David Beckham or Darren Blakely?

I am sure you've heard of David Beckham, but what about Darren Blakely?  It was a name I plucked out of the air.  He does, or they do, exist because I've checked on Google but they are not as famous as David Beckham - why?  What makes fame?  What was it that 'transformed' David Robert Joseph Beckham from an ordinary young lad brought up in Chingford, whose mother was a hairdresser and father was a kitchen fitter, into a world famous footballer?  A big question that is not easy to answer.  Whatever sequence of planned or unplanned events took David Beckham to where he is now, he has achieved world fame. The same is not true, however, for many of the Darren Blakelys that there are in the world today.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book 'Outliers', explains how success is not as unpredictable as we might think and it's certainly not about being born with a silver spoon in your mouth - well, not always!  Whatever happened to give David Beckham his early successes, there is plenty of evidence gathered from many diverse success stories, that success really does breed success.  Conversely and unfortunately, failure often leads to more failure.  In systems terms, success breeding success is known as a virtuous circle, whereas failure leading to more failure is termed a vicious circle.  These phenomena are observed not just with individuals but also with all sizes of organisations,

But how should we measure success?  With David Beckham I have attributed his success to fame and notoriety, which was driven in his early career by his skills on the football pitch.  We don't know if that makes David Beckham happier than all the Darren Blakelys because we don't have enough information to make that judgement and there is no universally recognised system for measuring happiness.  So my message to all the Darren Blakelys (and Alan Haymans) of the world, is not to judge your lives by comparison with others because the comparisons will be too simplistic to assess the complexities of life.  Another successful person is Bill Gates, who once said: "Success is a lousy teacher.  It reduces smart people into thinking they can't lose."

Nice one Bill!