With all the idiots running things out there, you certainly can be running things too. The key ingredient to success is perseverance. You just have to hang in there long enough until you figure out how to do it. Eighty percent of us seem to have enough intelligence to run 80% of what is out there, if we really want to. That is why it’s important to find out what you really want to do in life. Because if you really want to do something, you will work harder at it, and longer at it, until you figure it out.

Everything you do will have its ups and downs and there will be roadblocks for you to go over, under, around or through. If you are just doing something because your brother-in-law says you can make a lot of money at it, you will probably give up as soon as the first couple of bad days hit. You’ll then be looking for another easy way to succeed. For 99% of us it’s not going to be easy. So find something you really want to do and you won’t mind doing what it takes to get there.

Looking for the easy way is a trap to having no fun. If you were playing baseball as an adult with a bunch of 9 year-olds in a little league park, you would be able to hit the ball over the fence every time you were at bat. That would get old quickly and wouldn’t be fun. The fun in life is trying to grow and stretch yourself as a human being as much as you possibly can. You can easily win a race if the rest of the field was on crutches and you had two good legs. That’s why easy isn’t fun. Trying to do the best you can against the best competition you can find and trying to grow the most out of your god given ability is what is really fun and satisfying too.

Is it because the media today tells us too much about our heroes? It’s hard to find true heroes today, whether it’s in sports figures, politicians, scientists, or whoever. The media always seems to like telling us something bad about our favorite person. I think the answer is to become your own hero. We all can be the kind of hero we dreamed about as a kid. The kind that goes out and carves a path into the unknown, slays the dragon, and then comes back to enlighten the village. We all are capable of doing this in our own way. There are still dragons around. They may not have fire coming out of their mouths, but they are real. Like providing a good meal at a good price. Or offering a day care service that provides real nurturing and real love. Or going back to school and becoming the best damn teacher the school system has ever seen. Or finally paying off all your bills and concentrating on what is really important in life.

None of these acts are easy. Real heroes don’t do easy, or they wouldn’t be heroes. Approach your struggle like you are the star of your own movie. Tell yourself you are going to solve your problem in a bold and courageous way. You are going to find unique answers to the problems that confront you. And most importantly, you are going to persevere, no matter what, to accomplish your goal. You’ve read books like this. You’ve seen 100 movies containing the same theme. So why don’t you live your own movie. Be your own hero. You have nothing to lose except going back to doing what you already have been doing. On the other hand, you have a chance at becoming a star.

Many of us are sitting in jobs that we dislike and fear leaving to look for something else or to start your own business. Why does staying with something we hate stop us from trying something we may love for the rest of our lives? I always try to ask myself, “What is the worst that can happen if I leave?” And the answer I would come up with is that I can always find another job I hate, and you can too. There are plenty of them around.

No one likes to ask for bad things to happen in their life. But many times the bad things create the best opportunities in life. Being fired from a job you didn’t like is a blessing in disguise. You probably never would have left it by yourself because you didn’t know exactly what you wanted to do. Being fired is probably the best thing your boss can ever do for you. Then you have no excuse but to go out and find something you really want to do in life.

The older I get the more I see that there is good in almost everything bad that happens. The Vietnam War and the military draft were going on when I graduated from college. I tried to get a deferment by going to graduate school. But my grades and test scores were so bad no school would have me. I joined the Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army and I’ll tell you, I never had more responsibility again for the rest of my life. It turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life and I was trying to get out of it. As a 22 year-old kid out of college, the Navy gave me billion dollar ships to drive around the South China Seas. They gave me big guns to shoot, and made me a diplomatic currier traveling the world.

I have two failed marriages and I found divorce to be the most hurtful experience I have ever had. But without the experience of divorce I would have never thought through how much work a relationship really takes and what are the most important elements required for finding someone you can be compatible with in order to raise a family.

I already talked about having 2 failing businesses was the only way I could have found out what I really wanted to do in life.

And even recently, I relearned this important lesson again when a government consumer protection agency accused me of making false statements in my commercials. They did this even though they had no consumer complaints against me and they were not investigating me. It was just some kind of political thing because they saw me promoting government programs. It was still a kick in the gut. But when I decided to fight back on their false acquisitions I learned that I know more about government programs than even the government. And I am now stronger to fend off anyone else who has something bad to say about what I am doing. I can now be even bolder in my efforts to educate people about government programs, because my fight has reassured me of my knowledge and made me stronger in my convictions. I should now thank them for the wake up call.

Mathew Lesko's thoughts on Life.

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