This is a question only a very few can comprehend, understand, and answer. And, I’m one of them. When I was 16, I dropped out of high school and began my entrepreneurial journey. And, I never thought in my wildest dreams that I’d be as successful as I am.
Conversely, I never thought what success also brought along with it. Evil, greed, and a sensation of people that will constantly want something from you and a form of negativity that will do whatever it takes to bring you down. Blame it on social media. Blame it on our 140-character world. Blame it on our short attention span. But, the downside of this mentality is, people don’t want people to be successful. Most root for people to fail.
Welcome to today’s society, an age, an era where success is derived on a vanity 30-second news cycle that isn’t based on facts, but mere noise. The media has the power of the pen, so it can bring you down but in 30-seconds, make you famous. I never thought in my wildest dreams that our world would turn into this.
Just take a look at what’s happening in the world around us. Wars, Poverty, Crimes, Genocides – yet the #1 trending topic in America is about Bruce Jenner’s sex change. Is this what we should really care about?
I’ve been blessed to be successful, but if you were to ask what was harder? Cold calling at age 16 and closing that first deal, or dealing with the media, the vultures, the demons that come into your life that will do whatever it takes to demean you, to belittle you for their own selfish pride, gain, vain, or monetary reward? I would actually stumble to answer it. Simply, because I don’t understand the meaning of evil.
What can I answer is one thing. I still consider success a blessing and take the noise as a challenge. When, I wrote my book “The Dream”, which uncovers my first 25 years of my entrepreneurial journey, I knew if it could affect one person, it was well worth the 9-months it took to write it. Now, I can proudly say it’s affected it millions of people globally that look at entrepreneurship differently. I’m proud that my story that I shared can transcend people to do well with their lives. For me, that is one of the greatest feelings of success.
But, the reality still remains. The higher you reach. The likely you have the world waiting for you to fall. The key difference here is knowing you will fall to the prey of success, but no matter what, you get up and shine. Ignore the noise. Ignore the world. Keep doing you. And, eventually it will have no option but to revere what you do best.
You’re no longer doing it for yourself. You’re doing it for the millions of others that are waiting for your inspiration to live another day. To succeed, to fight, to live, to struggle, and most importantly to make their dreams come true.