Oprah Winfrey on Competition
"I can"t deny that Jerry Springer supposedly beating us didn"t affect me. There was a point where I felt like, Golly, you work so hard, you try so hard and the people say they want meaningful television and then Jerry Springer ends up beating you. It was disturbing."Oprah Winfrey has one of the more interesting backgrounds of some of the other famous people whom we"ve discussed. More or less, Oprah spent her childhood being both physically and psychologically beaten. Most do not come out of this type of background to become the first black female billionaire. Somehow, she did.
The best thing about this quote is that it is spot-on in regards to business. To be successful, you must be tremendously focused on your goals and becoming the best at what you do. In business, if you are not striving to be the absolute best in the business, you will never truly reach your full potential. If you are striving the be best and maybe come up in the top 5, you put up a hell of a fight and got a lot further than you would have if you didn"t actively want that goal. Though, the type of "disturbing" Oprah is referring to is becoming so good at what you do that you don"t understand why somebody beat you, even if it meant that you were still the number 2 rated show in the entire country in your time-slot and could retire that day (at the time) a near billionaire.
When our team sets out to fill a particular account, the drive doesn"t come from money, it comes from the fact that if we don"t fill the accounts which we take on, we are not the best. It makes me feel uneasy thinking about this. Though, in the end, it just makes me fight harder.
What Younger Professionals Can Bring Away From This
For you younger professionals out there, I can promise you that if you are just chasing money, wealth will never come. Money comes from passion (like Oprah discussed having a hard time being 2nd), hard work and a competitive nature within. If you make a lot of money, that is great, but do not talk about it to others. If you don"t make a lot of money, that is just as well, however don"t look up to people simply because they have more money.
Regarding the business, I could currently tell you a few things about money: I know we are quite profitable and don"t carry an ounce of debt, though I don"t ask for a figure. I know we are doing better than last quarter, I have this number in a percentage, however don"t care to calculate it to dollars. I have a rough estimate of what the office costs per month, though could not tell you within $250 of the figure. The money comes from the passion, not the other way around. I remember an old college roommate of mine quoted his father saying, "you could be the best garbage man in the world and you would make 1 million dollars."