I have been thinking a lot about movie stars a lot as (famous) movie stars are very successful and some kind of sample to me. At least it appears like that to me. And the same applies to famous music artists. So yes, being famous appeals to me as it also makes me feel like being rich. And I am also thinking of CEO’s of bigger or even smaller companies. Also they appear very successful and I guess all of the above are considered successful by the majority of people. So yes, am I jealous? Yes, as I’m not famous and as I can’t even take care of myself financially I consider myself certainly not successful, or at least not yet. And I add the last intentionally with the reason auto-suggestion.
But am I really that ‘unsuccessful’? Is there not much more to success or the success we see from the outside? And yes, money and fame and high positions in companies are certainly a measure for success, somehow. But still, I’m also starting to see a lot more.
Like for example, I was watching the movie The Monkey King tonight on CD. It’s not really my type of movie and I also never really heard about it. On Wikipedia I just read it’s an ‘upcoming Chinese-Hong Kong film’, so not weird I didn’t hear of it I guess as it’s quite recent. And in my opinion it’s not ‘that good’, or at least not outstanding or something. However, it is ‘good’ and I recognized quite some actors and again on Wikipedia I read that the actors playing the main characters have quite some nominations as ‘best actor’ or ‘best supporting actor’ and similar things. And even though the story is quite simple, you can read between the lines there is a lot of knowledge and life experience behind the story. So somehow the movie is ‘good’ or ‘good enough’. So it’s worth being there.
And it made me think of the project I’m currently working on (and related покупкадомавшвейцарии.рф). And to me that project has the same feel. The way how I build that site and the back end of that site is good, good enough, especially if you consider the budget. So am I successful with that? Yes, certainly. Is the customer happy? Yes, as far as i know also.
And many more thoughts come up now, like I had similar project that were not successful, but partly because of circumstance I could not control, at least not ‘afterwards’, when things went wrong. The hard thing is that i did many of those other projects with similar passion as this one and somehow it didn’t work out. I was not able to satisfy the customer (within the restraints I had or felt). Or does this have to to that, maybe especially in business ventures, only one in ten ‘ventures’ succeeds as a friend recently told me. And he had heard that from one of the most powerful businessmen in The Philippines.
And yes, looking back at my business failures or defeats had to do with planning and team or Master Mind. So related to the Principles of Success some of the principles were not in place well enough. So this does kind of confirm the validity of the principles of success, that they all need to be in place, or at least need to be in place sufficiently.
But going back to movie stars and other famous people, we often mainly see the glamour and glitter (and money) and not the not so nice things. I’m not sure why the story stays with me, but quite some time I heard or read that Martine Bijl, quite famous TV personality on Dutch TV, was considered to be able to do something financially ‘as she is famous’. But she told that at that specific moment she was unemployed and was even living of Social Security. And this story, together with knowing that movies are ‘projects’, confirms that the life of actors in general is very unsure in terms of income: when you have a role in a TV show or in a movie you’re OK. But when the TV show stops or the movie is finished you don’t have a job and just have to start all over again finding a new role, a new job. And this may not be or sound that important for really famous, really rich actors, but still, you would need to manage your money very well if you would want to live a happy life long after your fame has ended. And I also know that for many famous actors their focus is on having the right roles and mostly not on the money. And those may not be as easy to find as one thinks.
And going back to success, being successful, many movie stars and other famous people are not very successful in relationships, at least what I see on TV and read in magazines and newspapers. And many of them end up being addicted to drugs or other addictive matter. And they pay a price in something like ‘always traveling’ and having no privacy, never have privacy anymore. And I often also read and hear that especially the really good and/or famous actors spend a lot of time and effort on preparing for their roles, or maybe even for just getting the role, sometimes even health related or just giving up your normal hairdo and such.
So well, quite a lot of stuff in this post about the thinks you can find in Think and Grow Rich, like ‘what do you want’, ‘plan and take action’, ‘know the right people’ and last but not least, ‘what are you willing to give’ or even ‘what are you willing to give up’.
I was just watching an episode of