DON'T RAIL AGAINST YOUR OWN SUCCESS - Brittlestar’s Weekly Newsletter - Issue #45
This week’s podcast guest is Schitt’s Creek’s Karen Robinson! We had a fabulous talk about she was born in England, grew up in Jamaica and when she was a teen moved to… Drumheller, Alberta?
ReallyGreatPodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts
DON'T RAIL AGAINST YOUR OWN SUCCESS
Growing up I wanted to be a musician.
Well, a performer really.
Well… I just wanted to be rich and famous actually.
Rich and famous and all I’d have to do is jump around on stage, look cool in videos and sing every now and then. Sweet gig.
After decades of trying I realized that it was unlikely going to manifest itself. At least not to the level that I had imagined.
I had set up this notion of success and what that exactly looked like to the point that I was unaware of any other successes in my life.
Around 1999 we had created a solid web-based business. The work we did was pretty dry but it was making money. Enough money to support our little family AND hire a couple of staffers. It was by all accounts a ‘success’.
It took me ages to stop fighting that success. I would dismiss the work we did as unimportant in the grand scheme of my life simply because it wasn’t EXACTLY what I had dreamt success to be.
It didn’t fit the plan.
It was a sunny day in August 2000 when I went to the ATM. I inserted my card and withdrew some cash. Not a lot. Maybe $80.
Then it hit me. This was the first time I had withdrawn money from the ATN without treating it like a slot machine. I had no doubt there would be money in the account and I could access it.
Then I realized that even though our business wasn’t doing exactly what I wanted to devote my life to doing, it was a success. A tiny success… but a success.
Can you really do more than one thing in life?
I think we all know the answer to that. Yes. Of course. You can and will do many things in life.
Don’t rail against your successes. Appreciate them. Let them work for you.
As our business grew it allowed me to spend more time doing the stuff I really wanted to do… AND pay the bills.
And best of all… it led me to here. Right now. Writing this, for you.
Now THAT is a sweet gig.
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Author accepts his success by forcing toddler son to work