Dollarmakers.com BLOG

Monday, March 05, 2007

You are the Captain of Your Fate


While Rika and I were walking around the lake last week, she told me an interesting, true story about a friend of hers. There were two families: one was very poor and they had eight sons, while the other family was extremely wealthy and they had five daughters. When the poor family had yet another son, they knew they could not afford to raise him, so they allowed the wealthy family, who longed for a son and heir, to adopt their son. I asked Rika to ask her friend what became of all the children in adulthood.

Turns out the son who received the best education and was given anything his heart desired, now sells men’s cloths in a department store, while all the uneducated, poor kids from the other family became success, wealthy entrepreneurs. There are two PhD’s available, folks: One is Papa Had Dough and the other is Poor, Hungry, and Desperate. You can get two MBA’s in life; one will prepare you to get a job. I prefer the Massive Bank Account.

A few years ago, the media discovered two brothers who lived very different lives: one was a very well known and highly successful businessman and philanthropist. He had a wonderful, happy family and was loved by all who knew him. In spite of his fame, he was humble, confident, and caring, while the other brother was a bitter loser with a string of felonies, drug addiction, and broken relationships in his wake.

The press interviewed the brothers separately and asked each of them what the reason was for either his success or his failure in life. Both answered in exactly the same manner: “My father was a drunk who beat us kids and my mother was a whore. We grew up poor and embarrassed, and we had no education. That’s why I am what I am today.” Each of the brothers chose to react to his sad circumstances in a different way. One used his upbringing as an excuse to become a loser, while the other used it as motivation to become a screaming eagle winner. We can’t always choose our circumstances, but we always choose our reaction to the cards we are dealt in life. We create our own circumstances.

When I first read Ernest Henley’s INVICTUS, I was inspired at the innate strength of his spirit. Read and enjoy:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com