Inspiration - Born an Original

Inspiration - Born an Original

By Nikki Viljoen of N Viljoen Consulting (Pty) Ltd

Today’s quote comes from John Mason who says “You were born an original.   Don't die a copy.”

What a statement!  How succinctly stated!

Think about it for a moment.  As youngsters in school, we all want to dress the same and be the same as everyone around us.  Primarily to ‘fit in’ I suspect.  I am sure we have not only, not all heard the words, “but Jane’s mother bought her one” – but also uttered them at some stage in our lives.

Then come the teenage rebellion years and we all profess to ‘wanting to be different’, yet we are all the same.  Many of our actions are really confused in that we often pull what we want and/or need and/or desire towards us with one hand, whilst pushing it away with the other.  How many of us have yearned for the soft re-assurance of a touch or a spoken word from someone that we love and instead of making our feelings known we have lashed out to hurt them and push them away – sounds familiar doesn’t it?  Well it makes us just the same as everyone else. 

Then comes the work place – many of us paid our ‘school fees’ in the banking world. Yes it’s true, every second person that I speak to, at some point in their lives have worked in the bank.  Go figure!  So much for being different!

At some point in our lives, many of us take that huge leap of faith, have a mini crisis or whatever you would like to call it and . . .  wait for it . . . .  we started our own businesses!  How difficult was that!  So how different does that make us – not much from where I am looking right now.

Then comes the crunch – we actually succeed!  Yes, we do become a statistic – but it’s a statistic of the best kind.  You see against all odds, against all the numbers or perhaps I should say in spite of it all – we succeed!  Not only do we succeed, but we become rich beyond all expectation – now that certainly makes us different.  The question has got to be why?

You see, it doesn’t matter how strangely we dress, how strangely we behave we are all similar.  What makes us different is how we think of ourselves.  Those who dare to dream and visualize in the positive are different from the rest and those are the ones who will be different and who will succeed!

So tell me, are you an Original or are you a copy?

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za