I am a great believer that you are never to late to learn. I think it was Tony Robbins who came up with the CANI principle which I try to follow.
That is Constant And Neverending Improvement
To continually improve you have to keep learning and you are never too old to learn
I love reading stories of people who achieve success quite late in life so will share some of them in this blog.
One of my favourite stories about people achieving “success after 50” is one about George Burns (1896-1996). Although Burns, along with his wife and partner Gracie Allen, had enjoyed success in Vaudeville and in the early days of television, he hadn’t done a movie in 35 years and was considered a washed-up actor.
But at the age of 79 he got the opportunity to play the lead role in Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys” with Walter Matthau after Jack Benny (one of his best friends who initially was to play the role) died unexpectedly.
The producers were very worried that Burn’s age might cause him to forget his lines. So about a week before filming was to begin, all of the cast members were asked to come in for a screenplay reading.
When Burns arrived without the manuscript, the director and producers feared his memory was worse than they had imagined. But to their amazement, George had memorised not only his lines but those of the other cast members.
His performance was so brilliant that he won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor, thereby becoming the oldest winner in the history of the Academy Awards. He went on to do ten more movies until he was almost 100, and endeared himself to a new generation of movie-goers.
Principle: After experiencing early success, people may enter a period of stunted growth or failure.
George Burns’ success after 50 achievements can be summed up in one of his quotes: “The happiest people I know are the ones who are still working. The saddest are the ones who are retired.”
Action: You’re on the verge of an exciting new beginning when you ignore your failures or lack of progress. It’s never too late to rejuvenate an old career into a new one!
Please share if you can relate to this.
You can watch edited highlights of the classic Michael Parkinson interview with Matthau and Burns, as re-broadcast on Parkinson: The Interviews 1997 (BBC)
One man who is helping me a lot at the moment is John Thornhill who has helped hundreds of people on the road to success particularly with Product Creation .
