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Edward Clancey

Writing For College (section 3)

Mr. Smith

16 January 2018

Always Searching: How Do People Find Success?

Some say evidence of success is money, yachts, private air travel, or luxury cars. Others

would list less material things such as a dream job or having certain characteristics. But in all

reality, success is impossible to define for all in a sentence. It can be so many things.

I have dreamed about touching the skies in a fighter jet since before I could remember.

But in 2013, I took my first step into that dream by starting my aerobatic and private pilot flight

training. As I learned more and more about the industry, it showed that becoming a fighter pilot

was no easy task and has a very minimal chance. In the USAF there are around 340,000

members. 5500 are fighter pilots. That is 1 slot for every 62 people. This ratio opened my eyes

and doors to new ideas with and strategies to become one of the select few.

I asked myself the question, what is the difference between those who find extraordinary

success and the ones who don’t? What separates those who are fighter pilots, and those who

aren’t. After researching for the last four months, I discovered that successful people have three

things in common: they are open to learning from anyone and anything, they are motivated by a

clear end goal and are willing to work toward it with an elite work ethic, they collaborate to learn

from mentors, teachers, and peers, and rebound after failure.

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Elon Musk, the 11 billion dollar man who created Spacex, Solarcity, and Tesla. Didn’t

get there by himself and his own ideas. Musk explained in a 2015 interview ​“​When I spoke with

someone about the Tesla Model S, I didn’t really want to know what’s right about the car. I want

to know what’s wrong about the car.​” This goes to show that success doesn’t come from a one

man circus. Some people might say you have to follow your gut and show leadership being the

man in charge with making your own decision, because of their title or experience or reputation.

But the principle of going to others for help and seeking knowledge when you hit a speed bump

is the true success behind all failure. When people seek knowledge, and really listen to others,

individuals not only gain a stronger bond between them and the person you ask for knowledge

from, but learn the mistakes made and answer the questions you had, and can walk away smarter

and more confident in yourself. Rather than keeping those issues to yourself, just to protect your

reputation. Elon Musk, a man that we all look up to for his accomplishments has done this time

and time again for his products that are “Transforming sustainable energy for humanity” -

Business Insider Interview with Elon Musk.

Finding problems and being open to ideas and solving problems aren’t the only attributes

that successful icons have showed the world and their workforce. Successful Leaders want to

lead, the type A personality wants to show it’s employees or followers their elite work ethic.

Exemplifying hard work and giving hope of a big career with motivational work ethics give the

opportunity for companies to create great leaders. Eventually to work alongside with or to

takeover down the road. Simon Cowell is a great representative on this behalf. He attended

Dover College in England and dropped out at age 16. After continual flake jobs he landed a job

at his father's work in the mailroom at EMI Music Publishing. He worked his way up to Talent
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Scouter as an assistant to executive and quit to pursue being his own boss. Which he did. Simon

created 2 music companies in the span of 5 years. Until that unfortunately folded and left him

living back with his parents. Quickly enough though he joined BMG records and climbed up the

corporate tower selling over 150 million records with 70 top chart songs. “I think that by

ignoring the show you're ignoring the audience who put you there.” - Billboard interview Simon

Cowell 2002.

The rest is history with American Idol & the X-Factor. He couldn’t have been so

successful with BMG records without his trial and error starting from the bottom over and over

again. Some might say leaders have to focus on just leading big picture and have knowledge in

top executive work while the lower executives deal with day to day and knowing how to work

the smaller issues. Which is true to an extent. But having rich nutrients in knowledge from all

aspects of knowing how the system works is the way you’re going to move forward. The leader

being able to recognize what each position wants because they had that roll in years prior has a

respect for employees that a boss who has never taken the low road has.

Section 3: The Need for Mentors

A boss is someone who tells us what to do or what needs to be done, they are faced with

big decisions that can affect the work environment we live in. As humans we have always had a

boss whether is being a parent or a higher up employee which most of the time we didn’t

particularly care for. Although this may be true, a boss can be a mentor. Granted not everyone’s

boss is their mentor, ,mentor’s can be all sorts of people. But mentor’s are one of the most

critical pieces of the success pie there can be. Like writing an essay for example, before you turn
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it in you need someone to proofread it. Catch mistakes, learn from what they have to offer, show

them respect because they know something that you don’t.

