Cole
11-03-2005, 12:20 PM
From The Superman Syndrome book:
Prudent individuals set moderate goals. Visionaries set radical
unrealistic goals. Once the prudent man meets his goals he is
satisfied! Visionaries are never satisfied even when they can build
that castle in the sky. They then go look for Utopia. Did Helena
Rubinstein stop going to the office everyday after becoming the
richest woman in American? No! Did Picasso or Mother Teresa ever
retire? No! Will Donald Trump ever stop betting it all for the next
skyscraper? No chance! The moral of this is that overachieving zealots
must have new mountains to climb or get lost in mediocrity or crawl
into a bottle. New opportunities fuel their passions. Those who stop
dreaming are on the way to dying. Cite the example of the Great A&P
Tea Company. In 1960 they were the largest retailer in the world.
Caught up in their own succ! ess they decided to protect their assets
instead of using them to grow. They not only didn't prosper they fell
off the radar screen within a decade. In a growth environment you grow
or you die. They died.
Individuals who get turned on by life's possibilities must continue to
risk for life to be palatable. Basking in success like A&P leads to
atrophy. The less driven are the content to stop risking and not grow
but they pay the price, even if they are not aware of it. They become
couch potatoes or waste their talents on inane wanderlust. People grow
or deteriorate since there is no such thing as staying the same.
Psychologists have found that muscles shrivel up without use and that
the brain does the same. The emotional system lives by the same laws.
When Thomas Edison had made his fortune he could have retired to his
Ft. Myers estate and enjoyed the fruits of his past labors. But Edison
was a driven man and kept up a feverish pace until the day he died.
And that is precisely why he lived a long and productive life.
Success is tied inextricably to ardor. Zealots get more done and that
is why they tend to alter the world. The less passionate are less
likely to get ulcers or worse but their life is far less interesting.
What they perceive as prudent becomes their downfall. Passion led
Plato to open The Academy in Athens at age forty when the life
expectancy was thirty-six. He operated it while training such
stalwarts as Aristotle until he was eighty. Such passion for life and
career are the fuel that permits long life. Hyper-actives live much
longer than the average as they always have a reason to get up and get
after it every day. We live in the Internet Age, a world of e-mail not
snail-mail where cyber-speak is pervasive. Those who don't get on the
e-wave are destined to be wiped out in its wake.
Prudent individuals set moderate goals. Visionaries set radical
unrealistic goals. Once the prudent man meets his goals he is
satisfied! Visionaries are never satisfied even when they can build
that castle in the sky. They then go look for Utopia. Did Helena
Rubinstein stop going to the office everyday after becoming the
richest woman in American? No! Did Picasso or Mother Teresa ever
retire? No! Will Donald Trump ever stop betting it all for the next
skyscraper? No chance! The moral of this is that overachieving zealots
must have new mountains to climb or get lost in mediocrity or crawl
into a bottle. New opportunities fuel their passions. Those who stop
dreaming are on the way to dying. Cite the example of the Great A&P
Tea Company. In 1960 they were the largest retailer in the world.
Caught up in their own succ! ess they decided to protect their assets
instead of using them to grow. They not only didn't prosper they fell
off the radar screen within a decade. In a growth environment you grow
or you die. They died.
Individuals who get turned on by life's possibilities must continue to
risk for life to be palatable. Basking in success like A&P leads to
atrophy. The less driven are the content to stop risking and not grow
but they pay the price, even if they are not aware of it. They become
couch potatoes or waste their talents on inane wanderlust. People grow
or deteriorate since there is no such thing as staying the same.
Psychologists have found that muscles shrivel up without use and that
the brain does the same. The emotional system lives by the same laws.
When Thomas Edison had made his fortune he could have retired to his
Ft. Myers estate and enjoyed the fruits of his past labors. But Edison
was a driven man and kept up a feverish pace until the day he died.
And that is precisely why he lived a long and productive life.
Success is tied inextricably to ardor. Zealots get more done and that
is why they tend to alter the world. The less passionate are less
likely to get ulcers or worse but their life is far less interesting.
What they perceive as prudent becomes their downfall. Passion led
Plato to open The Academy in Athens at age forty when the life
expectancy was thirty-six. He operated it while training such
stalwarts as Aristotle until he was eighty. Such passion for life and
career are the fuel that permits long life. Hyper-actives live much
longer than the average as they always have a reason to get up and get
after it every day. We live in the Internet Age, a world of e-mail not
snail-mail where cyber-speak is pervasive. Those who don't get on the
e-wave are destined to be wiped out in its wake.