success

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An Absolute Guide to Success for Teens and Twenty-somethings.


I have both a B.S. and a Masters degree, the latter from Harvard University. Now from that simple statement anyone who did not know me would probably think I am a pretty smart guy who did really well in life. Well, truth be told, only one of those statements is true, I am indeed a pretty smart guy. Now comes the “but.” But I miss pretty much every opportunity afforded me in my teens and twenties. I am pretty certain I received a PhD in missed opportunities.

When I was in high school I managed to be so thoroughly distracted, mostly by girls, that I was unable to complete most assignments. From age 14 to 18 I spent far too many hours thinking about the girl of my dreams, which varied of course, when I really needed to be doing my homework.

Did I tell you I am a contradiction in terms? I am! From when I was about 6, I always found a way to earn money. True, most of that money went to buying candy and ice cream but I was happy and satisfied. I had a paper route for about 3 years, ages 11 to 14. When I turned 14 I had a full time summer job on a local farm which I went back to when I was 15. At 16 I worked in one of the local factories, a true sweat shop. Loved it! One of the best educations of my life. And finally, when I was 17 I got a job at Raytheon company as a clerk. Seems I could type pretty well. I earned 5 cents more per hour than a girl my age who did nearly the exact same job I did. I knew I was unfair.

After graduation from high school I was headed for Boston University. I had gained early acceptance, November of the previous year, and thought I was good to go. Well, nothing could have been further from the truth. Before the first semester had ended I knew my college career had ended. Prime reason, I was constantly daydreaming about the girl of my dreams which varied. Oh, and I was not doing my assignments.

By December of that year I had decided that a career in the army would be a good thing. I took their various tests and actually managed to get myself into flight school, no easy task. No one breezes through basic training but once I had completed that I was on to my dream, flight school. In the army that means you are going to rotary wing (helicopter) training which, in those days, started at Fort Wolters Texas and was completed at Fort Rucker Alabama. It did not even take me a month to drop out of that. Still, certain people saw promise in me, enrolled me in the following class, and suggested I take that opportunity, one which was seldom offered. I declined. I had had enough. In truth, quitting seemed easier. Enough said about that save over the next 18 months I received every promotion I was eligible for in the minimum time required.

I was a two-year enlistee who got out and headed directly back to college. I mean, who can fail twice? Ah, but I was head of the curve this time. I had the girl of my dreams, was head over heels in love with her, life was wonderful! And yet, in spite of that, I managed to fail every class in which I was enrolled. And so what do you think I did next? No, I did not go into the army but I did go to flight school.

This flight school was of the fixed wing variety held in Tulsa Oklahoma. And as it turned out, I was a natural pilot. This time I pushed myself just enough so that after 5 hours of flight time, the minimum time required by the FAA before a person can fly solo. I soloed during my 6th hour. Time passed, my flight time mounted up, I took and passed the FAA written test required for a private pilot’s license. Oh, and during this time I held down a full time job as an orderly at a hospital in Tulsa. One day, while driving home from that hospital, I daydreamed for a moment or two but I was exactly enough time that I did not see the person stopped in front of me until it was too late. I managed to total two cars and decided it was time to go back home and do what?

That question got answer just before I left Tulsa when talking with my mother on the phone she asked why the army was looking for me. She assured me she had not told them where I was but I knew the gig was up, again. You see, I was supposed to be going to reserve army meetings for two years following my separation from active duty. I had attended exactly zero.

I bit the bullet, headed for the local army recruiter and confessed my sins. He had a nice laugh on me but in truth I was actually happy to be returning to the army. It was a safe place for me, and I actually liked it. During my first three years back in the army I managed to successfully navigate two years of college education via the local University of Maryland campus. Now a reasonable person would think that within the next three years I would complete that degree and all would be well. That is not exactly how it went. During those 3 years I got married, had a child and allowed just about everything to impede my college education. I took me until 1986 to finally get that B.S. degree. I did not mention this before but I entered Boston University in September 1967. You might say I was just a tad slow, or, you might hold me to a higher standard and say I found far too many excuses for not succeeded while giving not a single good reason.

I started my graduate education at Harvard University in September 1986. That degree took me far too long too, but let me just say, it was more of the same stuff I have already related so why repeat myself.

What does any of this have to do with those of you who are in your teens and twenties. Everything!

