My Big Secret of Being Mediocre for Nearly 40 Years!

Morning Folks!!


I went to 3 different High Schools in my last 3 semesters of school that were 3000 miles apart. It was not easy then and it is tough when I look back now. The longest I went to any school was 3 years. In total I went to 7 different school systems in 6 different states. I was a good student until about 13 and then with so many moves and different levels of this and that I began to lose my way. I was always the “New Kid”. I started falling behind and losing interest. By the time I hit the middle of 9th grade, I gave up and never applied myself again until the day I dropped out of college and my life began.


But even then I paved a road of mediocrity. I never used all I had. I used enough to get me through life. I was homeless in those days but not without a roof. I traveled the next 15 years living out of a suitcase. Jimmy Carter was President and the economy was MUCH worse than it is now because there were much fewer options in life. Gas lines. Some towns were basically out of business. Long distance phone calls were expensive and there was no Fed Ex. No Computers. There were 3x5 index cards and I was too lazy to use them.


And then one day, things started to change. It was 1993 and I was playing Duke Nukem and just lost $65,000 in options. (Remember iOmega?) It was a devastating loss because I never lost that much money at one time in one day. The good news is that I learned to lose even more and that taught me how to make money.


Then I got these Tony Robbins tapes. Life changing and to this day I still have never heard 16 of the 20 cassettes. That was the last day I was ever “Mediocre”. That put me on a new path. Instead of playing Duke Nukem, I developed a novelty Wrist Watch and never left my office as I designed the product and got a source and began shipping. From idea to first shipments in 6 weeks! And I never left my office. I was on the NBC Nightly News the day I got my first shipment of OJ Watches.


Now while I sold thousands, I just broke even with the watches.But it was a learning experience that made it so valuable. I was able to break loose of those chains in my MIND that were keeping me mediocre when I should have been tasting excellence. I now had a road map in place to do things.


That was the moment. That was the event. That was what changed my life. Not that it was bad before, but I worked way too hard to just be mediocre and I deserved to be better than that.


So I changed my outlook and like magic my life changed. That gave me the fuel to keep making more improvements. Manage my time better. Finish projects. Enjoy a level of success that I never had before and all I did was look at things differently and instead of the lip service of talking about things I just went out and did them with less energy than it would take to EXCUSE FAILURE!


My only regret is I did not learn this in my teens or 20’s. Not until I was 40 did I figure it out. After that life is like cutting butter with a hot knife. Failure is harder to achieve than success. Failure hurts and success does not. Just so many realizations I wish I had figured out earlier. And while I will never fear failure, today failure is only a step closer to success. In those days failure was end of the road.


The single biggest thing I learned was that failure or success is determined at the beginning not the end. You arrive at failure in the last hour, but your failure was predetermined during your first hour. The only thing I can do is share what I have discovered along the way and help you apply it to the domain business or any business.


Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz




11 thoughts on “My Big Secret of Being Mediocre for Nearly 40 Years!

  1. George

    Exactly. Once you learn to embrace failure you will not fear it. Believe in yourself, work hard, and the rest will fall into place. Thanks again Rick.

    Reply
  2. Russell Godinho

    one of the most inspiring post I have ever come across…will bookmark this and re-check this everytime I’m lost out there…thanks Rick :)

    Reply
  3. James

    It wasn’t that you were failing prior to finding your success – you just did some things wrong on the way to it. Now if you’d stopped trying to be successful and settled for mediocrity, then you would’ve failed.

    Reply
  4. Leonard Britt

    Yes, most people never live up to their potential as it is easy to become distracted by the daily grind and lose focus on what is truly important. The economic downturn of the past few years has thrown a fast curveball at much of the populace including many individuals who invest in domains. Interesting you bring up today the topic of potential. Oftentimes the differential between success and failure is a matter of choices and priorities. Well, this past weekend a rapidly growing church with multiple campuses in the Miami / Fort Lauderdale area changed its name to Potential Church. Thanks again for sharing your insights on domaining.

    Reply
  5. LordOFTheOnionRings

    The key is to not lose life-changing money more than once or twice. If you can have a devastating failure without taking a huge backwards step financially then you can continue to move forward.
    Even though many domainers are horrible nitpicky and awful people, most of the successful ones rarely lose big.
    But there is nothing like the jolt of losing a TON of money on something. The moment that realization hits that the money is gone is like the bars slamming shut on the prison doors.
    Everyone should get at least one huge jolt and take a monster loss, but the earlier it happens in life the better.

    Reply
  6. Danny Pryor

    Thank you for this, Rick. I can relate perfectly well to living mediocrity, even after achieving some small success early in life. We seem to have a defeatist culture that wants to excuse failure as someone else’s responsibility, when the entire root of success and failure lay within. It is difficult to overcome some of the pre-programming, particularly when one is willing to deny it exists. But opening the door, ever so slightly, to new realizations and possibilities of thought, it becomes, eventually, almost impossible to ever again slam the door of opportunity permanently closed. Of course, we can always keep it only slightly ajar, and that is frequently an issue with which I struggle. ;-)))

    Reply
  7. anon

    I have found your posts so good lately that when I get the text that this was posted I exited 95 and stopped my car to read it. Truly excellent and usable business and personal observations.

    Reply
  8. Rob Sequin

    “The single biggest thing I learned was that failure or success is determined at the beginning not the end.”
    A wise man once wrote something like”Make sure your ladder is leaning against the right wall before you start to climb it” ;-)
    I never forgot that.
    See you soon!!

    Reply
  9. Rob Sequin

    “Everyone should get at least one huge jolt and take a monster loss, but the earlier it happens in life the better.”
    Well said. Hard to believe this is good advice but you need the rainy days to better appreciate the sunny days.
    Also, I heard somewhere that mistakes are the exhaust of creative people.

    Reply

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