Three inspirational real-life incidents on having the right mindset

Sometimes, the difference between success and failure is just having the right mindset and not being too
harsh on ourselves. Across diverse fields, below are some real-life inspirational success stories, emerging
from having the right mindset.

Years ago, a young boy from California, USA called Morgan Housel was passionate about skiing.
He did not seriously consider a career outside of skiing and hence did not focus well on studying
pre-high school. For people who did not qualify for any other high school program, his state
offered an independent study program as a last resort. He took it up just to obtain a high school
degree. He didn’t learn or do much in his own words but formally got a diploma.

Later in life, he became interested in Finance. He enrolled in college but was aware that he hardly
had any high school education. How he perceived this handicap changed everything.

He set his expectations very low. He thought that even if he learnt one subject in college and
passed it, that itself counted as a success given his current education level. He did not think about
getting a college degree at that point or become greedy in his ambitions.

Because the expectation was so low, he did not feel the pressure. He actually did better than he
expected in the subject’s test. Subject after subject, he started doing well.

Success followed, one after the other. He entered the professional world as a financial analyst,
writing articles for the company – The Motley Fool. He then went on to write books and blogs on
Behavioral Finance.

Today, Morgan Housel is a well-known name in the industry. He is the author of two best-selling
books, writes a lot of articles for Collab Fund where he is also a partner and has numerous other
notable achievements to his name.

Starting at one subject at a time, with very low expectations, Morgan Housel has achieved
success in his field. The mindset of one step at a time and not being greedy or wishing for a
shortcut in life has enabled his success.

It was the 2015 ODI cricket World Cup in Australia & New Zealand. The night before a group
stage match against the West Indies, a batsman was very sick and had to take injections. He
couldn’t sleep properly due to the illness. He asked his coach if he could skip the warm-up before
the match since he was physically not fit yet.

The match started and he was still sick. His team lost three wickets for 146 runs, the last two of
them following in quick succession, and he had to walk in next. He thought that, with the
injections, he was grateful for his health and that by itself was a blessing in life. It didn’t matter to
him if he got out early. He was only intent on enjoying cricket and feeling blessed by good health.

With that grateful state of mind and freedom in his approach, he started batting. The rest is
history.

He hit seventeen fours and eight sixes in a world record fastest 150 in ODI history, a record that
still holds today. He finished with an unbeaten 162 runs off just 66 balls and took his team above
400 runs! This is the true story of South African captain AB De Villiers. South Africa won that
match and AB De Villiers was rightly adjudged man of the match.

It all started with a thought of gratitude for his health and setting low expectations accordingly.
This train of thought enabled him to handle the pressure very well.

In 1939, a PhD student called George Dantzig arrived late for a Statistics class at Berkeley
University, California. Since he had missed the early part of the lecture, he noted down the two
questions written on the blackboard which he assumed were homework questions.

As George tried to solve them, they were more difficult than he had initially thought. He
persevered in his efforts. After a few days, he finally solved them. He went up to the Statistics
professor, Jerzy Nerman, and apologised for the late submission. He heard nothing back from the
professor about the homework for a few days.

Then, six weeks after the submission, his professor knocked on his door and excitedly shared that
he had written an introduction to one of George’s papers. Puzzled, he enquired further. The two
problems on the blackboard were unsolved research problems at the time, and George had
cracked them in just a few days, thinking that they were homework problems!

He even got his doctorate by submitting his homework as the thesis. He went on to have a
successful career in Research, becoming a founding father in Industrial Engineering and
Operations Research.

Sometimes, the concept of unsolved/impossible problems seems to exist only as an imaginary
barrier in our minds. George had shown that it was possible to achieve greatness in just a few
days if one didn’t focus a lot on the difficulty of the problems. His perseverance had paid off!

These incidents serve as a hope for all of us, knowing that we can achieve greatness in our lives too,
by having the right mindsets of low expectations, step-by-step success, gratitude and perseverance. I
hope that the above article inspires you in some way!

About the author: Anirudh loves reading and meeting new people. His other articles can be found
here.

References

1. https://www.morningstar.com/financial-advisors/morgan-housel-little-rules-about-big-things
2. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/morgan-housel-turned-lessons-he-learned-as-a-hotel-valet-
   into-a-breakthrough-personal-finance-book-thats-sold-2-2-million-copies-in-2-years-
   11667392339
3. https://business.vcu.edu/news-and-events/?post=psychology-of-money-author-morgan-housel-
   discusses-the-financial-power-of-behavior-patience-at-vcu-business-event
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7swy74FpN8
5. https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/icc-cricket-world-cup-2014-15-509587/south-africa-vs-
   west-indies-19th-match-pool-b-656435/full-scorecard
6. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-unsolvable-math-problem/
7. https://engineering.berkeley.edu/george-dantzig-operations-research-phenom/