I am 66 years of age now, retired and enjoying pretty much everything life sends me its way. But my retirement has also allowed me the time to give my life considerable and very honest review. What I discovered is absolutely appalling. I found that I had missed pretty much every opportunity which came my way from age 11 through 30, a full twenty years! How could that happen? How could a rather intelligent person, which I am, miss just about every opportunity? Simple. I did not see a single one for what it really was.

When you are 18-years-old truly believe that you have this infinite pool of time ahead of you. That is mistake number one, always! Life happens a day at a time and even though at times it seems incredibly and boringly slow, those minutes are just as important as any other collection of minutes in your life.

I really believe that it rare that an 18-year-old had any inkling as to what he wants to be doing come age 40. And why is age 40 so important? Two reasons: first changing professions at that age is extremely difficult and, two, like it or not, age discrimination comes into play. Cry all you like about it being against the law, which it is, but just try proving it! That means that by age 30 you really really need to be doing a job you look forward to and cannot imagine doing anything else. That was not me.

Okay, so what should you do to insure that at age 40 you are right when you both want and need to be? Be on the lookout for opportunities and explore each and every one to the fullest extent possible. Ah, so what is an opportunity?

Failure! Failure is one of the best opportunities of all. Failure, by definition, says you tried something but did not succeed. Failure is the most prevalent opportunity any human will ever experience. Do not quote me on this, but I believe Thomas Edison failed over 200 times before he finally found a filament that worked in his light bulb. It is likely that the incandescent light bulb would have been invented eventually anyway, but it was Edison completing the task because he did not take failure as meaning hopeless. He saw it as meaning he needed to find another way of doing things. And that is exactly how failure becomes an opportunity every time.

It took me two shots at algebra and two shots at geometry to get each right once. Had I carried that forward most, if not all, of my failures could have been turned into successes. But I did not. It was always easier to say why something could not happen than ask the question of how could I make it happen. And this is where you come to a universal truth. Going it alone will probably get you lost. But ask for help and you will probably find the way. And never ever let anyone tell you that you cannot do something. They probably do not know what they are talking about anyway.

Instead of finding an excuse, find a way. For example, you are getting ready to graduate high school and you happen to notice that your grades are average and that being said by a generous person. But you find, of a sudden, this desire to be a nurse, a lawyer, an architect, the best trumpeter ever, or pretty much anything else. Your first response is going to be that such lofty goals are now unachievable. Bull shit! They are all achievable but you must find an alternate path. That means instead of graduating from medical school at age 27, you might have to graduate at age 30. So what? Start with something you can do. I suggest community college. It is affordable and pretty much takes on all comers. Plus, it is college and its credits are generally transferable to not only the state schools but to most private colleges and universities. But most importantly, once started, do not let anyone or anything stop you until you have reached your ultimate goal. But be warned, your ultimate goal is likely to change while you are attending college. Hell, you may even change career fields entirely but that is part of learning.

If you do not think that is true, pick any highly successful person you know and ask them one simple question: as them what was their biggest failure prior to becoming whatever they are and how they overcame that.

One more thing about your aspiration, find someone who is successful in your field of choice and asked them to tell you in some detail what it took for them to get where they are.

Finally, along the way you are going to run into difficulties, some greater than others. But there are going to be a certain number of difficulties where you have only one choice and that is to ask for help. Do it! Make no excuses for not doing it. Do not project what you think the person you are asked for help is going to think of you. The thing is, it is human nature that we enjoy being asked for help. And, this is important, that first person does not have an answer for you, do not leave without asking if they know someone who might know. And if they do not know that either, keep looking until you find the needed help. And never ever miss an opportunity to nail down your professor and them him or her that you are 100% confused over a point, a concept, or anything else. Those are the things people who do not quit do. And those are the things I failed to do on a regular basis.

Finally, there is this idea of inherent intelligence going around. I happen to know I am a very intelligent guy but it does not seem to have done me a lot of good, at least until recent years. I truly believe that most people underestimate their actual intelligence. If someone looks at your high school record and tells you what your listed IQ is, I recommend that if it is less than what you think it should be, put it off to your having had a bad day the day of the test and that you are in fact far more intelligent than some test says you are. I say this because more likely than not, you are.

Every mistake you make gives you a bit of valuable information. It tells you where you made a wrong turn. Return to that point and make the right turn. Make absolutely everything which happens to you in your teens and twenties learning experiences, commit them to memory, get advice on some of them, and use them to your advantage wherever possible. If your mother wants you to become a doctor and your father wants you to become a lawyer and you want to become a chef, get yourself into that chef’s school. Own you decisions, own your mistakes, never lie, and never quit.

