"Blessed with Low Self-Esteem"

Crazy comment huh?

That’s exactly what I thought!

This was a comment that came from a person who has helped me an incredible amount over the last few years. Someone who, when he speaks, I keep my mouth shut and my ears open….

This person who is INCREDIBLY successful – at all levels – and just an unbelievably amazing person, stopped me dead in my tracks when they said to me, “Possibly the biggest attribute to the success I have been afforded has been that I was blessed with very low self-esteem growing up….”

Now, I know a little bit about this person’s past and I know that it was pretty difficult and he is pretty guarded about it too but I pushed a little more into what he were talking about.

“Well you see, I always had very little self-confidence growing up. I battled to speak properly as a child and also was not very bright at school. So there was a lot of tormenting and a fair amount of bullying that went on. That kind of thing, to a youngster can have a pretty heavy impact, particularly in the formative years. It can leave you with a pretty dented self-image and one way or another, it can make you or break you.”

I had to then push him a bit on how he managed to become so successful as I know that self-image has a lot to do with what we are willing to believe that we can achieve.

His response was as follows and gave me a CRAZY insight into this guys mind. He said to me “Well, I feel that it’s a blessing Paul because as I had a belief about myself that I wasn’t normal or bright, it meant I could either accept that idea of myself and therefore accept that I could never achieve what other people could achieve… OR… I could just accept that because I wasn’t as bright as them, I would just have to outwork them to achieve what they could do by just being normal.”

He said this pretty “matter of fact” like which struck me as strange as most people normally complain if they feel that life has dealt them a bad hand… or say that “The Government should do more..!!”

I asked him about this and he shrugged and said “You have got to remember Paul, I believed that my disadvantages were FACT. They were part of my life. It didn’t even occur to me to get angry because it was just a fact of life for me. It would have been like getting cross that the grass is green or that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. There was nothing I could do about my ability – but there WAS something I could do about getting the ultimate outcome that I was after, I just had to work harder than everyone else.”

He went on to tell me about his first job as a salesman for a big company where the business was super cut-throat and that then also made an admission that made me laugh. He said “I actually believed that the people who worked for the competition were not normal human beings. I believed them to be people who were born and bred to sell and to take business away from me…! I was in the office by 8 am and leaving only after 8pm just so I had everything tied up and ready to go with a clear desk the next day because I believed that these people were that much better than me…! But it makes me laugh now, looking back on those days and how badly I overestimated the competition…. They say never underestimate your opponent but if you overestimate them and prepare for them like they are ten times more powerful than they are, you will win more than you lose.”

So then the question had to be raised, “What has happened now? How has that low self-esteem got you to where you are now?”

He thought for a bit and then responded, “I think I got addicted, Paul. I got addicted to the work. I got addicted to the feeling of self-doubt. I got addicted to the fear of being destroyed by those who were more talented than me. I would only feel secure (and still to this day do) about an upcoming event if I knew that I had worked harder than any of my competition. I can’t even sleep at night if I don’t feel that I have prepared to the best of my ability…. which, as it turns out, very few other people are willing to do. So the outcome is, more times than not – I win..and that’s the way I like it.”

He then said something that really summed up the whole situation, “Tell you what Paul, thinking back on this now, there are very few secrets to success in this world. There is however HARD WORK. I believe that if life or nature takes away from you in one area, it will reward you strongly in another area. My learning problems growing up were rewarded with a pure desire to succeed and also a willingness to work harder than anyone else I knew. New top achievers would come into my world with huge reputations and they were very talented and had pure ability but one way or another, they couldn’t handle my work rate or my passion to succeed…. I guess that it just comes down to wanting something so badly, that you will work for it – and do whatever it takes to succeed – except hurting other people. At the end of the day Paul, Talent is NO match for a TRUE, undying desire to succeed….”