Life Before The Path to Greater

I’m on the train and I’m thinking about work, greatness, trying to hold myself accountable to all that I am responsible for?—?priorities, obligations, relationships, what’s important, what’s not.

But mainly, I’m thinking about what was my life was like before I chose to strive for greater. Everyone in the influencer space talks about how to rise above. They tell you to do more, inspire you to be more, motivate you with stories about their experiences and how they worked to get to where they are, how that alone should get you to want to be better.

But they really never tell you what it was like before they ran into the phone booth, ripped off the button down, and became superman or woman. Your left to simply assume that they were made like that. They, unlike you, have that thing. The God given thing that you just weren’t blessed with, leaving you to believe you weren’t meant to be great. Sorry, that’s for special people.

But this train ride got me thinking: it just doesn’t work like that. I know because that just isn’t how I came to be.

I am currently the CEO of Usspire, the Events Director at NYU Incubator, and the organizer of one of the top Meetups in NYC called Flash Pitch. But I wasn’t always. I was that guy, going out all the time, and chalking it up to enjoying life to the fullest, YOLO-living like the most faithful Drake disciple. Watching TV, emulating and adoring characters who exemplified success, but failing to do anything to be like what I revered so much. Always feeling special, but never putting in the work to be special. Never acting what I felt inside.

I had big idols like Kobe Bryant and Mark Cuban, more personal ones like my own father, all who did and continue to do amazing things. But while I lived in my small world thinking I was just as great, I really wasn’t, not even close.

I realized that a man is a king in the small world he creates for himself. But when he steps out and sees the real kingdom’s that surround him, he is humbled. He only truly becomes a king if he hungers to be great, to conquer and succeed. So a couple of years ago I decided to step out of that self made kingdom, and start that “Path to Greater”.

No one is made to be greater than anyone else, it’s only those who work to be great, that end up in that position. The only thing that makes you great is when you stop wanting to be someone and when you go out and become them. When you go out and put in the work to make that vision a reality.

Many people say you must invision yourself in the place you want to be, that you must believe you can do anything. Sure, vision is clarifying. It sets you up. But vision is inaction, and only the mobile find the way to their envisioned path.

Stop revering, stop watching, start doing. Enough excuses, enough remembering you don’t have, and use what you’ve been blessed with.

As I work on it everyday, so too do I ask you to join me.

Mina Salib

CEO Usspire

Happy to chat any time, and help you with any startup, or idea you are currently working on. Please feel free to email me anytime at [email protected], and check out our site to see what areas Usspire specialize in.