In a prior post, Delusions of Grandeur, I ruffled a few feathers. Two birds were from outside the States, so I wondered if cultural or language translation issues played a part. Nonnative English readers can easily misinterpret my posts as being more selfish than they really are, and others may find my posts threatening to their cultural values.

One reader responded,

YOU do not get to tell if you are great or not.

“Hogwash,”? I thought, finding this statement disagreeable on so many levels:

• Lack of personal choice. Any person has more capacity to decide that they are “great”? than any external party. Greatness doesn’t happen by chance, but is determined by a person’s vision and actions.

• Need for external validation. Greatness is inherently subjective, so it is difficult to find someone universally regarded as great across regions, cultures, and industries. What matters is how one measures up to his or her own ideals.

Great people do not limit themselves by other people’s perceptions. Great people leave the comfort of the everyday and venture out to fulfill their vision. Their belief in themselves precede their accomplishments. They know what they are capable of when others see them as ordinary. Without such a belief and confidence in themselves, it would have been difficult for them to continue through difficult challenges. People decide not to be “great”? when they limit themselves to routine.

The general tendency of the public, myself included, is to diminish the accomplishments of others. (When I make hasty generalizations about people, I always include myself. As I am also a person, it would be hypocritical to make myself the one exception to the rule.) For example, I recall that a scientist, even after making important discoveries years ago, still worked at the lowest rungs of his organization. Only after winning the Nobel Prize was he suddenly elevated to the top engineer position in the company, an indication that the company seriously underestimated his contribution after the fact.

Think and Grow Rich

One book that I read years ago is a timeless classic called *Think And Grow Rich! *by Napoleon Hill. Inspired by Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People, Napolean studied how the great people of the day became that way. (Amazon also recommends another book, the The Magic of Thinking Big)

Napoleon concludes that a great leader purposely tricks himself into believing an illusion. How else to build what has never been built before? A great leader thinks up an imaginary vision of great future. He convinces himself of its reality by influencing his subconscious mind and develops a desire and faith to attain that goal. The leader then executes on his vision through organized planning, specialized knowledge, decisions and persistence. The table of contents of TAGR sums it up:

• Thoughts are Things — the man who “thought”? his way into a partnership with Thomas Edison.
• Desire — starting point of all achievement.
• Faith — visualization of, and belief in Attainment of Desire
• Autosuggestion — the medium for influencing the subconscious mind.
• Specialized Knowledge — personal experiences or observations
• Imagination — the workshop of the mind
• Organized Planning — the crystallization of desire into action.
• Decision — the mastery of procrastination
• Persistence — the sustained effort necessary to induce faith
• Power of the Master Mind — the driving force
• The Subconscious Mind — the connecting link
• The Sixth Sense — door to the temple of wisdom
• The Six Ghosts of Fear — the six basic fears of poverty, criticism, ill health, loss of love, age, death

According to Napolean, great people usually must believe in themselves and continually fight back criticism and negativity well before they become great in other people’s eyes.

Some Lessons from Business School

There are some lessons in business schools, who aim to educate leaders. One lesson is that a certain amount of greed is necessary, echoing Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand,”? in which each person pursuing their own self-interest collectively advances society. This, of course, contradicts the basic altruistic tenets of most religious and cultural beliefs.

Another is to be comfortable in your own skin—to be able to believe in your own ideas and abilities. Students come out of the more prestigious business schools, believing that they can do or build anything.

Courses in business school are typically taught using the case-study method. Case studies differ from lectures in that actual business events are read and prepared for by the students and the whole class engages in a discussion with the professor moderating. At the end, the professor or a visiting executive details the actual decisions made and the repercussions that unfolded. In this way, students acquire a lifetime of “experiences.”?

During the case study, students are cold-called for their opinions and prescriptive actions. While there are no right answers, there are infinite wrong answers. Right answers are those recommendations that are argued persuasively using the student’s presented model and upheld against the onslaught of sixty other smart peers. Over time, a MBA student learns how to make sound, informed, defensible decisions but also gains the confidence of his words and ideas. His intelligence hasn’t largely changed, but mainly his perception of himself.

Me

I recognize the value of belief and persistence. When I was at Microsoft and decided to pursue entrepreneurship, I burned my decision into my consciousness by purchasing entrepreneurial items and plastering entrepreneurial posters on my wall. In my mission statement post, I wrote:

I found myself easily distracted by work and other pressing concerns of life. Corporate life encourages employees to settle down. I had to counteract that influence and focus on entrepreneurship by creating an ambience of entrepreneurship at home with all sorts of entrepreneurial paraphernalia.

I took actionable steps to focus on my long-term goals. I burned bridges when I left Microsoft and purchased a home in Seattle prior to attending my MBA program to prevent myself from being seduced by investment banking and consulting firms. I developed lofty goals and fought back criticism from family and friends. When I started my entrepreneurial development, I had pieces in place—the finances, the software background, and the business education. I was set to go, and I will give it the time it takes.

While I am learning from Joel and others, I am not trying to be like “Joel”? as some have claimed. I am trying to be “Wes.”? Joel is interesting in branding himself as an expert on the software process in the developer community—hence, the site “Joel On Software;”? thus, he must maintain a pristine image. Fame is not as important for me, and I prefer to present my flaws rather than hide them. In contrast to Joel, I care more about the product than the persona. I am more interested than he is in pushing the art in mainstream commercial software. Joel is also older and farther along in his career trajectory than I am.