by
Today is October 19th, 2013. I’m sitting at a Starbucks
down the street from my home in Los Angeles, CA trying to get a grip.
I’m a month and a half away from my 31st birthday and I’m battling some
serious self-doubt right now because I feel like I’m having a hard time
finding success after 30.
I’ve felt like an utter failure for the last couple of days
for various reasons, which makes me think about the failures of the
last couple of weeks…then the failures of the last couple of months…then
the failures of the last couple of years…and then all the failures in
my life.
I feel like I haven’t done anything significant in my life to this point.
I’ll look at where I want to go, look at where I’m at, look
at where I’ve come from and I’ll be like…DUUUUUUDE! It feels like I’m
NEEEEEVVVER going to make it!
Then I see people like Warren Buffet, LeBron James, Steve
Jobs, the 31-year old CEO at my previous company, some of my friends and
the significance of what they’ve done, and it gets worse.
Maybe I’m being too hard on myself, but on occasion, especially when I’m tired, I can mentally self-destruct.
Have you ever gone through something like that, or am I the only one?
How self-destructive, selfish, useless, and untrue! I’m not
a failure, and I have been successful, just maybe not in the way that I
expect.
The good thing is, I feel like I haven’t even begun to
touch on my potential to create significance and value in this life. I
believe I have unlimited potential to do great things, but I have to
just find the right place to put all of my energy… and I have to be
patient.
Unfortunately, I do hit these little spells like I am today
and I have to get past it. I guess I just don’t want to waste my next
10 years (or the next 69) on doing insignificant things.
So what did I do to get myself out of this selfish,
useless, self-destructive mindset and feelings of insignificance at the
age of 31? Well, I researched great people who found their significance
at 30 or beyond.
The list is actually quite huge and includes people like
Steve Carrell, Harrison Ford, Martha Stewart, Stan Lee, Adrea Bocceli,
and Sylvester Stallone, but I want to focus on the 6 I felt were the
most inspiring to me for finding success after 30.
Here is the top 6 that jolted me right out of my
self-destructive, negative failure mindset and back into my positive
“when the going get tough, the tough get going” mode. They made
significance and success happen late life and so can I (and so can you):
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J.K Rowling – She’s probably the most recent, well-known story of post-30 success that most of us know about. Seven years after graduating from college, Rowling described herself as the biggest failure she knew. Now, though, she has sold 400 million books and has won multiple awards.
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Harland “Colonel” Sanders – At age 40, Sanders was running a crappy service station. At 65, a restaurant he started a few years earlier went bankrupt. Cashing his first social security check, and using everything he had, he began again and created Kentucky Fried Chicken. Within 10 years he had 600 franchises across the U.S. and Canada. Today there are more than 5,200 restaurants in the United States and more than 15,000 locations worldwide.
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Dr. Seuss – He wrote some of my all-time favorite books (and cartoons). Seuss wrote his first book at the age of 34, which was rejected by 20 publishers. In his late 40′s he began writing children’s books. He eventually wrote 46 published books.
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Robert Frost – He’s provided me with some of the most inspirational quotes, one of my favorites being “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” He sold his first poem at age 20 and for the next 10 years he unsuccessfully ran a farm. He didn’t publish his first collection of works until 39.
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Julia Child – After college she worked as a copywriter, writing for local publications, and in advertising until the age of 29. She moved to Paris and was introduce to fine cuisine. She didn’t learn to cook until she was almost 40 and didn’t write her first bestselling book or launch her popular cooking show until she was 50.
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John Paul DeJoria – He started out at Redken and was eventually fired. At the age of 36 he formed John Paul Mitchell systems on a $700 loan. Today he’s a billionaire, owning one of the world’s most recognizable hair brands…and he owns 70% of Patron Tequila.
Bonus: Diana Nyad – I’m adding
this bonus because she’s an incredible inspiration to those that doubt
“success” is attainable late in life. Diana Nyad dreamed of swimming
from Cuba to Florida for three-and-a-half-decades. That’s 35 years! She
failed four times before finally accomplishing what she sought out to
do. The first words out of her mouth when she finally completed it?
“You’re never too old to live your dreams.”
For some of us, life is just beginning in our 30’s, maybe
even later. After going through the self-doubt and uncertainty, I knew I
had to take action to fix my mentality and realize that finding success
after 30 is definitely possible, helping me to continue working
tirelessly toward my “big freakin’ dream.”
The solution was so simple. Find people who were already in my shoes and learn from them.
I was totally inspired, re-motivated, plus I realized how
much potential I really have by reading each person’s story. Each one
had different experiences to get to where they are, and they all
struggled in some capacity, but they did what they needed to survive…and
made it!
If you have a dream like I do and you’ve been bustin’ your a$$ to no avail, let these stories keep you going.
Our time might just be coming a little bit later…
…I believe the best years are just ahead.
Question: I
would love your help for my future bouts of self-doubt. Do you ever
have the feelings of self-doubt and insignificance like I was feeling,
and what did you do to get past it? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
