The turbulence of Greatness

I start off with quite a powerful picture quote because of its relevance to the title. I know we’ve all heard or read about people achieving greatness in one way or the other and we’ve all marveled as we accepted putting these people on a pedestal. The question I asked myself however is why we call these people great, I mean anybody can do or create something that’s great. Everyone great created/did something but not everyone who created/did something is classified as great. So the question once again is what makes a person who creates or does something great? This question isn’t easy to answer but I guess I wouldn’t be a writer if I didn’t at least attempt to answer the question. Let’s take a look at something interesting that I recently Googled when I was thinking of how this post would be structured:

I researched the 100m record progression over the years (bear in mind that Usain Bolts record now stands at 9.58 seconds). 

We see from the data that the first record was set by D. Lippincott of the USA at 10.6s in 1912, that human beings only ran sub 10 seconds as of 1968 by J. Hines of the US who ran a 9.9 and that’s all progressed to the 9.58 seconds we have now. We have 40 recorded world records from 30 something individuals in over a century in which we’ve only managed to shave just over an entire second for the event. That’s some pretty interesting shit if you really sit and think about it. The funny thing about it all is that these men were all considered to be the fastest men in the world and deemed to be great until someone came along and shattered their record. Greatness in this case was to be able to go faster than what others did. 

What I question however is what it took for a person to shave off a hundredth of a second. I mean I’m no 100m runner but I can imagine that at that level, everything matters. From what you eat, your training, what you wear daily to what haircut you have on the day of the race. For all these men, the question had to be, “what does the record holder do to be that fast so I can do it and what do I have to innovate or add to what he does so I can be faster,” classic art of war; “Know yourself and know your enemy & you’ll come out victorious.” I’m guessing they probably get Mckinsey or other researchers filled with Economists and Sports Scientists to research any correlation between anything and the top speed of a human being (I know I’m going crazy with this now but my mind is blown) and then apply it because nobody is born running sub 10 second times. They applied all the things they were told to, regardless of what they had to go through with a goal in mind for however long till the day of the race. If they panicked they then resorted to steroids which would only make sense. I mean if you have been doing everything in your power to beat a specific time which you’re nowhere near beating at practice, what can you do other than to turn to steroids? In any case, race day comes and someone wins, and maybe someone breaks the record and that's basically how it happens. 

Now greatness, in an objective sense, is a pre-determined goal that either exists or doesn’t, in which case you have to pave a new way. I think Donald Trump said it perfectly when he said “hitting a target nobody can hit is talent, hitting a target nobody can see is genius.” Greatness is going further than what those before you did. Greatness is doing something that nobody has done before, the stuff they said was impossible until someone came along and did it. Nobody can tell you what goes into being great but what we do however know is that it is a status reserved for only a few. 

In my journey, I wanted to be about doing new things and breaking whole new grounds because that’s who I’ve always been throughout my life. They call me a serial entrepreneur now because that’s what they call someone who is creatively gifted but also has the acumen and know how to follow through to completion. But what I’ve encountered is the turbulence that goes into being great. I had no intention of being great in the beginning, I just had ideas I believed strongly in and decided to pursue. The demons that I’ve seen in the process of bringing them to life have brought me as close to hell as I think I can ever come so much so that I think I should be exempt from going there now. So many days that make you want to quit, days you want to stop existing because this idea now owns every facet of your life. You see the idea all around you and it grows faster in your mind than it does in reality and that’s when you begin to realize just how much goes into things we use every day and take for granted. 

It all comes down to how much you want to do that very thing you want to do. In the realization of a dream, it all comes down to how many hurdles the individual can jump that determines the level of greatness that dream exhibits. In other words, it’s all about where your pain threshold is and when you can’t go on. Great people have to be great within themselves before they are great to the people of the world. I sought out the definition of a marathon and I got an interesting one; “A long-lasting or difficult task or activity.” The reason marathons are so difficult is because of the amount of people that don’t make it to the finish line & that’s what gives finishing a marathon that prestige that it has.This is the same for many awards and positions we hold high in society.The narrow routes have always been avoided by the many but some very few decided to soldier on.

In my journey I’ve been tested but what has kept me going was my passion and energy for what I was doing. Anybody can do anything great but it’s all about how long a person can hold onto a dream or an idea and in my experience, not everyone can. Too many people take on things that they don’t really want to do only to quit somewhere along the line. We quit the wrong things at the wrong times before those things we wanted to do become a habit. I think it was Aristotle who said: "We are what we repeatedly do, excellence is then not an act but a habit." Once again nobody can tell you what goes in between the person you were and the person you [deliberately] decide to become. Achieving a dream is a dark, cold and lonely road which I’ve come to accept and experience and has prompted me to write this to you today. 

My advice to anyone out there going through turbulence to achieve a dream is that you understand that all the hardships are pre-requisites of greatness otherwise everyone would be doing it. You don’t see anyone being great for doing something everybody can do, it’s all about being able to go further than where others quit. It’s all about wanting something so bad that whatever you have to go through to get there is of no concern to you. So as Seth Godin says: “Don’t start something unless you’ve invested what it takes to see it through to the end.” I guess that’s why they say you have to want success more than your desire to quit. 

You will grow, you will get beat, you will be ridiculed, you will be abandoned and you will want to quit but if you hold on you’re forced to achieve your dream, it’s a universal law as real as gravity on some Newton 3 tip. You will feel like the world is against you and even worse, nobody will understand what you're going through but don’t lose hope, keep going, that is the turbulence of greatness, you either make it out or you don’t, but nobody can tell you what goes into it, only your dream can take you there and show you but it’s all on you to hold on for dear life when you get there!

Drake - "Say what's real" 

Figured I'd add this for all the GOONERS out there!!!!!!!!!!! We did it!!!