I\u2019ve been studying \u2018greatness\u2019 for a long time. I\u2019ve wanted to see if I could turn \u2018greatness\u2019 into an equation. So, I looked at \u2018greatness\u2019 in all areas – Lao Tzu, the creator of Daoism, Stan Musial, Wayne Gretzky, \u2018The Great One\u2019. Then easy ones like, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela. What is it that all these people have in common?<\/p>\n
Well on the outside you can say things like hard work, determination, they had a vision, but if that\u2019s all that it took to be great then how come everybody else who works hard and has a vision doesn\u2019t rise to their level of success even, and it\u2019s hard for a Jewish guy to say this, but I wouldn\u2019t call Hitler great by any stretch of the imagination, but Hitler did manage to enroll an entire nation into his belief system. How did he do that?<\/p>\n
How did Martin Luther King rise above everybody else who was talking about Civil Rights? How did Gandhi who was one of many people who wanted the British out of India enroll people to get beaten up to support his \u2018non-violent initiative\u2019? How did Martin Luther King do the same thing? What I\u2019ve found is that there are many elements that have to be in place and they all need to be pointed in the right direction. If one of those things is pointed in the wrong direction you\u2019re foolish or crazy, so there is really not that much difference between Elon Musk and a guy who spends his life trying to dig a hole to China.<\/p>\n
The guy who tries to dig a hole to China spends his life pursuing a goal that is almost impossible to achieve. Elon Musk decided he wanted to have an electric car company and build rockets that go into outer space. He could\u2019ve been just as stupid as the guy trying to dig his way to China but he had persistence, perseverance, vision, dog-determination, a single idea, a belief, mountains of focus, and is unconcerned with what other people think.<\/p>\n
Oh, and there is one other quality of greatness – you have to be a \u2018jerk\u2019. I\u2019ll just let you think about that for a moment.<\/p>\n
Oh, come on Dan that can\u2019t be true.<\/p>\n
Was Gandhi a jerk? \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Was Martin Luther King a jerk? \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Was Harvey Milk a jerk? “Yes”<\/p>\n
Was Nelson Mandela a jerk? “Yes.”<\/p>\n
So, let me explain what I mean by \u2018jerk\u2019. So, let\u2019s talk about the qualities of a \u2018jerk\u2019. A jerk doesn\u2019t care what people think about him, he\/she is singularly focused. A jerk takes advantage of other people\u2019s generosity, doesn\u2019t give back and doesn\u2019t play fair, under-concerned whether or not you\u2019re happy or satisfied with them, thinks they deserve everything and has to give back nothing.<\/p>\n
They absolutely always think that they are right. They will not ever admit they are wrong and no matter how you try to express your point of view what they believe is always more important than what you believe. They don\u2019t engage in what we consider to be common courtesy and they tend to treat you like a thing rather than a person.<\/p>\n
So, let me tell you a \u2018jerk\u2019 story. So, this \u2018jerk\u2019 is digging in an abandoned gold mine and he manages to convince the son of a wealthy businessman to come and dig in this abandoned gold mine with him. There is very little chance of success, but the jerk guy spins a big story and tells them how successful they are going to be and the kid believes him. So, after a long day and night, the businessman comes and says, \u201cLook, I\u2019ve got to have my son back. I can\u2019t convince him to leave you. You\u2019ve brainwashed him. So, here is what I\u2019m going to do. I\u2019ll give you ten thousand dollars to tell my son that this is a bad idea and to come back and be with me\u201d.<\/p>\n
The jerk guy says, \u201cTell you what I\u2019m going to do. Give me the ten thousand dollars and I\u2019m going to keep your son and you and your wife and have you come and dig in my gold mine too – that\u2019s the deal.” Sound like a jerk? That\u2019s a true story; only it\u2019s not about a guy and a gold mine. It\u2019s about Gandhi and a wealthy businessman’s son who was working for Gandhi because Gandhi made him believe he could get the British out of India, and everybody knew he was crazy and it couldn\u2019t be done.<\/p>\n
So, that businessman was willing to donate to Gandhi\u2019s cause just to get his son back and Gandhi said the very same thing, \u201cI\u2019m keeping your son. Give me the money and you and your wife come work for me\u201d. Now that story takes on a different perspective because we know its Gandhi, but it really is the same story as the guy in the gold mine.<\/p>\n
So, I ask you – How great do you want to live your life? How unpopular are you willing to be to follow a vision? How many people who you love are you willing to disappoint? How many fires are you willing to stand in? Henry Ford bankrupted five automobile companies before starting Ford Motor Company. Do you think he was well liked by the people whose money he took? How was he able to convince the sixth investor after five failures to invest in him? He probably lied, he probably made promises he wasn\u2019t sure he could keep, so if you want greatness your very first destination is loneliness, unpopularity, criticism, rejection, and absolute 100% encouragement from the people you trust the most to tell you to stop doing what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re going to lose friends. You\u2019re going to lose the respect of family members. It absolutely will positively not be pretty. There will be no guarantee of success. You might spend a lifetime digging in an abandoned mine and never find gold and suffer the fate of being the fool that everybody claimed you to be or you may be Gandhi. How big do you want to play? How great can you stand it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been studying \u2018greatness\u2019 for a long time. I\u2019ve wanted to see if I could turn \u2018greatness\u2019 into an equation. So, I looked at \u2018greatness\u2019 in all areas – Lao Tzu, the creator of Daoism, Stan Musial, Wayne Gretzky, \u2018The Great One\u2019. Then easy ones like, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela. What is … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[33,31,78,81,76,79,77,80,83,82,63,32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1113,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions\/1113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebigtimegroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}