TEN LESSONS FOR ACHIEVING GREATNESS
I’m giving a lecture to a class of high school students at my alma mater. I started writing my notes and was trying to sum up how you become an artist worth noting. As I wrote, I realized these ideas are applicable to life in general. I genuinely believe every teenager should read this.
Ironically, the list grew too long to fit into my lecture time, so this isn’t the talk I’m giving. But I hope you read it anyway.
FIGURE OUT WHO YOU ARE AND WHO YOU WANT TO BE- FIND YOUR VOICE
You can’t live a good life unless you become self-aware. You have to know what kind of person you are; both flaws and strengths. Then you have to know what kind of person you want to become. Do it in that order. You can’t get where you’re going if you don’t know where you are.
LEARN TO SELL YOURSELF
In some ways, this is the most important lesson. It doesn’t matter whether you are selling your art, going on a job interview or trying to get a date. You are the product and your job is to sell yourself. If you want to get where you want to be, you have to convince people to take a chance on you.
GO OUT AND EXPERIENCE THE WORLD
The world is so much bigger than it appears outside your window. Live in that world. Experience new things.
EMBRACE CHANGE
Only two things are inevitable: change and death. Do not fear them. Understand them. Accept them. Avoiding change is like defying the tide. You will get swept under. But if you embrace change, you can sometimes ride that wave to better shores.
DON’T JUST HANG OUT WITH PEOPLE WITH WHOM YOU AGREE
If you constantly find yourself agreeing with the people around you, it isn’t because you’re always right. It’s because you haven’t exposed yourself to new ideas. Without new ideas, you will always be limited and unable to grow.
LEARN THE RULES AND THEN FIND A RESPONSIBLE WAY TO BREAK THEM
If you want to stand out, at some point you will have to defy the status quo. But that doesn’t mean being reckless. Learn how things work. They work for a reason. Then, once you learn the rules, question them. But look before you leap. If you are an engineer building a bridge, don’t just abandon the rules of physics. Find a responsible way to try new things that won’t hurt anyone.
TAKE CALCULATED RISKS
You have to take risks if you want to do great things. Don’t be afraid to take risks. Risks can be good. But that doesn’t mean jumping out of a plane without a parachute. Consider what you’re doing. What will the risk cost? What is the benefit of taking the risk? Are there better ways to achieve your goals? And ultimately, is it worth it?
DON’T JUST LOOK OUT FOR YOURSELF
Here’s the truth. Success can be achieved easily through selfishness. It happens all the time. But if you only look out for yourself, you will never know what you can achieve by working with and supporting the people around you. True greatness requires more than one person’s skill set.
WHEN SOMETHING ISN’T WORKING, TAKE A STEP BACK
It’s easy to get tunnel vision when you’re focused. Problems arise. Maybe you’ve put countless hours and money into a project. You tell yourself, you have to make this work, only for you to get stuck. When that happens, step away. Hammering away at an immovable object does nothing. So try to find a new perspective to move it. And if you can’t make it work? If you’ve done everything you could possibly do to make it happen and just won’t? Don’t be afraid to walk away from something that isn’t working. To that end…
BE WILLING TO ADMIT YOU ARE WRONG
No one achieves greatness without humility. You aren’t perfect. You don’t need to have all the answers. And most importantly, more than anything else you need to understand… being wrong don’t make you a failure. But being too arrogant to concede that you are wrong IS failure.
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