How does perspective lead to success?

We all know the people here. Elon musk, Cristiano Ronaldo and Usain Bolt. Now, when you
look at these people, what do you think lead them to their success. Their intelligence,
athleticism, or maybe their leadership? Whilst all these are partly the reason for their
success, they aren’t biggest reason for it. The biggest reason, is their perspective. Let me
explain.
First, we need to know what “perspective” means. The oxford dictionary defines perspective
as “a particular attitude toward something; a way of thinking about something.” I think a
more appropriate definition of perspective is making a judgement based off of what you
have seen, or what you know of something.
Let’s look at this in context. Here is a picture of Rio de Janeiro. As we can all see, it looks like
a very developed country, a lot of sturdy buildings, a nice beach. But, let’s take a look at this
from another perspective. If I zoom out of this image, this doesn’t look nearly as good as it
originally was. The slums at the bottom are clearly divided from the richer areas of Rio.
This shows that, whilst you think you might know everything, if you tweak your perspective,
everything can change. Let’s apply this to us. You’ve taken an exam, and received a grade 4.
There are a minimum of 3 perspectives you can take in this situation. The first is seeing this
as a failure, and giving up, believing it to be your limit, the second is being satisfied, not
looking to improve or decline. The 3rd, and most important, is using this as motivation,
looking to improve yourself from this.
This last perspective is the one that those who are successful adopt, which lets them
constantly improve despite their struggles. If we also adopted this perspective, of always
wanting to improve, we would also be among these people.
One more example, Cristiano Ronaldo. He was expelled from school at age 14 and
diagnosed with a heart disease at 15. Despite this he continued to work hard and eventually
became one of the best athletes in the world. He is a key example of how your perspective
on life can lead to success.
This isn’t an anomaly either. This isn’t just one person. A man named Richard Saint John did
face to face interviews with 500 successful people, including the likes of Bill Gates and Jeff
Bezos and found 8 key factors that led to their success, none of which are targeted towards
a certain job.
Passion- Love what you do
Work- meaning putting in hard work
Focus- Only focus on one thing at a time, not everything
Push- keep pushing yourself
Ideas- come up with good ideas
Improve- keep improving yourself and what you do
Serve- serve others something of value, because success isn't just about yourself
And Persist-because there's no overnight success.
There is one thing in common with all these 8 factors. All of them are affected by your
perspective. You can’t be successful if you have a lazy attitude. You can’t attain success
without work. You can’t attain success without persisting through struggles.
Remember you have control over your mind, nobody else. Only you can change how you
see the world. Other people might convince you to change your perspective but in the end,
it is down to yourself.
Be honest with yourself, are you really putting in 100%, are you really striving to success.
Every person in the world wants to be successful, the difference between the 8% of people
who achieve their dreams, and become successful, compared to the rest of us, is that they
have the right attitude, the right perspective. They don’t just sit around and wait, hoping for
success to randomly fall onto them, they go out and they search, sometimes all their life
until they finally find success.
So, next time there’s an obstacle in your life, try changing your perspective. Is it really a
boulder blocking your way, or is it just a pebble you can kick away?
Thank you for listening