This page presents my notes about people who display extraordinary self-discipline
or paradigm-busting capability in some area of their lives. The next time
you think you can't achieve something, check these out.
Note: I've changed the format of this page. Instead of a massive number
of cases I will showcase a dozen or so at a time.
Sylvester Stallone turned to writing when he couldn't even get an
extra's part in The Godfather. "I became so focused that I painted my windows
black. I'd watch a show on television, absorb the best part of it and write
a similar scene like a duplicate. I began to understand what drama was.
I was very prolific." The story is that he had $106 dollars to his name
when he was offered a million dolars for the rights to Rocky. He turned
it down, insisting that he play the title role himself. He had a facial
nerve damaged during childbirth which paralyzed the left side of his face
and became the highest paid actor in movies. (Los Angeles Times)
Seymour Papert pioneered the computer language LOGO.
Francis Collins lead the Human Genome Project. He works 100 hour weeks.
He flies more miles in a month than most people do in their lives. He puts
decals on his motorcycle helmet for each gene they define. When he was
seven he wrote a script for The Wizard of Oz and directed it. He would
spend hours contemplating dividing numbers by zero. He graduated from high
school at age 16. He has done charity work in Nigeria. (Time Magazine
1994)
J.H. Pullen was severely retarded and deaf but a master carver
and artist. He once spent 7 years building a ten foot model of a steamship
which required him to affix one and one-half million wooden pins and 5,885
rivets.
Leonardo da Vinci could write with both hands at the same time.
Ross Perot was the son of an East Texas horse trader. He became an Eagle
Scout and Annapolis graduate. In his sales job with IBM, he once filled
his annual sales quota in 19 days. He now has assets of $3.3 billion
dollars.
Stefansson, an Arctic explorer, was known as Softy as a boy.
Itzhak Perlman is paralyzed from the waist down and yet goes on concert
tours as a world-renown violinist. (4th Course of Chicken Soup for the
Soul, Canfield)
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