…”
And your comment CM about whether I would want to go back to a “younger age” – maybe if my actual childhood had been different, yes. But would I have done what I set out to do when I was in my early 20s made any difference…
I hope now, that I make better choices…especially since I didn’t make good ones when I had a big chance around 2004…
I think Gates is just saying when things come too easily then some people can’t handle it and give up when reality isn’t that simple. And if they’re too optimistic then they can overextend and find themselves in trouble. If you look at history some of the big disasters have been because of overoptimism.
I meant to say this earlier:,you have a lot of grit and I admire you for it!
My “grit” isn’t doing to well at the moment…maybe it will bounce back when I go off-outside of normal box. Thought of something to use up the now seemingly useless textiles, but will need to make a trip to a certain type of shop to see if it’s possible…more later.
Yes this isn’t what I was planning last week with the paper…that’s also still in planning stages..
Thomas A. Edison Quotes. … A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work. … Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.
And
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Amen to that!
All of us, including Bill Gates are wiser by hindsight. While life is being lived, being passionate etc do not occur to the individual concerned. What keeps him going is his basic instinct to keep living and do what the society expects of him. The privileged too go through the same but their lives revolve around on how not to be bored rather than live. Both types will pontificate when they are older.
Your method works for a lot of people, but I think neither yours nor mine describes Donald J. Trump! 😀
Yes, I’m definitely better at persisting with things now that I’m older. My 11½ years of blogging is a good example! When I was younger I gave up on things far too readily, I expected things to work out easily and when they didn’t, I just quit.
You started blogging about the same time I did. It’s rewarding, isn’t it?