Is there an age when you should give up, grow up & stop chasing success?
I wanted to take a moment to ‘come out’ & admit my greatest shame. I have carried this burden for over 35 years. Today, I decided this is the time, place & indeed the moment to admit my sheer, unadulterated embarrassment.
Perhaps I should set the scene & add a little context, to do that, let’s take things way back & introduce ‘Little Steven’.
From being a small, curious, slightly weird boy I always had big ideas. My head was constantly full of dreams & I was always amazed that others were not just like me.
Oh, they would declare that they wish they had such & such, they would half-heartedly tell you what they hoped to achieve but their eyes never really connected with the words. I could have explained the things I wanted in glorious technicolor detail, I felt them deep down inside.
I have a memory of sitting in the last ever revision class, 1 day before my final exam for chemistry, I was writing about ice cream.
No, I was not examining the properties of vanilla swirl when combined with magnesium sulfate & caramel flavour sprinkles.
I was plotting my course to the top. I could almost see the headline above my smiling visage on the cover of Success magazine.
You see, I was head & shoulders above the other kids in my entrepreneurial aforethought & had decided I had absolutely no use for a certificate to say I understood the inorganic properties of chocolate buttons.
Oh yes, I knew I was an intellectual giant, something to truly behold when compared to my peers.
I knew I would have no use for academic achievements or certificates because I had just written a foolproof plan for how I would have a fleet of 20 ice cream vans by the time I was 21.
Me still trying for success. with my firstborn circa 1992, full of hope for the future.
Starting with a single vehicle, I would create a perpetually, self-funding, compound effect & grow my business exponentially. Each van would raise the capital for the next.
I was clearly a bloody genius!
There were 1 or 2 tiny problems. I couldn’t drive, I had no money, & I didn’t really understand the ice cream business.
Nevertheless, I didn’t let these inconsequential stumbling blocks stop me from wasting my revision sessions before my other exams. You can probably guess what happened next.
I started work in the first of many, dead-end jobs instead, it seemed the prudent course of action considering the qualifications I ‘didn’t’ leave school with at 16.
In my third job in the first year of being an ‘alleged’ adult, I met a guy who was involved with a multi-level marketing business. Brian sold cleaning products by posting catalogues through doors, coming back to collect the orders & he told me how he was going to buy a Ferrari with his earnings, all he needed to do was build a huge team of other people to do the same thing.
He asked if I was interested in hearing his presentation, I didn’t need to, I was in!
Things didn’t go exactly according to plan, but my new business opportunity selling vitamins was a surefire winner, I knew it. Although it turned out that it wasn’t...
I know, I was as surprised as you likely are now Dear Reader.
The next endeavour, ‘ the diet shake business’, would be the one to lead me to my inevitable financial destiny. I had no doubt it would have done precisely that but the bloody clients were clearly making it incorrectly or drinking it from the wrong side of the glass or something because it kept making them vomit.
So I found myself working yet another soul-destroying, poorly paid job & used my evenings & weekends selling, or more accurately, not selling books.
Who doesn’t love books?
I mapped out a plan to supply all the major educational institutions in my area.
I knew I couldn’t possibly fail.
Disappointingly, people were ‘clearly’ too low-brow to want the books, even the schools. I knew after a flash of inspiration that they would want, the cleaning products that they didn’t want three years previously. I promptly re-joined the catalogue business again after deciding I must have been doing it wrong the first time around.
It seems I had absolutely aced the ‘doing it wrong’ part, as I repeated this feat all over again, but it really didn’t matter because I had joined a shiny new business that saved people money on their telephone bill.
Saving people money, it was absolutely inconceivable that this could result in anything but roaring success, right?
Over the following decade, I re-joined this business on 2 separate occasions to give it another shot, or 2 more shots as the case may be.
Third-time lucky, right? Wrong!
Me still naively full of optimism, circa 1997
The advent of the internet was fabulous for a guy like me. It enabled me to throw ever-increasing amounts of money at anything that promised overnight riches with the mere click of a button.
I bought literally dozens of products teaching me to create an e-book that would generate thousands for me as I slept.
I never, I mean EVER, created a single e-book.
I purchased ‘can’t lose’ gambling systems, affiliate blueprint success books, web subscriptions & so many ‘how-to’ books I could probably create ‘how to’ content for the decades & never run out of ideas.
I have launched a plethora of domains that I created content for, probably a maximum of 3 pieces of content for each one, & each time I was staggered to see my Paypal was not bursting at the seams after 24 hours, what gives?
I had a serious problem & an incredibly naive disconnect when it came to patience, follow-through, & the most ridiculous expectations imaginable.
I had the worst case of ‘shiny object syndrome’ conceivable. I also had an utter inability to logically predict what would happen when I would chase the next get-rich-quick scheme.
“I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate” George Burns.
Believe me when I tell you that I’m a smart guy in every other area of my life. I have vast stores of untapped potential that I never stopped to utilise because I always convinced my dumbass brain that a stack of banknotes was lying in wait for me just around the corner from whatever tinpot idea I set my sights upon next.
Seriously, I mean it when I tell you that I am a pretty sensible, level-headed guy in most ways, but the merest hint of an opportunity to make $600,000 in just 60 minutes, & the wallet was out.
To cut a long story short, (if you come to know me better, you will realise, this is a promise I am highly unlikely to deliver on), I became utterly disenfranchised, chronically depressed, & reached a breaking point.
