Some people take time to find super success.
Ideas don’t stop and some of the best arrive after years of experience of living. The later mind knows this.
Regular belief has it that younger people are the ones who have the energy and drive to gain success. Older folks have done more of their living and are slowing down. They have less to want or chase, and live in a past world rather than looking to evolve a newer one. Younger men and women see how things can be plus they are in touch with current trends and interests.
Now, that could be true for some more mature minds, but certainly not all. They are still very much in the game. Older heads, for one, are shrewder. They are more patient, more measured. And they have plenty of previous failures and learning in droves to call on. In short, they carry wisdom and understanding.
Match that with a great idea, and pure gold is what a late starting mind can hold.
Finger Licking Fame.
You are 60 years old and your business has been thrown a curve ball.
Your living has been taken from under your feet, what are you going to do? Well, at that age, most would say to shut up shop and enjoy retirement. Not for one old timer.
Harland had been serving travellers his own brand of food since he was 37. At first it didn’t go down well. Despite losing all his money when his venture folded, he refused to give up and worked on perfecting his own unique recipe. Strife then came again when his next restaurant burnt down. Undaunted he rebuilt it but decided to focus instead on faster cooking time to be able to sell quicker by frying his food.
As he reached his mid-60’s he was doing reasonably well financially. Then came the final big hit. A new highway was built bypassing his service station cafe and all but destroying trade. He was down, but not out. He never lost faith in his own recipe and food. When visiting a friend’s burger joint in Salt Lake City, he cooked his special spiced dish for him. His friend loved it and put it on the menu. It went down a storm.
Buoyed by this Sanders got on the road and starting selling his spicy blend and how to add it into the food. He cut deals where he got a small payment for each one sold. Within 5 years he was represented in over 600 locations including Canada, Mexico, and even Jamaica and the UK.
Harland was Colonel Sanders. That spiced food recipe is the heart of KFC!
Finger licking fame came when an old head wouldn’t quit!!
Older is Golder.
Think of a top entrepreneur and the likes of a young Mark Zuckerberg (19 when FB started) or Bill Gates (23 years old when Microsoft launched) tend to be our first thought.
But, research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that a 50 year old business founder was twice as likely to exit their enterprise a successful person (wealthy, left a legacy etc). This data came from an analysis of 2.7 MILLION founders between 2007 and 2014!
This is true across many fields.
Love superhero comics? Stan Lee created The Fantastic Four on his 39th birthday (hardly a cartoon age) and developed the now stellar Marvel Universe world in his 40’s. Legendary Hollywood actor Samuel L. Jackson was a small time bit part player before landing the award winning role in Jungle Fever at the age of 43. He went on to play his most memorable roles as he neared 50 and beyond.
Most famous of all, Ray Kroc was 52 when he bought the basic McDonalds name and turned in into the global food chain it is today from his own vision way back in 1954. And the first iconic everyday brand of the motoring era was started by a 45 year old….Henry Ford, when cars were viewed as pointless contraptions that would never catch any mass appeal. He sold it to the world.
History holds true for this too. Charles Darwin was 50 when he published The Origin of the Species. An activist in his 40’s Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa at the age of 76. And James Bond never came alive as a character until Ian Fleming created him when he began writing when he was 44.
You see, slower starters can become fast and big finishers!
The Best is Yet to Come.
The best could yet be to come. If you keep your mind alive.
As the years pass ideas don’t die. It’s us that dismiss them and no longer look to have them. Especially long held ones that haven’t come to fruition. But our long standing desires and goals were Colonel Sanders chicken recipe or Nelson Mandela’s wish to lead his nation. One kept losing again and again, the other languished in jail.
Neither gave up. Instead their slow burning minds continued to fan the flames. Mental flames that one day fired up in real life. They were one of many who saw age as no barrier to achieving their vision. They kept the dream burning bright in their heads. Ensure you do the same.
Long and slow is often the lesser known secret to lasting super success.
References – Fleximize.com – The Story of Colonel Sanders.
KFC.co.uk – The Colonel’s Story Timeline.
Developgoodhabits.com – 35 People Who Became Successful Later in Life.
Businessinsider.com – 30 people who became highly successful after age 40.
Photo attribution – Free to use under Pixbay Content License
Do you look for opportunity?
Is your mind open and ready for it to appear?
If you do, one day something is going to turn up, and you will see great success staring you right in the face. Even if it looks anything but to most other people!
In fact one iconic sports stadium would probably not have existed today if one man didn’t possess such a mindset approach.
Wembley Stadium is the home of the English international football team. It is also the location of the big domestic finals as well as European football cup finals and even the Olympic Games. It is known the world over by football and non football fans alike. But, if it wasn’t for one man’s decision to grab an opportunity, it wouldn’t be there at all.
After WW1 London hosted a British Empire Exhibition. The site included buildings, kiosks, and a new stadium. Arthur Elvin owned a number of the kiosks where he sold tobacco and newspapers to the public. Once the exhibition was over the organisers planned to sell off the buildings or knock them down to clear the ground. This would have included the stadium as it had no clear or real use in the mid 1920’s bar one yearly football match.
