If someone said they were going to kill you unless you doubled your turnover in 7 days, could you deliver? But before you answer that, let me tell you a story.My Chinese friend is so hungry for success that you would lose a finger if you got it too close to the mouth of her ambition! She proudly proclaims, “everything in my house is like me, made in China!”, and is quick to inform that there is nothing on credit, all bought and paid for!
Dalal is my Chinese bulldozer and I have so much respect for her, a 5ft 0″ powerhouse who arrived in the UK with little more than her ambition. She bought her first house whilst working in a takeaway from 4pm to midnight. Then she decided she wanted to become an interpreter, but it didn’t seem to phase her that she was several years – and several thousand pounds – away from the coveted graduation diploma. Every night she would study English in between serving sweet and sour pork dishes, and would make me a cup of tea as I helped her with more difficult English pronunciations (th in ‘that’ and th in ‘think’ were particularly hard!). She went on to pass everything, travelling hundreds of miles to special exam centres. Dalal paid for her own exams, study costs and, where necessary, any resit fees and hotels……..all whilst holding down a full time job.After being declared ‘fluent’, she then enrolled for the interpreters course at Leeds University and passed 12 months later, still whilst working. Oh, one other thing, she rented out her first property, bought a dream bungalow, renovated it and managed to squeeze in a one month trip to China at the same time! Two years on she is now a hugely successful interpreter, who works for the police, NHS, Crown Prosecution Service and many other public and private bodies.Dalal would often say to me ‘you don’t know how good you have it in the UK. In China the competition for university places is unimaginable, and you even have to pay to go into public parks because there is so much demand for space. Here you have unlimited opportunity.”And now to the crux of my blog. Have you got Dalal’s drive and amibition or do you have too much fat on the bone to succeed? Is life too comfortable? Do we live in a nanny state where we have come to expect too many handouts and a help up the ladder? Dalal wasn’t from such a society and has had to fend for herself. She continues to do so without complaint or expectation. Maybe some of us need a gun to our heads in order to succeed. Maybe we need to lose a bit in order to get ahead? What would it take to really galvanise you…..a death threat, the loss of your home? Or, placed under such pressure, would you just curl up and die moaning that no one had come to your rescue? Need a death threat to double your sales, or would you just like to order a coffin?
People perform better at the eleventh hour but a person’s drive and ambition comes from nature and nurture. Your point is not about how well you perform a task is it? It’s about a way of living your life and you need to be born with the will to do it and or need someone to show you how it can be done!