Too Stupid to Fail

“Now with God’s help, I shall become myself.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard1

Have you ever felt trapped in your own skin? It is terrible to wake up and realize that you have freedom, but only in the way a prisoner has freedom. A prisoner can choose whether or not to eat, whether or not to sleep, and whether or not to comply with the system designed to manage their behaviors. For you, however, the place you live, the type of food you eat, and how much you must comply with a system controlled by psychological, emotional, and financial realities that are out of your control – it’s all really up to you.
Yet many of us live lives similar to convicts: we make choices that are limited at best. We may choose whether we will work, we may choose what programming to watch on television, we may even choose our associates, but all these choices remain micro-decisions compared to the greatness our lives could be if we could be ourselves.
True freedom comes when a person is on a life path, they designed themself. As the motivational speaker Earl Nightingale said:

We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the journey toward the goal we’ve established for ourselves. It gives meaning to our time off and comfort to our sleep. It makes everything else in life so wonderful, so worthwhile.2

This type of freedom gives us control over our life while placing us in circumstances where there is ironically very little control over our future.
Let me explain. The future is predictable and controllable when we lack freedom. As someone who lacks freedom, a slave or an inmate has few choices. This lack of freedom translates into little or no opportunity to bring about change in their life.
When we choose freedom and design our own path, surprisingly, the future becomes unpredictable, because the future possibilities become endless. We can choose to keep along the same path, make slight changes, or make drastic changes.
If you say yes to the freedom of designing your own life path, you can learn to let go of your inhibitions that trap you in fear or uncertainty or the snare of others’ opinions. By choosing the freedom of designing your own journey, you can experience the joy of fulfillment. To experience the height of your passion, while being remunerated in a way that provides for your future – this is freedom!
In contrast, society has created a social dynamic through schools, jobs, and civic authorities that molds people into mediocre norms. Most of us in these norms are waiting for someone or something to validate us so we can become our true selves, what we already know we are. When no one opens that door for us, we stay conformed to what society expects. Society only expects us to be a shell of what we could be. But in this book, I am giving you permission to open the door to your true self and the freedom that goes with it. Abiding by a social contract that expects you to be polite and play niceties limits your growth and development. Those who play all out are considered rude and insensitive, and we are not trained to be that way. Well, I am inviting you on a journey to live all out.

Before we step through that door, there are some important confessions I want to make to show you that my road to self-expression was a complicated journey. These confessions are meant to fortify you for your journey if it happens to become complicated.
Confession #1: I am not that book smart.

I did well in school early on, but after fifth grade, the message I received was that I was average on the intellectual scale. I didn’t do well at the game of “read, remember, and repeat.” I found more excitement in connecting with people than in figuring out algebraic equations. There may have been times I surprised myself by getting a decent grade in a difficult class, but, truthfully, most of my grades throughout school were average. Nevertheless, for the larger part of the last thirty-five years, I have been in some form of schooling – though I’ve spent much of that time trying to figure out what most of the teachers were talking about.
I noticed that throughout school, the smart students were given great marks, honors, and recognition – they were successful in that realm. That left me with the impression that somehow the smart people would all have successful careers, but professional experience has taught me that, in the business world, nothing could be further from the truth.
This is not to say that schooling isn’t important. To complete courses and years of study and to earn degrees shows that you have discipline and character, that you have what it takes to finish something.
However, to quote the late Dr. Myles Munroe, “When purpose is not known, abuse is inevitable.”4 Abuse is a construct of two words, “abnormal” and “use.” In that way, I think educators are misleading their students by overpromising what grades can do for their future while undervaluing what thinking does. The purpose of education is not to teach you what to think but how to think. The greatest mistake in education is to let students believe a superior ability to learn will somehow equate to future career and financial successes.