At 2, speed skater Bonnie Blair began skating. She should go on to win five Olympic gold medals.

At 3, Wolfgang Mozart, taught himself to play the harpsichord.

At 4, Brazilian Formula One race-car driver Ayrton Senna da Silva began driving.

At 5, Yo-Yo Ma, the world-famous cellist, began playing Bach’s “Suites for Unaccompanied Cello” before bed each evening.

At 6, Willie Hoppe, the greatest billiards player in history, began to play pool. He had to stand on a box to reach the table.

At 7, English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill had mastered Greek.

At 8, three-time Olympic gold medal-winning runner Wilma Rudolph took her first step.

At 9, Daisy Ashford wrote her bestselling novel, “The Young Visitors”. It sold over 200,000 copies.

At 10, Vinay Bhat became the youngest chess master in the world.

At 11, Pilot Victoria Van Meter became the youngest girl ever to fly across the United States.

At 12, Carl von Clausewitz, general and writer of “On War”, joined the army.

At 13, Jodie Foster wrote and directed a short movie called “Hands of Time”.

At 14, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci became the first athlete in Olympic history to achieve a perfect 10.

At 15, Swedish tennis star Bjorn Borg dropped out of school to concentrate on tennis.

At 16, American sharpshooter Annie Oakley challenged and defeated the well-known marksman Frank Butler by hitting a dime in mid-air from 90 feet.

At 17, Pele won the World Cup final for Brazil, then passed out on the field.

At 18, Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel proved that it was impossible to solve the general equation of fifth degree by algebraic means.

At 19, Abner Doubleday devised the rules for baseball.

At 20, Charles Lindbergh learned to fly.

At 21, Thomas Edison created his first invention, an electric vote recorder. It failed to sell.

At 22, Olympic runner Herbert James Elliott, ranked by many as the greatest mile runner ever, retired undefeated.

At 23, English poet Jane Taylor wrote “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”.

At 24, Ted Turner took over his father’s billboard advertising business. He later launched CNN.

At 25, Janis Joplin made her first recording, “Cheap Thrills,” which grossed over a million dollars within a few months.

At 26, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Chereshkova became the first woman to travel in space.

At 27, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. dropped out from his job at General Electric to become a full-time writer.

At 28, Jamaican reggae composer/performer Bob Marley recorded “I Shot the Sheriff.”

At 29, Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first complete sentence by telephone.

At 30, Physicist Armand H. L. Fizeau measured the speed of light.

At 31, French Egyptologist Jean Francois Champollion deciphered the Rosetta stone.

At 32, Alexander the Great had conquered almost the entire known world.

At 33, Walter Nilsson rode across the United States on an 8 1/2 foot unicycle.

At 34, Francis Scott Key, after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry, wrote “The Star Spangled Banner”.

At 35, Frederic William Herschel, an English astronomer, invented the contact lens.

At 36, Barthelemy Thimmonier developed the world’s first practical sewing machine.

At 37, Jersey Joe Walcott became the oldest man ever to win the world’s heavyweight boxing title.

At 38, Apollo 11 commander, Neil Armstrong, became the first person to set foot on the moon.

At 39, Sharon Adams became the first woman to sail alone across the Pacific Ocean.

At 40, Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run.

At 41, Rudyard Kipling became the youngest Nobel Laureate in literature.

At 42, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar became the oldest NBA regular player.

At 43, baseball player Nolan Ryan pitched the sixth no-hitter of his career.

At 44, George Washington crossed the Delaware River and captured Trenton, New Jersey.

At 45, Andre Marie Ampere, a French physicist, discovered the rules relating magnetic fields and electric currents.

At 46, Jack Nicklaus became the oldest man ever to win the Masters.

At 47, Kent Couch attached 105 helium balloons to a lawn chair and flew 193 miles.

At 48, Umberto Eco, a professor of semiotics, wrote his first novel, “The Name of the Rose”.

At 49, Julia Child published her book, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.

At 50, P. L. Guinand, a Swiss inventor, patented a new method for making optical glass.

At 51, The Marquis de Sade, imprisoned for much of his life, wrote the novel “Justine”.

At 52, Francis Chichester sailed around the world alone in a 53-foot boat normally manned by a crew of six.

At 53, Walter Hunt, an inventor, patented the safety pin.