Elvin thought otherwise and grasped the opportunity. He set himself up as a demolitions expert to win the contracts to tear most buildings down. But, chiefly this escapade was because he thought the stadium had enormous potential. In 1927 he borrowed money from an investor to buy the stadium for him (worth over £6m in today’s money) but the man killed himself soon after due to his own business debts.
Elvin was undaunted. He persuaded the man’s creditors to allow him to set up a company to buy the stadium which he would manage. He would end up running the company and Wembley for 30 years and retired a very wealthy man by adding greyhound racing and speedway which were held on various days of the week.
History will state he had a vision and took the chance.
But one other world renown business mogul only did the same once others helped him see it.
I (phone) wasn’t convinced.
Could you guess who this mega corporate legend was?
If you said Steve Jobs, you would be right.
Now most people believe that he conceived the whole I-phone himself. It’s the usual myth that never gets checked if true.
Legend has this one wrong because Jobs was adamantly opposed to turning his I-pod creation into a mobile phone. His response was, ‘This is the dumbest idea I have ever heard’. Amazing, huh? He loathed cell phone companies due to their poor signals and bad software and didn’t want his growing computer business to be associated with that market.
His engineers were convinced otherwise and set about convincing him too. They persuaded him (over many months) that as you were putting your I-pod in a pocket, why not add a phone too but with a clever design. Jobs now saw something in this first (who doesn’t like a first?) and gave them the go ahead. Four years later 50% of Apple’s income came from that very I-phone suggestion.
Even though he initially didn’t accept a phone was necessary, he did see the kudos of creating something that held huge potential by combining two popular mediums – music and talk. The power had shifted. The engineers saw that opportunity too, and that’s what great people and/or teams have the ability to do. To see something that just comes out of nowhere as the key to the success they were looking for. To take it to the next level from today and beyond.
Look out for the level.
The big takeaway here is being open and curious about going to the next level. Most people are happy to remain on the one they are on. Someone, somewhere, somehow, has to leap up to that untapped level and encourage others to join them. Like Steve Jobs who has sold over 2.3 billion I-phones to the public who didn’t even know they needed one since it’s launch. Or Albert Elvin who bought something to turn it into something else it wasn’t being used for.
Those that seek and welcome opportunity, see it turn up in their lives at some point. Turn up in mega style. And turn up because they wanted it to. That’s the mindset you need. An opportunity ready mind. A field of dreams type view.
Mindset itself is the opportunity in waiting.
It’s just got to be waiting for that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity one day.
And then pounce on it for all you are worth!
References – ‘The Man Who Saved Wembley’, BBC Sport – football – articles.
Steve Jobs – ‘Think Again’, by Adam Grant.
Five thoughts, ideas, insights, or quotes to power up your mind to think differently and creatively about life and who we are. Put all previous thinking away and open up a brand new world of the Supermind. YOUR SuperMind.
This week – Taxation.
Taxation, the bane of our lives. But necessary governments would say to pay for running our countries and providing vital services and infrastructure. We don’t like them but they are not going to go away so this week SuperMind Saturday asks that we take another view at them.
- There is a famous quote by Benjamin Franklin that half the planet has heard of. He said, ‘Nothing in this world can be said to be certain, except death and taxes’. Death itself can’t ever be halted, but what about taxes? Could they ever end? How could a nation provide what it currently does without taxes?
- Taxes can be seen to be too easy. Take the money directly from worker’s pay packets at source immediately when they are paid. It’s an antiquated system, buy maybe it’s not fit for modern purpose. Would it be better to set up a type of standing order at a bank for a smaller weekly amount making collection more streamlined? How could we modernise tax collecting in this way?
- The Egyptians were the creators of taxation. Around 3000 BC Pharaohs employed scribes to impose levies on goods and produce. This was collected twice a year. Some American states still have just a form of sales tax on items like this. Could we remove income tax and create a sliding scale of sales tax on all goods instead so richer goods have higher sales tax added and everyday products have a lower figure?
- The subtle increases of taxation by governments have grown. Taxes on travel and cutting personal allowances as well as upping on property sales duty, especially after death. Taxes are applied for almost everything even though many struggle to pay bills. How do we stop their unceasing rise when those in power will block any move to reduce their spread?
- Finally an idea on transparency. As our governments take our hard earned money in taxes, they should be made to record a balance sheet detailing exactly how much tax is collected and how it is spent. This is released each year as full public information. Then we can see if our income is being used in the most efficient and sensible manner. And vote accordingly if not!
That’s another SuperMind Saturday for your mind powers to work on. Thank you for being here for the SuperMind time. Keep asking yourself these through the week to open up more of your mind to evolve its potential. Consider more, generate ideas more, think on bigger possibilities more, activate your connection to your personal higher mind more and more. Employ your SuperMInd and Super Think!
See you next time for more super thinking.