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The Self-Image Concept


From our youngest years onward we develop a self-image.  In our young years a good part of our self-image is developed by our environment, our parents, our siblings, our teachers, our neighborhood, and so on.  Also, at least in part, genetics are responsible for our personality.  There is nothing we can do about that part of ourselves.  And until we reach adolescence, teen years, and so forth, it is unlikely we can or will do anything about our self-image.

But at some point we reach adulthood and then our self-image becomes entirely our own responsibility.  The law says we reach adulthood at the age of 18.  Some, usually women, get there more quickly while others, usually men, get there more slowly.  But at some point, say by age 25, we all reach a reasonable amount of maturity that we become entirely in control of our own life.  And that is the key here, understanding that the responsibility for who we are is entirely our own.

What this all boils down to is self-empowerment.  I have had to stop feeling sorry for myself and feeling like I am a victim.  The universe really does not have time for such distractions, and it really doesn’t care either.  And those are good things!  It all simply means that wherever it is within myself that I do not like, I am ultimately responsible for changing those things within as I am able.  What is not acceptable is inaction.

I have been able to build a good and positive ego without becoming self-centered, narcissistic, or ego-maniacal.  I take a daily accounting of my shortcomings and accept the responsibility, on a daily basis, for fixing those things.  I allow myself  to fail without getting down on myself.  I believe that failure is simply an opportunity to better oneself.

I think every person deserves to be happy.  But we are responsible for our own happiness.  Once we feel good about ourselves we find that other people like us better and are more accepting of our short-comings.  I have found that absolutely everything I have ever felt has been felt by someone else and that I was never alone but only felt that way because I was unable or unwilling to believe that I share those very same feelings with millions of others and that I am no better nor worse than anyone else.  This sort of acceptance has allowed me to feel good about myself and improve my self-image to a point that it is good.

Unfortunately, our society does not teach personal responsibility.  Our schools do attempt to teach personal responsibility, but my experience in teaching tells me that parents often undermine this aspect of a child’s education by not believing that their child could be in the wrong.  This teaches the child that active avoidance of the truth is a good thing.  The effect of such learning is that when the child applied that principle to himself, when confronted with an unpleasant circumstance he deals with it by ignoring it or by putting the responsibility upon someone or something else.  And this is exactly how far too many people reach adulthood.  Active avoidance of the truth becomes a lifestyle, particularly when taken stock of one’s self is involved.

I was guilty of exactly that sort of behavior for too many decades of my life.  I had a very low self-image but I was doing absolutely nothing to change that.  I was actively engaged in lowing my own self-image because I was unable to recognize the truth, or if I did recognize it, I was either too fearful or just too dumb to ask for help.  And it is because of my inability to take any positive actions or accept self-evident truths that my self-image remained in the gutter.

Then one day someone asked me if I was willing to do “whatever it takes” to fix my life.  I responded that I was.  I quickly discovered that that meant I had to come to terms with absolute honesty with myself and others.  I had to take a “no excuses” approach to life.  Because of this approach, my self-image today is really healthy and really good.  But it did not get to the point quickly or painlessly.

I have charged myself with being as close to perfectly honest with myself and everyone else as is humanly possible.  I always allow for the possibility that something I believe to be true is not.  I always allow for the possibility that I have unwittingly harmed someone and that upon recognizing that fact, or being told of it, I am immediately responsible for its correction in the shortest amount of time possible.

One of my prime personal maxims today is that of what to do when I find myself in a place or situation that I believe unacceptable for any reason.  I tell myself that I am at least in part responsible for where I find myself and therefore I am 100% responsible for taking action that moves me to a more desirable place.  I cannot wait of the universe to magically change my circumstances because that is simply not going to happen.  I also understand and accept that for as long as I take no action I can on expect things to stay the same, if not get worse.

The way this all relates to self-image is that when I look at myself and take stock, it is not unusual for me to find something within myself that I do not like.  The first thing I do is to accept what I have found.  With that acceptance I know the next thing I have to do is decide what actions to take to fix whatever it is I do not like.  It is not unusual for me to find that I need to get advice from someone else or even their help.  At that point I take the appropriate action.  Once I have done that and have fixed what I originally did not like, I always feel better about myself.  But I also have to accept that there are things I can do nothing about and accept those things too.  In such cases I simply need to figure out how to work with those things I cannot change so that it is not an impediment to my future happiness.