At 54, Annie Jump Cannon, the dean of women astronomers, became the first person to systematically classify the stars according to spectral type.

At 55, Pablo Picasso completed his masterpiece, “Guernica”.

At 56, Mao Zedong founded the Peoples’ Republic of China.

At 57, Frank Dobesh competed in his first ever 100+ mile bicycle ride — exactly ten years after he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

At 58, Sony chairman Akio Morita introduced the Sony Walkman. An idea no one seemed to like at the time.

At 59, “Satchel” Paige became the oldest Major League baseball player.

At 60, Playwright and essayist George Bernard Shaw completed writing “Heartbreak House,” regarded by some as his masterpiece.

At 61, Charles Cagniard de la Tour, a French doctor, demonstrated that fermentation depends upon yeast cells.

At 62, J.R.R. Tolkien published the first volume of his fantasy series, “Lord of the Rings”.

At 63, John Dryden undertook the enormous task of translating the entire works of “Virgil” into English verse.

At 64, Thomas Bowdler released a cleaned-up version of “Shakespeare” with certain words and expressions omitted.

At 65, jazz musician, Miles Davis, defiantly performed his final live album, weeks before he died.

At 66, Noah Webster completed his monumental “American Dictionary of the English Language”.

At 67, Poisson discovered the laws of probability after studying the likelihood of death from mule kicks in the French army.

At 68, The English experimentalist, William Crookes, began investigating radioactivity and invented a device for detecting alpha particles.

At 69, Canadian Ed Whitlock of Milton, Ontario became the oldest person to run a standard marathon in under three hours (2:52:47).

At 70, Cornelius Vanderbilt began buying railroads.

At 71, Katsusuke Yanagisawa, a retired Japanese schoolteacher, became the oldest person to climb Mt. Everest.

At 72, Margaret Ringenberg flew around the world.

At 73, Larry King celebrated his 50th year in broadcasting.

At 74, Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps began an attempt to construct the Suez Canal.

At 75, cancer survivor, Barbara Hillary, became one of the oldest people, and the first black woman, to reach the north pole.

At 76, Arthur Miller unveiled a bold new play, free of the world-weary tone of works from his previous decade.

At 77, John Glenn became the oldest person to go into space.

At 78, Chevalier de Lamarck proposed an erroneous theory of evolution, claiming that acquired characteristics can be transmitted to offspring.

At 79, Asa Long became the oldest U.S. checkers champion.

At 80, Christine Brown of Laguna Hills, California flew to China and climbed the Great Wall.

At 81, Bill Painter became the oldest person to reach the 14,411-foot summit of Mount Rainier.

At 82, William Ivy Baldwin became the oldest tightrope walker, crossing the South Boulder Canyon in Colorado on a 320-foot wire.

At 83, Famed baby doctor, Benjamin Spock, championed for world peace.

At 84, W. Somerset Maugham wrote “Points of View”.

At 85, Theodor Mommsen became the oldest person to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature.

At 86, Katherine Pelton swam the 200-meter butterfly in 3 minutes, 1.14 seconds, beating the men’s world record by over 20 seconds.

At 87, Mary Baker Eddy founded the Christian Science Monitor.

At 88, Michelangelo created the architectural plans for the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.

At 89, Artur Rubinstein performed one of his greatest recitals in Carnegie Hall.

At 90, Chagall became the first living artist to be exhibited at the Louvre museum.

At 91, Allan Stewart of New South Wales completed a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of New England.

At 92, Paul Spangler finished his fourteenth marathon.

At 93, P.G. Wodehouse worked on his 97th novel, got knighted, and died.

At 94, Comedian George Burns performed in Schenectady, NY, 63 years after his first performance there.

At 95, Nola Ochs became the oldest person to receive a college diploma, a degree in general studies with an emphasis on history.

At 96, Dorothy Geeben, mayor of Ocean Breeze Park, Florida, is the oldest mayor in the United States.

At 97, Dorothy Geeben is the mayor of Ocean Breeze Park, Florida, and may be the oldest mayor in the United States.

At 98, Beatrice Wood, a ceramist, exhibited her latest work.

At 99, Teiichi Igarashi climbed Mt. Fuji.

At 100, Johannes Heesters was the oldest guest in a Saturday night show, Wetten dass.

It’s never too late to start doing something amazing.

It’s never too early to start trying.

