Almost everywhere we look, the world is in the grip of crisis and conflict, with countries facing dire economic situations and people worried about uncontrolled immigration, inflation, and the threat of war.
But does that mean you should be a pessimist? Absolutely not. Your success in life depends far more on your goals and mindset than on the political or economic situation. Losers blame external factors for their lack of success. In psychology, we distinguish between individuals with an ‘external locus of control’ and those with an ‘internal locus of control.’ People with an internal locus of control view themselves as the architects of their own lives, the shapers of their own destinies. Conversely, those with an external locus of control see themselves as victims of external forces. Numerous studies have shown that successful individuals do not attribute their success to external circumstances, but to their own choices and actions.
December 31st is a good day to think about and formulate goals for the year ahead. It’s something I’ve been doing for decades – and I would hardly have been so successful in so many different areas of life if I hadn’t developed this habit. I recently had the opportunity to dine with the internationally renowned horn player, Felix Klieser, who gifted me a copy of his latest book, Stell dir vor, es geht nicht, und einer tut es doch (in English, literally: Imagine something is not possible, but somebody does it anyway.) I first had the pleasure of meeting Klieser while I was conducting research for my own book, Unbreakable Spirit.
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Experts told him that he could never become a successful horn player because, having been born without arms, he would never be able to use the crucial technique of ‘hand plugging’ to stop the horn’s bell with a hand to create pitch variances that are not present in the instrument’s natural tone series. But Klieser invented his own innovative techniques that allowed him to achieve the same, if not better, effects without ‘hand plugging’. His most important insight: “Little by little, I realized that I could shape my life the way I wanted to – and not the way circumstances dictated. I was in control. This epiphany changed my life.”
Klieser leads a fairly normal life – he can write with his feet and even drive a car. He says he has never been particularly fixated on his disability, viewing it not as a flaw but simply as a part of who he is: “I just don’t find it all that bad. Instead, I have always defined myself by what I wanted out of life. Once I knew what that was, I sat down and thought about how I could turn my desires into reality.”
The secret: be like a child. Despite being in his mid-30s, Klieser writes that he feels like a child. Children are curious. Children have dreams. Often big dreams. It is only as they grow older that they are ‘brought down to earth’ by the adults around them.
Elon Musk is another dreamer. Having made a lot of money from the sale of PayPal, Musk met up with some of the company’s alumni in Las Vegas. While the others were relaxing in the pool, Musk was engrossed in a tattered manual on rocket technology. When one of them asked him what he was planning to do next, he said: “I’m going to colonize Mars. My mission in life is to make mankind a multiplanetary civilization.” His ex-colleague’s reaction? “Dude, you’re bananas.”
That is exactly how most people would have reacted. However, Musk has since gone on to develop the Starship, the most advanced rocket ever constructed. The rocket that will take the first humans to Mars. He has achieved something that NASA had been struggling to do for decades.
Felix Klieser says that his entire life is a “series of disproved impossibilities” and adds, “I think that’s a wonderful realization. The next time you’re faced with a challenge that seems insurmountable, stop for a moment: Is it really impossible, or do you just think it is because you’ve never tried it before and don’t know the right way to approach it? If the latter is the case, how keen are you to explore the unknown?”
I was particularly impressed by the following story: there was a phase during which Klieser struggled to even come close to performing at his best while playing the horn in the classrooms at university. He played very well at home, but found himself faltering in unfamiliar settings. He realized that his struggles were not solely due to stage fright, but must have other reasons. He had to find a way to gain the certainty that he could play at his best in any environment, however bad it might be. He started playing in an uncomfortable bathroom with poor acoustics, then squeezed himself into the guest toilet for weeks, before finally moving into the most awful room he could find, a cold and extremely cramped utility room. Despite the unfavorable external conditions, he still got better and better. Through this process, he gained the unwavering certainty that he could deliver an astonishing performance anywhere in the world and under any circumstances.
As Geoffrey Colvin proves in his book Talent is Overrated, it is not talent but “deliberate practice” over years and decades with unrelenting self-discipline that is the main reason for people’s success. The duration, intensity and type of practice differ considerably between top practitioners and average performers in their field. And it’s not only the length of time and the intensity of the practice that counts, but also the type of practice. What many people understand by “practice” has nothing to do with the “deliberate practice” of which Colvin speaks. Performing a particular activity in the same or similar way over and over again does not, of course, lead to the kind of dramatic improvements necessary to achieve excellence. A key feature of “deliberate practice" is that great performers isolate remarkably specific aspects of what they do and focus on just those things until they are improved.
To achieve great things in life, you really only need three things: to set yourself big goals; to pursue them with unwavering perseverance; and to be willing to constantly experiment. Just like Felix Klieser and Elon Musk.
You can take December 31st as an ideal opportunity to think about your goals and write them down. And in doing so, decide what kind of new year you will have. Skeptical? Well, in the 45 interviews I conducted for my dissertation The Wealth Elite, I found that this is exactly what many self-made multimillionaires do every year.
Rainer Zitelmann is the author of the book Dare to Be Different and Grow Rich, a bestseller in 16 languages. His latest book The Origins of Poverty and Wealth: My World Tour and Insights from the Global Libertarian Movement will be published in January
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