I had to face myself in the mirror & admit some intrinsic truths that were highly unpalatable. When I had previously reflected upon my past, I sincerely believed, in some delusional corner of my brain that I had tried & failed at a myriad of things.
Some soul searching helped me realise that all I had succeeded in doing was reaching for my credit card. It seems I had been viewing that as the action that could yield results. I was a complete, blithering idiot & finally, I knew it. This was both intensely painful & paradoxically, far more liberating than I could ever tell you.
It meant that I hadn’t really failed, I’d just never taken any action. This was something I could rectify. I was a new man, almost.
I remember taking an inventory of my skills, I know that sounds terribly pretentious but I’m from England, I believe that gets me off the hook.
I was struck with a realisation, I actually enjoyed writing down my thoughts & attempting to seek out a semblance of a plan. Occasionally while doing this I would find myself hurtling along at breakneck speed while pursuing some idea or another & the writing became something worthy of reading back.
I found this pleasing. I had always fantasized about being a writer but had discounted the idea as I knew I just did not have a thorough enough grasp of the rules. I was in zero doubt that writing was something other people did.
Caution, hesitancy & all traces of apprehension went flying out of the proverbial window & I started a blog.
I cannot tell you how liberating & equally terrifying it was to finally decide on a course of action to make sense of my life. A huge part of this new plan was to hold myself to some pretty robust written conditions.
I set some tiny financial goals for my writing & mapped out over how long a period of time I would hit specific checkpoints. This, I surmised, would keep me accountable & not see me heading for the hills when I didn’t hit 10k per month by month 2.
It wasn’t a traditional blog, it had an inbuilt community centred around a platform. I made a huge number of genuine friends in that online haven, some of whom I met at a UK meetup of bloggers last year.
The primary difference though is that posts were rewarded not with fiat currency but cryptocurrency. This was a fun way to learn many disciplines all at once & I have been writing there for a little over 3 years.
I’ve tried to work incrementally on honing my writing style, although the first thing I had to do was find if I even had a writing style. It has been an amazing adventure & a great way of articulating the thoughts that lurk in my head. In all honesty, it didn’t really matter how great the writing was in the beginning, this allowed me to experiment, a lot!
I recently decided that I wanted a fresh challenge & that it was time to step up my writing game, so here I am.
I am far from an accomplished, well-rounded writer, but I believe I could be with some focus & hard, consistent work. If you are still with me at this stage, (most will not be), you will realise I am a rambler at times & could do with mastering the skill of brevity.
It’s on my long list of improvements to make as a writer, Dear Reader.
“Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.” Oscar Wilde
So the question posed in the title of this blush-inducing stroll down incompetence lane asks about the acceptable, maximum investment of time when it comes to chasing success. Specifically success later in life after a lot of failures.
I know a lot of people in my circle of influence look at me & wonder when I am going to give up chasing pipe dreams & instant riches.
The short answer is never!
Me still waitin' for success to come-knockin' circa 2001
Damn! Where doid those cheekbones go???
The slightly more detailed answer is that I hope I have slain the ever-present demons of instant gratification & found something more of substance to aim for.
I believe that becoming a writer is something special. I think it is a skill that most could learn to be proficient at but the road ahead would prove too long for them.
A good writer can fashion mere words expertly. They can craft such a captivating vision that it becomes manifest in the minds-eye of the reader, that really is a profound effect to have on another human, isn’t it?
Words, when woven in that oh-so-wonderful way can evoke laughter, tears, anger, understanding, fear, & a whole host of other emotions. They can provoke deep thought, they can educate, they have the very real power to incite revolution or indeed bring about peace.
There are only so many ways a writer can arrange a chosen set of words on the page but when it is done ‘just right’ a resonance is felt deep within the soul of the reader.
Great literary works have changed lives, hearts & minds forever. They have prompted those who engaged with them to head off down an entirely different path in life.
Consider the Bible & other theistic texts. Think of Viktor Frankl, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Goethe, even J.K Rowling who has impacted the imaginations of tens of millions of children globally.
I don’t imagine this skill level, this wordsmithery of the highest order is ever going to be in the remit of this crazy English guy but I have already experienced touching others profoundly with my writing on the topics of grief, depression, joy & self-improvement & I hope to experience that more often.
“It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.”
C. J. Cherryh
I have come a long way over the last few years, who knew I would be so far beyond 45 years of age before I knew what I wanted to do when I became a grownup?
Oh, let me state quite categorically, just in case of any doubt, I will never, ever stop dreaming. As I mentioned, I am 50 next year, & regardless of what others may believe, age is not a factor to be considered when it comes to seeking out meaning in life or finding that rarest of commodities, fulfillment.
It’s true for me & it’s equally true for you. If you have reached a certain age & you’re wondering why you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up, don’t sweat it. You never know what is around the next corner.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Viktor E. Frankl.
I have often said that I would rather die in poverty knowing that I was trying than to live surrounded by awards, accolades & opulence knowing I had given up.
It’s absolutely fine to try a hundred different things before you find the one that is the right fit for you.
I should know, right?
I originally wrote this post for another blog I tried my hand at, so if you thought earlier that it sounded like I was referring to Hive, you are right, I was.
Thank YOU for taking the time to read my post and if you're one of those amazing people who like to hit the comments section... Then I doubly thank YOU!
Either way, I want you to know that you are appreciated!
Keep taking the time to connect with each other both here and in the 'so-called' real world and try and look after each other, because as you already know...