The truth is that people are doing amazing things all the time.  There is no reason you can’t be one of them.

It’s just a choice for you.

To try something new.  To be vulnerable  enough to fail.  To care enough to believe in your dreams.

Will you choose you?

While it’s only human that you have an opinion, forcing your opinion on everyone else all the time just isn’t a winning formula for getting people to follow you.

It is guaranteed to backfire.

Anger, at first, creates options. It allows passionate people to choose sides.  It creates urgency.  It defines the cost of the battle.

For a little while, anger is energizing.

But, anger for too long creates confusion and resentment.  Both sides go too far.  Things are said that can’t be taken back.  The original cause of the conflict seems to have been forgotten in the quest for not having to take a step backwards.

Anger may be a great way to get your business strategy off the ground, but the lift you get will only be short-term.  You had better be ready to turn outrage and paranoia into an idea that everyone can get behind.

You don’t want to turn into your own target.

Playing to the angry mob only works if they have an enemy other than you.

Get angry. Rage loudly. And then use that anger to create change that matters.

Anger by itself is a losing strategy.

It’s what you do with your anger that matters.

It only starts one to get people thinking.

It only takes one to make a difference.

One thought. One moment. One person.

“Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being?  There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations with them, and lead the activity of the human race.”     ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It only takes one person.

That one could be you.

That one new idea could be yours.

The next big moment could be one that you call your own.

And that changes everything.

Because once you know it’s your time, that you can make a difference, everything you do becomes a little more urgent — that much more important.

It is not really a secret at all.

You are the one.

Choose to make it a big one.

Rules about the cost of doing business. About profit, loss, and reinvestment.  Rules about possibilities. Rules dictated by shear elemental constraint.

The rules set the limits.

Science dictates certain rules.  Math and economics decide other rules.

And if we told that if we watch closely the rules teach us how to win the game.

They teach us that it “takes money to make money”. That growing too fast without enough cash flow puts us at an unfair disadvantage. That not treating good employees good enough disrupts our thought leverage in the industry.

We’ve learned how to play by the rules.

We listen to the experts that tell us how to push and pull and tweak until we align our business interests with the rules that decide positive outcomes.  We follow the rules hoping that we end up being successful.  Hoping that the rules that worked for someone else end up working for us.

And so our businesses look alike, sound like, and fail alike.

We’re all doing the same things, following the same rules, and all wondering why the rules don’t seem to be working all that well.

Until someone comes along and teaches us that the rules don’t really matter.

That the rules need to be broken.

And nothing is the same ever again.

1. Zappos broke the rule that helping customers too much is wildly unprofitable.  They built a $1 billion company in less than 10 years by delivering an outrageous client experience.
2. Craigslist broke the rule that web technologies need to look sexy.  Without any advertising or an attractive user interface and with only a handful of people they booked hundreds of millions of dollars by providing simple functions that users really want.
3. Nike broke the rule that selling athletic equipment was about the sport.  They built a brand backed by celebrities and world-famous champions that inspires fierce loyalty by athletes of all skill-level.
4. Ford Motors broke the rule that you needed a government bailout to stay competitive in the automotive industry.  They added $18.4 billion in sales over two years by cutting waste and refocusing their spending habits.
5. Walmart broke the rule that consumers can’t be bought with cheaper prices.  They introduced radically discounted goods and quickly generated trillions of dollars of revenue through 9,000 stores all over the world.
6. Netflix broke the rule that consumers only wanted to rent the latest movies from a store down the street.  They created a multi-billion dollar industry of renting mostly older movies on laptops and living room set-top boxes.
7. Amazon.com broke the rule that books were meant to be read in hard copy — that groceries and electronics couldn’t be sold from the same website.  They generate more online book business than all other online retailers combined and generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue for other sales.
8. YouTube broke the rule that video was meant for the television screen.  They taught friends how to easily share memorable experiences and sold their platform for almsot $2 billion in less than a year. Their website still continues to be one of the most popular online destinations of all time.
9. ING Direct broke the rule that banking customers need easy assess to ATM machine and branch offices to invest their money.  They made online banking an attractive option and radically altered how consumers save money — all the while building a billion dollar franchise.
10. Dell Computers broke the rule the consumers wanted to buy their electronics from a retail store.  They removed the middle man and became the largest manufacturer of personal computers, creating one of the largest consumer e-commerce sites on the web.
11. IKEA broke the rule that do-it-yourself furniture couldn’t be stylish yet inexpensive.  Today, they offer 12,000 products, employ 127,000 workers, and help 450 million consumers find the perfect piece of furniture for their home.  You might call it a pretty big success.

