It’s been a while since I spoke withmy friend who I consider to be the wisest man in the world. On this visit, as usual, he sparked up an
amazing conversation. He spoke to me about
his life long commitment to befriend exceptional people. He said they empower him to raise the stakes
in his personal and professional ambitions.
He spoke in detail about what he learned from them. More importantly, he spoke about the
unexpected and sometimes twisted path to become extraordinary.
To start, he stated, most people are
unwilling to
pay the price of entry to live an extraordinary life. He went on to say while practicing, planning
and preparing are definitely important, they are not enough to be exceptional. To be exceptional, you have to learn to see
the world from uncommon perspectives.
He continued with: in my
observation, the most extraordinary people I know never had lives that moved in
straight lines. Their lives met with
derailment, failure and roadblocks. Yet,
they persevered.
What I found most interesting was
the manner in which people’s lives were completely transformed. Many people experience the birth of their
first child as life changing. And it can
be. Except, there are many people with
children and their lives rarely transform in a way that makes them
exceptional. For most people, life
changing means do more, better or different of the thing one has always
done.
On the other hand, the paradox of
extraordinary people is they often encounter a situation that may appear
unbearable at first. Even though it can
sometimes be a situation that makes one want to give up, it changes them and
their view of the world. As a word of
caution, if it is a temporary situation, the transformation will be temporary.
For example, there is a company that
does personality assessments. This
particular company had done assessments of people working for businesses in the
World Trade Center before September 11th, 2001. After the collapse of the towers, many of the
same people took the personality assessment.
As a result of the incident, there were significant changes to people’s
personalities. However, three years
later the same people took the assessments again. This time their personalities returned to pre
911 results. While I’m sure there were
some who transformed permanently, the vast majority of people returned to who
they had always been.
From what I’ve observed, people who
transform permanently experience prolonged strife like war, death of a loved one,
failure, terminal illness or an accident that impairs their physical
abilities. For others, it can be an
experience in another country, soul mate, workshop or a one-time encounter with
a stranger.
Whether the experience is perceived
as positive or negative, it is usually unexpected and disruptive to one’s
life. In some way, those exceptional
people’s view of reality was permanently altered. They not only saw the world differently. They saw themselves differently.
While their circumstance first
appeared unfortunate, it is often the harsh encounters with life that caused
them to think differently and take actions that once seemed uncharacteristic of
them. In fact, those situations forced them
from their projected paths and placed them into entirely new
possibilities. Each and every
extraordinary person I know has a story of misfortune that became his or her
catalyst for success. At first, it is
difficult to see the connection. Except,
if extraordinary people examine their lives thoroughly, without fail, there
will be a story of adversity that changed them forever.
For those who endeavor to live a
life without adversity or failure, they are cheating themselves. Unfortunate circumstances can break people
out of ordinary thinking. It forces one
to see themselves and the world from new perspectives. While it is true adversity can be
disheartening, there is usually a silver lining, even if it is a lesson.
What
do you think? I would love to hear your feedback. And I’m open to ideas. Or if
you want to write me about a specific topic, let me know.
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