One of the best quotes on success I have in my collection was the one written by novelist Somerset Maugham. It goes this way: "The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people cruel and bitter."
Some of the famous people never experience success overnight. In fact, some of them have to work hard to reach what they want in life. Most of them grew up in abject poverty and their only way out was to become successful. Hard work, determination, and perseverance – these are the attitudes most of them have.
Look at our very own Manny Pacquiao. He was born poor and had to step into the boxing ring at an early age to help his mother feed the family and allow him to go to school. When he was 15, his trainer brought him to Manila, where he worked in a tailoring shop during the day and trained after 5 pm.
"I learned to sew," said the boxer who earned more than US$15 million when he fought against the welterweight Oscar dela Hoya last December. He did other odd jobs like working in a construction as a painter and welder. He sold flowers in front of the church every Sunday morning. "That’s how tough my life was."
In the boxing arena, he won his first 12 fights before he lost by knock-out. After that, he went back to work in a construction. When he told a friend that he would stop boxing because he lost already, he was chastised instead. "That’s part of boxing," he was told. "You’re a good fighter, that loss will give you a lesson in boxing."
Thinking it over, he went back to training again after a month of hiatus. And it was all the way up. "Boxing helps you to discipline your self, but it is very, very difficult," he told Jim Plouffe, the editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest for a cover story. "I think boxing is not only a sport but also a business."
It was also poverty that drove Chinese martial arts superstar Jackie Chan to become what he is now. "When I was young," he says, "we were very poor. The Red Cross gave me milk, rice, clothes."
When he was seven, his parents accepted housekeeping jobs in Australia. He was left under the care of a martial-arts master at a Beijing opera school in Hong Kong. It was here that he learned about life. At 5 in the morning, Jackie and his schoolmates practiced acrobatics, stick fighting and knife fighting. After lunch, it was singing and dancing lessons and martial arts. At midnight, Jackie would climb into bed, exhausted and often hungry.
He was still a student when he started acting. He appeared in more than a dozen films but he was not contented with what was going on with his life. "My only ambition was to be a stunt man," he admits.
In the early 1970s, he was already known as a daring stunt man. Wanting to get out from the ranks of Hong Kong’s movie extras, he tried out for the remake of a Bruce Lee film, New Fist of Fury, and won the role. Although it was a success, he never wanted to follow the footsteps of the late action hero. And in Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, he finally emerged his own man. And the rest is history.
Know what you want and continue to pursue that dream. That seems to be Jackie Chan’s mantra. But if you think you are not made to become what you want, try another career which may lead you to your first ambition. It happened to best-selling novelist Michael Crichton.
The creator of the television drama ER always wanted to be a writer. But as an undergraduate at Harvard University, he found the standards of the English department impossibly high.
Frustrated, he submitted an essay written by George Orwell for an assignment on Gulliver’s Travels. When the paper got a B-minus, Crichton decided to become a doctor instead. "I had read somewhere that there are only about 200 Americans who can make a living from writing full time," he said. "I thought, I can’t be one of the 200 people in America. That’s too hard."
To pay the bills while attending Harvard Medical School, however, Crichton wrote thrillers. Then he published The Andromeda Strain, an immediate hit. He never bothered with his medical internship after that.
"Successful people are not gifted; they just work hard – then succeed on purpose," said G.K. Nielson.
Dr. Jean-Louise Etienne, the man who walked alone to the North Pole, explained what these forays into the world of ice and snow bring him: "There are two great times of happiness: when you are haunted by a dream, and when you realize it. Between the two, there’s a lot of uncertainty, a strong urge to let it all drop. But you have to follow your dreams to the end. There are abandoned bicycles in every garage because their owners’ backsides got too sore the first time they rode them. They didn’t understand that pain is a necessary part of learning.
"I almost gave up a thousand times before reaching those moments of happiness when I forgot that I was cold. You can accomplish this through painting or music, provided you concede that, before you can play a Bach sonata, you must first learn to play scales. It is only through perseverance that each of us can find himself. It is up to each of us to find his own Pole."
