About once a month, I’ll go to Great Clips and get my haircut. They have this down to a science over there. They even have what I usually get in their system. But why does no one usually notice…and then why does everyone notice all at once? If it is the same haircut that I normally get, then it is weird that I can get 3 haircuts like that and no one says anything. Then on the 4th haircut people say, “Did you get a haircut?” Maybe the lady just nicked my sideburns a little…but maybe it was just about time people noticed?
I can’t explain why this is but it happens to me. And this is the way that I’ve noticed life goes. We go along, minding our business for a long time, sewing our seeds until one day…we reap the rewards. The great philosophers, businessmen, pastors, politicians, and intellectuals are proof. Why did Steve Jobs create Apple…was it because he was so special? Yes, he was no doubt a man with great ambition and drive. But he went many years as just Steve Jobs, that guy that many faintly remembered from high school. It wasn’t until the culmination of many things that lined up for him that he became a person of greatness. Just like a haircut. First, Steve worked at Atari and met the first guy he’d ever met who started his own business. This inspired him. Just like a 5 guard on the sides. Second, he met Steve Wozniak who was a computer engineering genius who needed someone with business sense. Just like a trim on the top. And just like that, his life would never be the same.
Phil Knight, founder of Nike, has the same kind of story. He was 24 and had graduated college. He pondered what his definition of success would be? Money, house, car, wife and kids? Maybe. But maybe it was more. Phil wondered if he could change the world. But all he could think about was a college presentation on how the shoe market was missing it’s opportunity in the Japanese manufacturing economy. Then it came to Phil! A world trip! That’s what he needed in order to figure out what he wanted to do. Phil spent 6 months in Hawaii with a friend. Until that friend got a girlfriend and Phil was out of money because he was a salesman who was terrible at selling. He thought about going home…but something inside him told him to keep going. Next stop, Japan, he thought! And so he went…and why not check out some shoe manufacturers while he was at it? So he did, like sitting in the lobby of his destiny, he made a connection with a Japanese manufacturer. And over the next 25 years, he would change the world.
Billy Joel and The Beatles had the same story. Billy Joel attempted suicide before he made it big and The Beatles were rejected many times before the world was ready for them. J.K. Rowling was on welfare before Harry Potter and Conor McGregor was a plumber. Most people don’t reach that level of fame or worldly success but I believe each person has a plan for their life. It’s a crazy thought to think that the best days are ahead. But it’s a necessary one. And with that thinking, when a day comes where chance presents itself, we will have the courage to open the door.
Between the Mess 
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