What is Greatness? Let Carlos Explain…
June 30th, 2011 by KP
“All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.” – Orison Swett Marden
These last few weeks, make that months, I have been consciously focusing on something I learned from Carlos (he’s been my roommate & is like a brother to me).
It was as I was driving him to the airport a couple months back.
Something I’ve noticed with him since I’ve known him is that he has an amazing ability of time management & his ability to chip away at what needs to be done along the course of a process everyday until the goal is reached is insane. He never attaches emotion to a process, it’s always just next step, next step, next step. I’ve literally seen with my own eyes, him wake up, go sit at his computer at 7am before eating anything, start chipping away at his biggest task of the day, when that got done he moves on to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing, until it gets to 7pm and he goes –
“Man I’m starving… Oh fuck it’s 7 o’ clock, I forgot to eat!”
Yet he’s just got 2 weeks worth of shit done in 12 hours. That is not a rare sight with him, I’ve seen him do this many a time, I’ve seen him work 96 hour days straight, see projects out until completion every time, even when they looked done for, and almost as if ‘magically’ they just turn around and he achieves success… it sets the bar for what self-discipline, commitment, hard work, and drive really is.
We were talking about making it big & making stuff happen. So I was talking to him, and he said something about ‘greatness’. He goes –
“Dude, people think greatness is this huge spectacle of amazing shit that happens when you make it big. What greatness really is, when you know that someone has greatness inside them, is when they have to ability to do the little things that matter, everyday. Whether they want to or not, whether they’re really busy, whether they’re tired, they get it done anyway. They make time, they realise that getting the little things done that matter is more important than sleep, they realise that if they don’t do what needs to be done & move at the fastest pace you possibly can, someone else out there probably is moving at that pace, & that’s the difference between you or them crossing the finish line first.“
He told me that & I felt the cogs inside me ‘click’ and the lightbulb lit up…
Holy fuck how true is that?! The kid is a fucking beast, and is why he is one of the biggest mentors in my life (among very few people) that truly have impacted my growth & evolution in to becoming who I am today.
Life is a game of inches, and like Tony Robbins says, your decisions are destiny. There is no silver medal in life. It’s in your moments of decision when your destiny is shaped. Choose your decisions wisely, taking action in that split second is the difference in earning gold medal, or losing.
So if you’re wondering what greatness is? That’s about the best definition I’ve ever heard anyone give it.
Greatness is not the end result, greatness is the ability to do the little things that matter that no one else sees, everyday, until completion. No excuses, no emotion, no complaining, just action because it HAS to be done. There’s no other choice. It just has to be done.
Like my boy V from London told me –
“Success is in the journey.”
Couldn’t be more true. And that’s why greatness is the key to Supernova.
KP
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