It sucks. And I'm going through it right now.

What I realized is that I simply cannot expect anyone to be at the same wavelength as myself. I'm a different creature. I tend to work ALOT but that's only because I have a strong passion for wanting to do something great.

I remember watching an episode from Oprah (and I normally don't watch this show...or TV for that matter) and Dr. Oz, a frequent visitor and expert doctor of her show, talked about "How To Defy The Age Barrier". Oprah asked each person to stand up and reveal their real ages. One lady looked like she was in her mid 20s and she was really 59 years old! I was astounded. But what amazed me even more was what the doctor said.

"Diet, exercise, and a healthy lifestyle is one obvious note but I'm here to tell you that any person who has a strong passion in life will affect 90% of the body's longevity. You might as well add 30 years extra. Why? Work makes a huge part of our lives and when we don't feel like working or don't have a passion to do something day-to-day, the mind takes over the body and the rest is history."

This is when I realized, a true passion for something overrides many obstacles. There are many people that will toil at your efforts through jokes and humor simply because you have nothing to show for...at least not yet. You have to understand that there are a ton of people out there that will do whatever they can to bring you down. How else do you think these people can feel better about where they stand in the world? They must bring others down to their level. Most of those kinds of people feel that as long as they're witty and have some snappy wisecrack ready, they can take away the attention from those who are doing great things. So how do we address this? How do we take control of our ego?

First understand that it's mostly your pride that's hurting and nothing else. When something you take pride in is being attacked, you have to simply not take things too personal. Realize that those people have nothing to gain from you except a few witty wisecracks. Realize that these same people are responding with jokes (which maybe hurtful to you) to cover up their insecurities. 

When you can see this, everything else goes away. You can genuinely smile at the whole thing without pretending to not feel hurt. All of a sudden, it's all clear. People not only know that you're very accomplished...but you have a sense of humor too.

What I found out is that very successful people don't delve into little squabbles. They're hardly mindful of people's opinions. Because of this, these people simply don't have doubt in their minds. They believe in what they're doing and they just kind of do things. They realize "...wow...that's kind of cool what I did."

I realized that serious people bring about serious results. It requires attention to detail and an effort that only passionate and hard-working people can comprehend. 

"God's will is not an itinerary. It's an attitude."

I live and die by this. Everyone on this Earth has the exact same 24 hours and 365 days within a given year. What you do with your time is up to you but we cannot be mindful that other people (even our own friends) don't think like us.

On the flipside, entrepreneurs and execs sometimes think that they're are larger-than-life people that should feel sorry for the rest of world for not following their ways. That they're too big to pick up the mail for Grandma or too busy to take pictures with the family. I'm guilty of this sometimes but I realized that was one of the major reasons why my company hasn't taken off earlier than it should have. Even my clients remind me to go to my cousin's birthday party first before I deal with them. Meeting the needs for customers and clients will always be there.

We have to realize that there are all kinds of people from all walks of life that work in all different levels. So, we must treat everyone with the same basic respect. "Stay Foolish, Stay Hungry" as Steve Jobs would say but not everyone is like us, and the faster we can accept this, the faster we can rise to the top. 

For me, my time has been spent putting together a strong foundation for a company. My latest venture (zoogigs.com) is built on the foundation of millions of lines of code. Every "brick" and "wall" I've built in each of the past projects I've worked on has taken off but in the end, it was made for some other founder. Now I'm out to get mine.

Also, let's not forget that being accomplished is one thing, but sharing it is SO MUCH better. God knows.

Successful people can be assholes too so we can't lose site of the simple things in life. It would suck to be rich and ultimately lonely. Happiness to me is sharing the journey to success. We must constantly remind ourselves that we're just like everyone else...we just happen to like working a lot.

Everyone, have a great day.