For comments, write me at henrytacio@gmail.com
Some of the famous people never experience success overnight. In fact, some of them have to work hard to reach what they want in life. Most of them grew up in abject poverty and their only way out was to become successful. Hard work, determination, and perseverance – these are the attitudes most of them have.
Look at our very own Manny Pacquiao. He was born poor and had to step into the boxing ring at an early age to help his mother feed the family and allow him to go to school. When he was 15, his trainer brought him to Manila, where he worked in a tailoring shop during the day and trained after 5 pm.
"I learned to sew," said the boxer who earned more than US$15 million when he fought against the welterweight Oscar dela Hoya last December. He did other odd jobs like working in a construction as a painter and welder. He sold flowers in front of the church every Sunday morning. "That’s how tough my life was."
In the boxing arena, he won his first 12 fights before he lost by knock-out. After that, he went back to work in a construction. When he told a friend that he would stop boxing because he lost already, he was chastised instead. "That’s part of boxing," he was told. "You’re a good fighter, that loss will give you a lesson in boxing."
Thinking it over, he went back to training again after a month of hiatus. And it was all the way up. "Boxing helps you to discipline your self, but it is very, very difficult," he told Jim Plouffe, the editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest for a cover story. "I think boxing is not only a sport but also a business."
It was also poverty that drove Chinese martial arts superstar Jackie Chan to become what he is now. "When I was young," he says, "we were very poor. The Red Cross gave me milk, rice, clothes."
When he was seven, his parents accepted housekeeping jobs in Australia. He was left under the care of a martial-arts master at a Beijing opera school in Hong Kong. It was here that he learned about life. At 5 in the morning, Jackie and his schoolmates practiced acrobatics, stick fighting and knife fighting. After lunch, it was singing and dancing lessons and martial arts. At midnight, Jackie would climb into bed, exhausted and often hungry.
He was still a student when he started acting. He appeared in more than a dozen films but he was not contented with what was going on with his life. "My only ambition was to be a stunt man," he admits.
In the early 1970s, he was already known as a daring stunt man. Wanting to get out from the ranks of Hong Kong’s movie extras, he tried out for the remake of a Bruce Lee film, New Fist of Fury, and won the role. Although it was a success, he never wanted to follow the footsteps of the late action hero. And in Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, he finally emerged his own man. And the rest is history.
Know what you want and continue to pursue that dream. That seems to be Jackie Chan’s mantra. But if you think you are not made to become what you want, try another career which may lead you to your first ambition. It happened to best-selling novelist Michael Crichton.
The creator of the television drama ER always wanted to be a writer. But as an undergraduate at Harvard University, he found the standards of the English department impossibly high.
Frustrated, he submitted an essay written by George Orwell for an assignment on Gulliver’s Travels. When the paper got a B-minus, Crichton decided to become a doctor instead. "I had read somewhere that there are only about 200 Americans who can make a living from writing full time," he said. "I thought, I can’t be one of the 200 people in America. That’s too hard."
To pay the bills while attending Harvard Medical School, however, Crichton wrote thrillers. Then he published The Andromeda Strain, an immediate hit. He never bothered with his medical internship after that.
"Successful people are not gifted; they just work hard – then succeed on purpose," said G.K. Nielson.
Dr. Jean-Louise Etienne, the man who walked alone to the North Pole, explained what these forays into the world of ice and snow bring him: "There are two great times of happiness: when you are haunted by a dream, and when you realize it. Between the two, there’s a lot of uncertainty, a strong urge to let it all drop. But you have to follow your dreams to the end. There are abandoned bicycles in every garage because their owners’ backsides got too sore the first time they rode them. They didn’t understand that pain is a necessary part of learning.
"I almost gave up a thousand times before reaching those moments of happiness when I forgot that I was cold. You can accomplish this through painting or music, provided you concede that, before you can play a Bach sonata, you must first learn to play scales. It is only through perseverance that each of us can find himself. It is up to each of us to find his own Pole."
For comments, write me at henrytacio@gmail.com