Let’s be candid.  There were rules before these companies came along.  Lots of them.

And a lot of competitors to these companies thought they needed to play by them.

They weren’t ready to go “all in” and break the rules.  They were convinced that playing by the rules was the better choice.

But the rules were wrong.

The rules were holding them back from being amazing.

It took bold leaders to see this and build a strategy to successfully break the rules.

It took leaders who could look past fear and failure and the disapproval of the crowd and dare to be amazing.

That leader could be you.

Are you ready to break the rules?

When you try to change the topic some of those around you will try to push the conversation back to where it already was.

That’s where they’re used to having the conversation.  That’s where it is comfortable for them.  After all, the old conversation benefits them.

It’s just a natural reaction.

Without even thinking about it those most invested in a conversation subconsciously push back against any change in the conversation.  It’s automatic.

Which is why you have to get good at knowing how to change the conversation.

And it really all comes down to what you do with that push back.  To be effective you need to learn how to pull when you’re pushed.  That’s the secret to changing any conversation.

You can’t push back.

You pull.

Which automatically changes the balance of power in the fight.

Your opponent is expecting a push so they are leaning forward ready to push back even harder.  When you pull they are completely off-balance.  They are completely unprepared.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Compliment your opponent on what they have done right.  There is always something awesome worth mentioning.
2. Admit any failures or inaccuracy you might have accidentally created.  Don’t let small innocent problems marinate into future distractions.
3. Validate any concerns or frustrations the crowd might have.  Make sure your intentions are clearly understood.
4. Remind those watching of the stake involved.  Take the stakes up a few uncomfortable notches.  Get people to pay attention.
5. Use emotional imagery to create a powerful idea of possibility choices.  Paint a picture with your words.  Make it rich with passion.
6. Refuse to tell people what choice they should make for themselves.  Let them feel like they have options other than doing the right thing.
7. Walk away.  Shake hands.  Be polite.  Exit the debate with a smile.  Confidence is an attractive quality.  (Being cocky isn’t)
8. Watch as those around you start adopting your new conversations.  Encourage them to take the next step.  Cheer them on from the sidelines.
9. Repeat as many times as necessary until the conversation is changed.  Any battle worth winning take more than one attempt at breakthrough.  Be disciplined.

It all works together to change the conversation in your favor.

Perhaps it all goes back to a simple observation:

Kindness pulls faster than “a better argument” can push.

It goes against human nature.

Your natural reaction is to get angry.  To get even.  To shove your opponent back and beat them over the head with your better conversation.

That doesn’t work though.  You end up bloodied and your conversation isn’t effective.

You look like a fool.  Your passion is wasted.

Stop pushing.

That might work in the school yard, but it just look silly anywhere else.

Pull the conversation and you’ll see the conversation change.

And that’s what you wanted in the first place.

Try kindness this time.

You don’t have to throw up your hands, hang your head, and admit defeat.

It is a choice. Both giving up and fighting on.

They are just choices.

And it’s your choice today.

That’s important to remember. Because it can seem like it’s not your choice. It can appear like the matter has already been decided. That no matter what you do you’re going to lose.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

You can’t be stopped until you quit moving forward.

Just because things didn’t go your way the first time (or any time so far) doesn’t mean that they won’t go your way the next time.

A thousand years ago, the battle between primal warriors was more clear.  Giving up wasn’t as easy a choice as it is for us today.  Losing meant giving up everything — your honor and your life.

And so, no matter how badly you were injured, you fought on. You grabbed your weapon and with every ounce of courage you could muster, you waged war with the enemy.

To lose quietly meant death.

And that choice wasn’t something you were prepared to choose.

Today’s options are more sophisticated. You can give up but still pretend you try. You can give up and not care about trying.

Or you can try and try and try and try and try again.

You can refuse to lose quietly.

And be a warrior.

Where you were before is just history. Where you end up is a result of where your next step takes you.

It is all too easy to let complex business problems and tough personal life choices cloud your decision making process. It can seem like any decision is the wrong one.  It’s paralyzing.

