Would you care to guess what percentage of multi-million dollar lottery winners go bankrupt in the first 3-5 years? If you guessed 40%, you are correct! How could that be? People who have and keep money have developed the habits and discipline of being good managers of money. Those who win the big jackpot are often not the best stewards of their resources. If we want to succeed, we need to “crawl before we can walk”. For any worthwhile achievement there are steps involved and we must work through each one.
When I was an infant, I never went through the crawling stage. I just went right to walking. Who wants to crawl when you can walk? It turns out that jumping the gun was a bad move. When a baby crawls, he or she gets used to putting one hand in front of another. That is important, because when we do walk we will have many a fall, and we need to instinctively put our hands out to protect ourselves from bashing our head. I had to wear a football helmet for nearly a year. I had leap-frogged over in important step in development and I suffered.
As Americans, we want what we want and we want it fast! Before we can succeed we need to painstakingly go through each important phase. A good plumber was once an apprentice. A major-leaguer was once in the low-paying minors. Whatever we want, there are stages and steps involved. We must be patient and focused to thoroughly complete each step. If we do, we can look back with pride about all the grit we put in along the way. What is your next step?