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Don’t Sell Yourself Short


When I was younger, much younger, I had two mental lists. The first list was of everything I wanted, and the second list was of everything I believed I could have or could get. The second list bore only slight resemblance to the first. That should not have been the truth, but it was. That first list was not a truth for me because I did not believe that those things were within my reach or that I was capable of gaining them. That, I believe, is the exact definition of selling yourself short.

As a young adult I had an absolutely miserable self-opinion and my body image was not much better. That was at the base of all my problems. People always said, “just be yourself.” But what good is that when you don’t know who you are? Even that would not have been such a great problem if I had someone to bounce things off. That meant I needed someone in my life who would be non-judgemental and give me good advice. I actually had such a person but I was so fearful that I could not get up the courage to talk my mind to her.

This person in my life, Pat, was one of the more beautiful and intelligent women in the community I was living it at that time. I mention that because I was living in Italy at the time and in a rather small community of Americans living over there at the time. Pat was kind, compassionate and understanding. I could have confided anything in her and gotten good advice in return but my insecurities did not allow for that and so I suffered.

In my senior year in high school I was smart enough and had good enough grades that I was able to secure early admission to Boston University. I don’t know if things like that happen anymore, but at the time it meant I had my letter of acceptance from B.U. in November of my senior year while others had months of waiting in front of them. But when I got to B.U. I failed miserably. Why? I did not believe in myself and once again my insecurities did not allow for my owning up to my shortcomings and asking for help from my advisor. Of course I flunked out of college. They didn’t throw me out. I left because I knew I was failing and didn’t know what else to do. I resolved that by joining the army, not the greatest idea in 1968 but not the worst either.

The things I have just spoken of are classic examples of “fear of success.” It sounds like an oxymoron but it is not. I could not handle success so I made certain I torpedoed any success I was having by some sort of ridiculous action. Let’s say, for example, I was dating that gorgeous blonde. I would inevitably allow my insecurity to take control and say something that made her want to run for the hills which of course meant an end to the relationship, such as it was.

While I was at B.U. my advisor one day said that I should have gone to Harvard. I thought he was kidding me, of course, because I definitely was not smart enough to go there. But he wasn’t and so I set up an interview. I was usually good at interviews but I was so intimidated by where I was that at the end of the interview the man told me that I should never even consider going to Harvard ever again. Many years later I went to, and graduated from, graduate school at Harvard but that is another story. I does show, however, how much I was selling myself short. Rather than take what the interviewer said as a challenger, I took it as fact.

Earlier I mentioned a fear of success. The other half of that is a fear of failure.  I was projecting.  I was always going to worst case scenarios and thinking that failure was the only possible result.  What didn’t occur to me was that it was okay to have failures along the way as long as I kept with it until I succeeded.   I had a course at Harvard once that I got a C+ in.  That is an unacceptable grade in graduate school and the course does not count towards the degree but that 2.7 does get figured into your GPA.  That stopped me dead for a while.  But once I got my wits back about me, I pushed onward, wrote my thesis with a lot of help, and graduated.  Decades later I recognized, fully, what I was capable of if only I allowed for failure.

I heard someone say recently, “don’t worry if you are shooting for the moon and miss.  It just means you will end up among the stars.”  And so much of life really is that simple.  Relationships failure, we fail in school, work, sometimes stumbling just walking down the street.  We feel foolish briefly but we move on.  In the long run, regardless of what happens, I know I will be all right.  Not everyone is going to like me and accept me as I am and that is all right.

I wrote this because I was inspired by a young man today who had just left a toxic relationship and was feeling badly about it none-the-less.  I advised him that he can have anyone he wants and that he need only continue on as he is.  I didn’t mean that he can simply go out and point to any woman and she’ll be his, no.  I mean that when he meets someone he truly likes and is compatible with that he is the quality kind of guy a good woman will want to be with.  That’s the “don’t sell yourself short” part.

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A Young Person’s Guide to Future Success


When you are 18 years old and thrust out into the world having graduated from high school, the world can seem a foreboding, scary, and intimidating place.  Most 18-year-olds have only the vaguest idea of what they want to do with themselves for the rest of their lives.  And half of those who think they do are wrong.  The question becomes, how does one successfully navigate those years and do what is best for themself?  I have a few simple suggestions that do not guarantee success, but do guard against failure.

Figure out what thrills you.  This concept, while simple in form, can be most difficult to follow through.  For at least a year prior to graduating from high school, young people are bombarded with how to get into college but with little guidance of where to go and what to study.  The most successful people of all time have always done something that thrills them, something that wholly and complete draws them in and makes them thirst to know all they can in that field and be the best they can be.  It is always a mistake to allow making a substantial income to be crucial.  It is always better to have a job you love and live on a modest income than a job you hate to satisfy the desire for a large income.

