If It Is To Be, It Is Up To Me

May 6th, 2008 · No Comments · Subscribe to this feed

My 8th grade sunday school teacher was a billionaire, the 380th richest man in America (and 799th richest man in the world), in fact, according to the Forbes 400 2007 list. With a net worth of $1.3 billion, Truett Cathy knows what he’s talking about and one of the keys to success is learning from those who’ve gone before you. Fortunately, he’s been kind and humble enough to share a part of his wisdom to a group of 8th graders every year for the last 50 years.

8th grade seems like a long time ago, but what thing I do remember is that Mr Cathy was able to immediately command the respect of the boys in the class. Nothing inspires respect like success and he was somebody we could genuinely look up to. After all these years, the one thing that’s stuck with me was something he used to say: “If it is to be, it is up to me”. Successful people don’t make excuses. They take responsibility for their own failures. Sure, something unexpected may happen that could ruin things, but successful people don’t blame failure on random chance, they blame it on themselves for not being prepared enough to handle all eventualities. They learn from the outcome and plan better next time. This goes hand in hand with my rant on blaming others for being broke and having bad credit. Of course, sometimes things happen that are out of your hands. You can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can control how you plan for them, how you react to them, and how you learn from them.