Having incurred the wrath of millions of people with racial “preferences” with my last post, I’ve been sat at my desk thinking of something more positive to talk about. I think I’ve found it.
One of my favourite Drew Maughan original quotes goes something like this:
If you forget where you came from, chances are you’ll end up going back.
This was also similarly quoted by WorldVentures’ Wayne Nugent, at the last Success University thing I went to – I was very surprised at that.
Basically it means exactly what it suggests: that no matter how successful you become or how good things are going, if you forget what it took to get to that stage, you will eventually find yourself going back to the beginning. It’s almost like a proverbial game of snakes and ladders; you have to watch what you’re stepping on to reach the top.
The person who “forgot where they came from” is someone who claims they were just like you when they started out, but then they went through a vague magical process and all of a sudden became better. They often don’t acknowledge that what’s easier for some is difficult for others, and what was hard for them is near impossible for someone else.
Whenever you see someone gloating or bragging about their success to others, you’re seeing someone who will eventually fall.
Think of yuppies back in the 80s (although I was too young to even know what they were), who experienced one of the biggest falls you can imagine when the stock market crashed. There have also been many people who’ve come into money, forgot what it was like to have just enough to live on, and then became poor.
And I’m sure you’ve had at least one friend who ended up crying on the sofa, heartbroken and miserable, because the relationship they couldn’t stop talking about came to an abrupt end. You know: the ones who forgot what it was like to be single, or without friends or a partner.
Even though previous clients had contributed to it, “forgetting where I came from” was probably the biggest reason for my return to permanent work. I guess I was high off the fumes from being a freelancer, and was expecting clients to fight over me rather than earning my stripes. Why wouldn’t I? I had calls from agents left right and centre, and I was getting work almost at the drop of a hat.
At some point I’d developed the attitude of “you’d better do business with me, I’m the best there is!“ – the same thing that Danielle Kennedy mentioned in a recorded seminar many years ago. Ultimately that attitude came to bite me in the arse, as the calls suddenly dried up and there was no money coming in. Spending – not extravagant, just a lot of spending – also added to the situation.
It’s one thing to harp on about how hard life is, and generally it’s not the best thing to do if you want to be successful. But if you lose the humility gained from life having been hard, rest assured you’re going to revisit it at some point.
Tags: Freelancer, Quotes, Relationship, Snakes And Ladders, Yuppies