|
Determination. Desire. An unrelenting will to succeed. These are intangibles – but they make ALL the difference. I think we’ve all seen situations where the most unlikely person or team – is up against what seems like an insurmountable challenge – yet, against all odds – succeeds. And, in virtually every case, it’s all because of a strength of will, that cannot be denied.
For instance, take the case of Tom Brady. How does this second-string quarterback on his high school freshman football team – a team, by the way, that went the whole season without winning a game – How does this young man end up winning 7 Super Bowls? And, in one of those games even rallying his team back from a 28-3 deficit in the second half? Coming out of college, he wasn’t particularly strong or fast. And, even more, if you look at pictures of him as a young recruit – he didn’t even look very athletic. Answer: It wasn’t what was on the outside. It was all about what was on the inside!
Or, how about another example. As a kid in New York City’s Little Italy during the 1940’s and ‘50s, Martin Scorsese grew up in a fast-paced aggressive environment. He was what a doctor called physically meek and diagnosed at a young age with asthma. While many of the kids he grew up around were able to enjoy playgrounds and partake in organized sports, his condition left him sitting at home watching other kids play sports from the window of his family’s Elizabeth Street home. He’d often get bullied by other students at schools for not exhibiting the same machismo that would later be exhibited in many of his films. It was troubling because as a child, his father took him to baseball games where he idolized the likes of Jackie Robinson and Mickey Mantle.
So eventually when his parents recognized sports may not be in his future, they decided they’d take him to the movies. From a young age he fell in love with cinema, experimenting with cameras, making short films inspired by some of his own favorites which would eventually lead him to get accepted to New York University’s film school. Yet when he arrived at NYU, his professors told him his cinematic style was too brash and would never work. However, only three years after he graduated, at the young age of 25, he would direct his first full length film and two years before his 40th birthday, win the first of his three Academy Awards for the film Raging Bull. Over the course of his 50-year career, he’s made more than 40 films and is considered one of the best filmmakers of all time.
What I love about Martin Scorcese’s story is that he didn’t let his initial challenges discourage him from finding a new path in life. He used it as a source of motivation. Perhaps we face setbacks or face new realities that change the trajectory of our lives but oftentimes as the saying goes, it’s not about the size of the dog in the fight, it’s about the fight in the dog! Martin Scorsese used what could have been viewed as disadvantages and used them to his advantage. Sports weren’t in his future, but he rose above the challenge and found a new path, one where he found success. Sometimes we may think that we have to be the best or the biggest at something to be the most successful. The truth is though, lots of the time, our success comes from having the courage, the heart, and the fight to see the things through that we wish to achieve. While asthma and a few professors threw roadblocks in his way early on, Scorsese’s story tells us that a little bit of fight can go a long way.
| 
