“Age is an issue of mind over matter.
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.” - Mark Twain
Are you above 60 years of age with
lots of failures and setbacks intending to resign to fate? Do you think that
nothing can be achieved at this age? Then this article is for you to understand
the facts with a few inspiring stories.
If you are over 60 years of age, it is
a great opportunity for you to pursue your passions, dreams and other
charitable activities as you must have been relieved from your family
responsibilities, and from other commitments. It is time for you to focus on
your passionate areas and convert them into entrepreneurial opportunities, or
contribute something meaningful to society to make a difference to the world.
When you look at Winston Churchill,
former prime minister of Britain, Ronald Reagan, former president of USA, Nelson
Mandela, former president of South Africa, Golda Meir, the first female head
and the 4th prime minister of Israel, Peter Roget of Thesaurus, Colonel Harland
David Sanders of the Kentucky Fried Chicken, Joshua Millner, an Olympic gold
medalist, Oscar Swahn, an Olympic champion, and Diana Nyad, an international
achiever in swimming, they have one common factor - they all succeeded after 60 years of age when
others thought that they were down and out. Leonardo da Vinci, Leo Tolstoy and
Michelangelo were the other famous people in the world who achieved their
success after they crossed 60 years of age. In fact, they were down but never out. They
kept their dreams alive, focused on their goals, and kept preparing to grab
their opportunities and waited for their time. They availed the opportunities
thrown at them when their time came and succeeded in their lives.
Joan Marques in her book, Leadership and Mindful Behavior: Action,
Wakefulness, and Business shares an inspiring story of Diana Nyad as
follows:
Diana
Nyad heroically defied age boundaries by achieving her dream of swimming the
103 miles between Cuba and Florida at age 64. Born in 1949, Nyad developed her
swimming skills at an early stage. She won three high school championships and
dreamed of participating in the Olympics but had to let go of that dream when
she was struck by a heart infection that kept her in bed for several months and
permanently decreased her swimming speed. During her college years, she started
focusing on marathon swimming, eventually setting a women’s world record for a
10-mile swim in Lake Ontario in 1970. In 1978, at age 28, she made her first
attempt to swim from the shores of Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida. She swam
in a shark cage for about 42 hours and 72 miles, but a team of medical doctors
decided to end her attempts due to strong wind currents that kept pushing her
off course Nyad set records for others distances in the years after this
attempt and had a successful career as author, public speaker, and program
presenter, but she never let go of her dream of making the Cuba-Florida
crossing.
In
2010, having reached age 60, she decided that it was time to reconsider her
long cherished dream, and she started training her goal, was to become a role
model to other 60-year-olds, demonstrating that achieving dreams had no age
boundaries. Due to bad weather at the time she wanted to make her second attempt
in 2010, she postponed it to 2011. Starting on August 7, she swam for miles out
of her direction and heavy asthma episodes impeded her progress. A month later,
in September 2011, Nyad made her third attempt but stopped after 41 hours due
to jellyfish stings and strong currents. She did not give up; less than a year
later, in August 2012, previous ones, but ended it prematurely as well because
of several jellyfish stings and heavy currents.
Then,
on August 31, 2013, Nyad began her fifth attempt. She reached her destination,
Key West, Florida, in 53 hours. After her first attempt in 1978, she made all
her efforts, including her successful one, without a shark cage. Even though
some critics question Nyad’s achievement because her team helped by chasing away
or eliminating sharks and jellyfish on her path, and even though Nyad was not
the first person to make that crossing, she was nevertheless the oldest person
to ever do it.
Joan Marques in her book, Leadership and Mindful Behavior: Action,
Wakefulness, and Business emphasizes the importance of focus as follows:
James
Cameron, the filmmaker of Avatar and Titanic, has mentioned how focused he had to
be in order to complete his projects. Larry Page, one of the founders of
Google, today a billionaire, also emphasizes the need to focus on one important
goal and stay with it if we hope to be successful. Tom Monoghan, the founder of
Domino’s Pizza, also admitted that focus on a single thing, his pizza business,
was the secret to his success. Similarly, Bill Gates pointed out that you have
to stick to the type of endeavor you undertake and not get distracted. Stephen
King advises those who plan to write to ensure that there is no access to the
telephone, television or video games in their writing room.
Importance
of Your Inner Dialogue
Your self-talk matters a lot to
cultivate optimism towards life. We all have inner dialogue and must know how
to channel it effectively to realize our dreams and goals. Avoid mental
limitations about our age. Keep dreaming and channeling your energies in a
right direction to achieve an amazing success in your life.
Conclusion
Learn, unlearn and relearn to succeed
at any stage and age of your life. Success doesn’t have any age boundaries. Success
is possible at any stage and age, if you have a right and positive attitude
towards your life. Attitude counts a lot, and how you will leverage your
experience matters a lot to achieve success in your old age. In fact, the people who succeeded late have
leveraged their experience, learned lessons in life, kept their dreams alive to
achieve their success. They might have become old physically but they were very
agile and active mentally. They all had
X factor which contributed to their success in life. Hence, never give up.
Unlock your potential fully. Everything is possible in this world. It is a
matter of time. When your time comes, utilize it effectively to achieve amazing
success. To conclude, as long as you love and learn you are young, the day you
stop loving and learning you become old. Therefore, don’t become old, stay
young forever in your head, heart and body to achieve success and provide
meaning to your life.
“Men do not quit playing because they
grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes
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References
Leadership and Mindful Behavior:
Action, Wakefulness, and Business by
Joan Marques (Palgrave
Macmillan, October 23, 2014)
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