Success Mentality

I’ve lived an easy life. And I’ll be the first to admit that.

It’s not like most things in life were just handed to me—they weren’t. My life’s been easy because I’ve never really struggled at anything. I went to private school, cruised through college, did just fine in grad school, and never really busted my ass so hard I wanted to give up.

Maybe I’m just smart. Maybe I’m overly analytical. Maybe I just have a really high threshold for when a situation becomes impossible. Maybe I have a “giving up is not an option” mentality or maybe I’ve never been pushed hard enough.

I grew up in a house where my dad fixed everything. My mom would always tell me, “you are smarter than anyone you’d pay to fix it, so just figure it out and fix it yourself.”

When I saw six, I began stealing my dad’s screwdrivers to take apart things. I’ve opened up every broken electric item I’ve come across.

When I was nine, my portable dual cassette stereo started making farting noises, so I took it apart—the entire thing. I had parts laid out across a 25 square foot area, it looked like a junk yard. When I finally got to the speaker unit (at the back after removing every part on that stereo), I found that two pieces of plastic had become unglued and the loose one was rattling. So I just glued it back, put the stereo back together and it sounded like new.

When I was ten, I took apart my grandfather’s VCR, touched a capacitor and shocked myself silly. (those mini battery looking things in VCR, don’t touch them).

I guess all I’m trying to say is that my parents instilled a mentality into me that there’s nothing I can’t figure out.

Now, whenever I’m faced with a big problem, I just sit down, research the shit out of it, and figure it out. Sometimes, I think I have the answer when I don’t. Sometimes I just dive head in with the screwdriver and hope I figure it out along with way—like the time I had to call the board of water supply to turn off the water to my house. Even when things do go really bad, I don’t freak out; I just step back, analyze the situation and thank myself for the new story I can tell.

Don’t be afraid of failure, but at the same time, adopt the mind frame that assumes success and success will follow.