Tuesday Thoughts - Are You On the Wrong Path To Success?

I received an email from John Williams in England this morning. John runs a Web site titled Screw Work,Let's Play. His question was, "What if everything you’d been told about careers, work, and success was wrong?"

Have you ever thought about it? Has all the information you've been taught all your life from childhood about working hard, setting goals, mapping out careful career plans, staying focused on the target, etc. been misinformation? Sure! That's what they tell you in high school and college and graduate school. That's what all those engineers, MBA's, doctors, lawyers, etc. do. Most business profs, coaches and consultants will have you setting short term and long term goals and creating detailed business plans. But, what if that isn't really the way the most successful people become truly successful?

WOW! Wrap your mind around that one. Think about it - suppose Bill Gate, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Richard Branson, JK Rowling, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg and so many others who have literally changed the world - had followed that advice and course of action. Let's see, no Microsoft or Windows or Word and so much more. No Apple, Mac computers, iPods, iPads, iPhones or iTunes. No Dell Computers. No Virgin Records and Virgin Airlines. No Harry Potter. No Google. No Facebook.

I don't know Branson's, Rowling's, Brin's or Page's educational backgrounds, but Gates, Jobs, Dell and Zuckerberg are all college drop outs. They have college graduates, many with advanced degrees working for them. So, obviously, college or advanced education is not necessarily a precursor for success.

If you look at their path to success it doesn't look like a well defined line from a starting point to becoming a successful billionaire. More realistically it looks like a tangle of curves, detours, wrong turns, course corrections and experiences. And here's the most important part. They all did something they absolutely loved doing. They actually had no idea where they would end up. They simply lived free, did what they enjoyed, turned them on, excited them and made them happy.

Of course, not everyone will experience the extraordinary financial wealth these people achieved. But, since life is short and there is so much to do and experience, why do so many people - (you?) - follow this prescribed path and conditioning that locks you in, deprives you of your freedom and happiness - while waiting for some magical chronological age, like 65 to retire and, if you're still healthy, have the finances, the energy and even the dreams any longer, do the things you wanted to do when you first started dreaming about them.

You can click on the link above to go to John William's Web site. He's selling an on-line course and I'm not promoting his course. I'm not an affiliate of John's. I just like the way he thinks. If you go there and decide to buy into his program, that's your choice. I'm simply asking you the question John asked, "What if everything you’d been told about careers, work, and success was wrong?"