Unnecessarily so.

Instead of focusing on a five-year plan for a five-month plan, focus on what you’re going to do in the next five minutes.  Because what you do right now ultimately decides where you end up in five months or in five years.

Just because problems look difficult doesn’t mean you can’t solve them one step at a time.  Just because you’re scared of failing doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the next step.

Get in the habit of asking yourself “What do I need to do right now?”.

And then do it.

Complex problems don’t look so tough when you’ve stripped them down to a series small manageable action items.

But you can’t do that if you give in to fear and pain and hysteria.

Your focus is simply to take the next step.

Pretty soon you’ll have your problems behind you.

Sometimes kindness is a better strategy.

You can discount tolerance as being weak, but maybe it’s just you giving those around you the chance you want desperately for yourself.

And that’s not something you want to say — that you need help.

You won’t need to ask for it if you’ve paid it forward.

It will be waiting for you.

Which drives an important question.

What are you addicted to?

Usually, we’re good at focusing any discussion about addiction towards personal vices like gambling or alcohol, drugs or pornography. Addictions that are socially unacceptable. Addictions that dramatically impact other people around you negatively.

What is left out of the discussion are the addictions that drive those addictions. The reason behind the sickness.

We’re not good at admitting the ugly, gritty side of under-performance that robs us of our true potential.

1. We’re addicted to fear.
2. We’re addicted to making excuses.
3. We’re addicted to passive aggression.
4. We’re addicted to selfishness.
5. We’re addicted to listening to the crowd.
6. We’re addicted to caring less.
7. We’re addicted to taking the easy way out.

They’re socially acceptable addictions.

Addictions that we let others get away with because we see them in ourselves.

We excuse them away as if the frailty of our humanity is a worthy excuse for our inadequacies.

And the truth is clear that they are not.  Being human does not demand that you live broken.  That you let your weaknesses drive your behavior.

The simple truth is that you can feed a different addiction.

What about being addicted to greatness?  What about choosing purpose over avoiding pain?

Your addiction is your decision.

You can’t change it all in a day.  Maybe not in a month or a year.

You are mighty because of your choice to choose what is hard over what is easy.

Rise up.

What you don’t know, you can find out in seconds.

Take a look.  There are more “how-to” articles on the web that ever before.  There is a “fast, five-step plan” for just about anything.  There are 2,099,179 books on Amazon.com on how to grow your business. Books that dive deeply into business strategy, sales and marketing planning, and ideas for how to become the next Internet sensation.

Which begs a deeper question.

Why aren’t we more successful? Why are we still struggling?

If we know everything that there is to know and if we know where to learn the things that we don’t know, why haven’t we achieved greatness?  Why aren’t we building better businesses? Why aren’t our employees happier, more focused, and exceeding our expectations?

It’s a serious question that flies in the face of pop business psychology.

The answer has nothing to do with what we know.  That doesn’t matter.

But you know this already.

Here are a couple things you know already.

1. You know how to get people to read your blog – You’ve been told by social media experts that to get the most retweeted blog posts you need to create a list or a step-by-step guide for how people should do something.  That inspiration is less important than formulas.   For some reason, after looking at the data the experts have decided that people in general are too stupid to figure out things on there own.  That they should only follow blindly — not lead.  That the journey doesn’t matter, just the destination.
2. You know how to get people to buy from you – You’ve heard about the amazing wonders of auto-piloting your marketing messages.  You’ve read the stats.  You’ve seen the angles.  You get the emails.  According to the experts business seems to just be a numbers game — a series of “get rich quick” schemes and “only today” price cuts.  Sure, there is sophisticated business jargon attached to what is going on, but the focus is clear — it’s all about making more money at any cost.

You know these things already.

And then we wonder why what we know isn’t working. We wonder why when things get tough we can’t seem to find the antidote to our misery.

Because success isn’t about knowing more.

It is about being more.

And that’s not a list you can download off the Internet or a blog post that you can re-tweet or a business strategy that you can duplicate from a  best-selling business book.

You have to be more.  You have to desperately want more.  You have to care more.

You have to look within yourself and challenge the demons that hold you back from being successful. You’ll never rise to be a champion until you can look past the fear and failure holding you back.

Your reality is that you already know what to do. That’s never been a serious question anyway.

The real question is: “What will you do about it?”

Who will you choose to become?