It is not unusual for an 18-year-old to claim he does not know what he wants to do.  That being the case, he should avoid college until he does know.  Get out into the world and earn a living for a while, and figure out what you want.  But if for any reason you do find yourself in college, take a course of study, preferably liberal arts, that will serve you well regardless of what direction you eventually move in.  And do not let taking 5, 6, or even 7 years of study to graduate be an impediment to getting a degree in a field you love.  I can assure you, employers never look at how long it took you to graduate, only what you studied and what your GPA was.  And if you cannot maintain at least a 3.0 GPA you might consider two things, first, you are in the wrong field of study, or second, you are not committing yourself to do whatever it takes to get good grades, in which case dropping out until you can commit is not only cost-effective but sensible.

Have a plan!  Once you decide what you want to do, decide where you want to be in that career field when you are 45-years old.  It is all right if it is a “pie in the sky” scenario.  Even that gives you a place to start.  Once you know what your 45th year should look like, you can research what it is going to take to make that come true.  The first question is, what schools are best suited to giving you respectable degree in your chosen field.  Then, after undergraduate education is a graduate degree desirable or necessary.  If so, make a plan to include schools that will fill that need.  Now at this point many of you will point out that you will probably already be carrying a huge student loan debt.  Not to fear.  Your plan will include a job search, upon college graduation, that will land you a position in a company that will pay for in part, if not entirely, your education in graduate school.  Some companies will pay, at least in part, for education unrelated to your job.

Gain and maintain a health mind and a healthy body.  One of the unfortunate idea young people have about college is that it is a time to party hard.  The problem with this should be obvious, if you are focused on partying how can you expect to succeed in academics?  A few can but most cannot.  And even those who can, do so at their own peril.  Those four or five years are your first chance to teach yourself things outside of the home you grew up in and its influences, parents and others.  I am not saying that the occasional party should be avoided, no.  But feeling the need to party every weekend, or even nearly every weekend, is quite unhealthy and inevitably leads to unhealthy habits.

Equally important during this time, and in life in general, is dealing with your fears.  The person has not be born who does not have a fear of something.  Most common is a fear of failure.  But also is the fear of rejection, fear of success, and any other fear that gets between you and success.  Most fears are actually fairly easily dealt with once they are brought to the light of day, once you share them with someone who can help.  It is not unusual, for example, for college students to have problems with retaining the material.  This problem can be overcome by simply bringing it to the professor and requesting help.  All people need help.  Successful people get help as quickly as possibly once they realize their dilemma.  There is no disgrace in saying you do not understand something and need help.

Always have a “Plan B”.  This is actually a very simple concept.  The successful person recognizes that failure is unavoidable but it is what you do when faced with failure that influences future success.  Today’s failure may simply be a signal that your plan needs altering, possibly only slightly.  But it may also be a sign that your planned in too flawed to ever be successful, and this is when Plan B comes to fore.  For example, my plan was to become a family doctor but along the way I discovered I really am not good at dealing with people’s problems.  But along the way I discovered also that I was a fabulous researcher and my energies needed only redirection.  Or, I was on my way to becoming a world-famous computer engineer, but along the way I discovered I hated learning micro-electronics and all that goes with it.  But I also discover I was particularly good at math, and since I really love math, maybe my future lies in that direction.

Having a “Plan C” is not a bad idea either.

Do not allow yourself to be sidetracked.  Life is fraught with distractions, many of which have the ability to take us off our desired course.  Chief among these, I believe, are romantic relationships.  While in college our job is to learn.  But where we are social creatures, it is only natural that we form bonds with others.  If we are committed to our college career then we recognize when a relationship is distracting us too much from our stated goal.  This means the intensity of the relationship must be lessened or the relationship ended entirely.  Neither is easy but they are necessary for our future success.  Suffering a failed relationship is a small price to pay for a successful life.

Never compromise on morals and ethics.  Cheating in college is not unusual, and some might even say, epidemic.  One of the most common forms is the purchasing of term papers.  It is an immoral act that speaks to the character of the person.  It is better to fail while doing your own work than pass with someone else’s.  If you never cheat, never lie, you need never explain yourself for your actions will remain above reproach, even when such attempts on your character are made.  Decide on your moral and ethical character and then never give an inch on them.