Take Jimmy Garoppolo the former backup quarterback to Tom Brady & the New

England Patriots for example. Jimmy’s NFL career started out in 2014 when he was chosen in

the 2nd round #62 pick overall in the NFL draft. He wouldn't start as a quarterback until Brady

was handed a suspension for the deflategate dibbocle back in 2016. And when he did start, he

impressed the Patriots with a 2-0 record. In 2017 the last year of his rookie contract, the New

England Patriots traded Garoppolo for a 2nd round draft pick (#43 overall) in the 2018 Draft

with the San Francisco 49ers. Garoppolo ended the 49ers 2017 season playing a 5-0 record

which proved he was worth more than earning super bowl rings on the bench as a backup to Tom

Brady. Garoppolo is now the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers with an insane

$137 million dollar 5 year contract. One of the highest in the National Football League as a

whole, but there is a reason for this. Jimmy spent four years learning and learning the ins and

outs of football strategy, elite work ethics, and the mentality mindset of a winner from Tom

Brady, easily one of the best known football players in the world. Tom Brady has won the Super

Bowl 5 times, that’s one ring on each finger of your hand. It’s historical and has never been done

before. Even though Garoppolo was in his shadows as a backup, he was planting his football

roots in New England learning the game from one of the best of all time. His time being the

benchwarmer to a legend at the time seemed like a waste, but in all reality was a blessing worth

$137 million and a starter spot. Not because he is a football prodigy, but he looked at Tom Brady

as his mentor, not his boss.

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It has literally been proven mentors and people we can come to for guidance has boosted

brain activity and success story rates. Sic Isaac Newton said ​“If you see further, it’s because you

are standing on the shoulders of giants” b​ ut Shawn Blanchard, a Cabinet member in the City Of

Detroit - Director of Youth Services changed this quote to ​“you can reach for anything,

standing on the shoulders of giants” d​ uring a TedX Talk called ​Science Of Mentorship i​ n

Muskegon, MI.

Shawn grew up as a crack baby. The 3 mentors in his life were his mom, who was a drug

user and career shoplifter & older brothers. One of them murdered in a drug transaction, the

other serving a life sentence for being one of Detroit’s most notorious drug lords. Life for Shawn

didn’t come easy, but it got better as he got older and into high school. In high school Shawn had

a counselor named Mrs. Champion who he eventually considered her to to be the mother he

never had. He came to Mrs. Champion with his emotional baggage of a life story and got his

hand held getting through high school and prepared him on what to expect beyond high school.

He cleaned up his act and stuck to being a straight arrow with the help of Mrs. Champion,

eventually landing himself a spot and graduate certificate from the University Of Michigan.

Shawn growing up didn’t realize he had experienced the 1st phase of mentorship there

can be, due to his fallen apart family and guidance from Mrs. Champion. This phase is called

“unconscious mentorship”. With unconscious mentorship you are at an age and level where you

don’t have the freedom on what you’re learning, and who influences your day to day decisions.

As Shawn calls it, life is a prefixed menu where you eat what’s given to you. Luckily for him the

food started tasting better as he became more mature and got into college. As he got older he

realized, he wanted to choose who influences his day to day life and not be force fed who his
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mentors are such as his good for nothing mother, father, and 2 older brothers, which leads us to

phase 2 of Mentorship, Conscious Mentorship.

Conscious mentorship is broken up into two sections but both of them give you the

chance to branch out and learn. Section one consists of “Informal Mentorship”. Informal

Mentorship is who you hang around with (friendtors), TV shows, social groups, church, social

media or anything of that matter. This section of mentorship is one of the most critical because it

reminds yourself of who you are, and who you are trying to become, with keeping yourself in an

emotionally & physically self disciplined state. The second section of “Conscious Mentorship” is

having “ Formal Mentorship” which is a more a chosen yet directive form of education. It

involves a leader in a group such as a teacher or a sponsor that holds us accountable. When we

are accountable we are more motivated as human beings to not give up the privilege of having

extra support and advice handed to us more than the average person.

Before Shawn was working in the Cabinet in Michigan, he was a high school math

teacher with a mentorship program in the lower end income South Bronx, New York. During his

time teaching there, he had a student who was named Roland. Roland had a similar life story to

Shawn, which is why Shawn reached his arm out to Roland and offered him a spot in the

mentorship program. Roland and Shawn met and decided it was time to turn his life around. In

freshman year Roland failed every single one of his classes, but by the time he entered the

program and graduated, he had one of the top 3 GPAs in high school and was the first in his

family to attend college at you can only guess where, the University Of Michigan. Shawn’s alma

mater. Which directly brings us to the last phase of mentorship “Creating Consciousness”.
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According to Shawn, this last phase of mentorship “Creating Consciousness” is the most

rewarding thing that can happen to you as a mentor. Roland was blossoming into his degree and

his career of success, but when he went back to the Bronx, he saw his old buddy who was having

it rough. The same rough as in Roland's prior life, the same emotional events that he himself had.

Roland thought to himself, if he was blessed with the mentorship program from Shawn, why

can’t I do the same for someone. Similarly to Roland, his buddy who entered the program

graduated one of the top in class and was the first in his family to attend college.

Shawn had the chance to mentor a kid who was nothing into someone, who then

mentored and turned a kid who was nothing into something. This may seem cheesy, but the

reason this hits so close to home is because this happened to me just this month with my pilots

license. A couple weeks ago my flight instructor quizzed me on systems and parts of the airplane

before we took off, I failed. I didn’t know half of the questions he asked. But as I learned and put

the work in, I aced his quiz less than a week later. I say this because I have a co-worker who is in

a similar situation as me, who is working on their pilots license. We were at the airplane and I

decided to quiz him like I was the flight instructor and sure enough he failed just as bad as I did.

With work and repetition, he took a written exam with a lot of the things I taught him and he

passed. Although this is a much smaller scale situation, the principle behind it is similar. It

proves the fact that 90% of people who are mentored eventually mentor someone else down the

road. With mentorship comes knowledge, change, great times, but also failure, but our

management style of failure is one of the keys to success

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Section 4: Trial and Error, Overcoming Failure

Tim Harford wrote the book ​Why Success Always Starts With Failure​ . Tim has spent the

last 3 years studying failure. This might sound odd but the truth is, understanding failure is one

of the largest keys to success. Failing without frustration leads to nowhere, but failing

productively changes how you think. Tim used his intense research from the past years into the

video ​Adapt: Why Success Always Starts WIth Failure​ by Tim Harford where he talks about

some of the principles used for some of the greatest success stories on earth with powerhouse

corporations, the United States Military, and one of America’s top choreographers.

Google is one of the largest tech corporations in the world. According to CNN money,

the company’s worth is hovering at around $527 billion. The reason they are worth over half a

trillion dollars is because they are willing to fail, and fail a lot. Google asks it’s engineers to

dedicate one day a week to a personal project that caught his or her attention. Some of the

brainchildren of these engineers turned out to be Adsense which is a large portion of Google’s

revenue, Google News, Adwords, Drive, and more. But a lot of these tech brainchild ideas failed

such as Google Wave & Android 1.0, overall the point Tim proves is that large companies take

risks and are willing to fail because eventually another idea will come down the line and make its

way to the top, without attempting you have already failed according to Google.

Next comes the United States military, when George Bush & Donald Rumsfeld sent

troops into Iraq. At the time failure wasn’t an option for them, it was barely considered. Which

brings me to principle number two. Fail on a survivable scale. The Government was so

convinced they got it right, internal advice and constructive criticism was ignored and anyone
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with a different idea was shot down. Which eventually led to a giant collapsing failure all

because of micromanaging from the top. On the front line a brave group of Colonel’s decided

they were going to try a different strategy because the top dog’s wasn’t. They knew their men

and the surrounding landscapes and used specific tactics and different strategies before they

adapted into Iraq and made progress. The United States had an all our revolution that wasted

millions of dollars, manpower, and time before smaller ranked officers took charge of their men

and moved everyone forward which brings us to our last principle of failure.

Twyla Tharp is one of the most successful Broadway dancers, author, and choreographers

in the nation. In 1966 she created her own company Twyla Tharp Dance which helped her bring

success to her famous Broadway plays ​Movin’ Out ​& ​Come Fly Away ​. It’s her smarts and elite

work ethic that got her to where she is. On a daily basis she said she films 3 hours of dance

improvisation, and is satisfied with the days work if she gets 30 seconds of material for the stage

with it.

3 Months before her broadway showing of ​Movin’ Out​ she included Billy Joel’s hits in

the play and performed the play in Chicago to see whether it would be a hit or not, which it

wasn’t. After the debut show in Chicago the reviews pounded Twyla and the show as a whole.

Although this may seem tough, this was one of her biggest blessings. It could have been easy for

her to cut off what the reviewers said because of her merit and success in the industry already.

But she swallowed her pride, one of the biggest characteristics in a successful leader and

changed everything. She cut cast members, the changed the lighting, even her brainchild

choreography routine. A blessing in which she opened on Broadway and let her to stunning

reviews, healthy income, and success in a grueling cutthroat industry. Twyla taught Tim the 3rd
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principle being you need to keep your eyes open to spot a failure, and early to be able to fix it. If

she didn’t pre debut in Chicago, she wouldn’t adapt to what the people want.

This brings me to my next point to prove. What makes a leader a role model and someone

we can personally look up to and eventually mirror? This doesn’t have to be a persons boss, it

can be anyone who has affected their life in ways of improvement, learning, building character

or simply make you happy. Being Surrounded in an environment with good people who maintain

leader attributes is healthy for your habits. Finding these people may seem like an easy task but

in all reality, it can be one of the hardest. Leaders we all know surrounded themselves with

people who gave them support, knowledge and constructiveness when they started out. As

simple as this step is, who we hang around can drastically improve or drop your life.

Surrounding ourselves with people who are achieving great things while watching their work

ethic makes us question ourselves, motivating us for better work, social, & economic habits.

Those people are the ones that make up the successful leaders of the world.

Success is impossible to define, as said earlier it can be large houses, becoming a parent,

owning a business and a lot more. But how you get to the point of calling yourself successful is

the core characteristics I bring out in this paper. We all know leaders or celebrities from what

they have done or something they said. Yet their success story and morals are ignored by so

much of the population. If everyone hustled and worked until they dropped everyone could be a

Warren Buffett. It’s the small group of people who are willing to change everything in order to

get what they want and strive for, in order to call themselves successful. This paper just scrapes

the surface on how get there.

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http://www.nbcsports.com/boston/video/timeline-backup-jimmy-garoppolos-story

Science of Mentorship - Shawn Blanchard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh46lVSKWHc