Thanks to TikTok, I’ve managed to stumble on a short
video of a 2022 movie called “Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend” staring
Frank Grillo and Mia Sorvino. As suggested by the title, the film tells the
story of Ferrucio Lamborghini, the founder of the iconic car brand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjTICfrC25s
What makes the TikTok clip so special was the fact
that this particular clip had some soundbites, which I believe sum up the spirit
of what it is to be a “creator” or in business terms, an “entrepreneur.”
The first segment comes from an argument between Mr. Lamborghini
and his wife, who is telling him that his obsession with building a super car
is bleeding their core business tractors and that tractors are a safe bet compared
to luxury cars. Mr. Lamborghini loses it and ask “Do You Expect me to be Normal”
and then says he cannot be like everyone else afraid living on their knees,
afraid to make the wrong decision.
This was striking because we are constantly bombarded
with the message that we need to be “normal” in order to get by. In middle
class families, you are expected to go to school, get to university and get a
normal corporate job and climb the ladder. If you’re someone like me who
entered the corporate world late in life, you’re expected to do the normal thing
and stay in your job until the day you die.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with getting a job and
working it. The business climate has reached a stage where, even if you don’t stay
an employee for life, you’re doing to need to know what you’re doing. Quite
often, the only way people learn life is by going through school and by extension
university, and later on spending a portion of their life working for people
before they step out of their own. You notice this in “professional services,”
where the main partner of a medium sized legal or accounting firm once worked
for someone else.
However, “normal” may not fit everyone and there are
times when circumstances are not normal. From my personal perspective, I ended
up freelancing when I was in PR for over a decade. In polite terms, I couldn’t
make it in a “normal” agency and so, rather than worry about it, I went out and
got myself hired because I had bills to pay. Although I never kept from what I
made, I still look at that period as one of my happiest. It was a time when I
did something I was proud of because it was a period where I saw myself as a
person of some resilience.
I met someone who had a “opposite” background of mine
(Grew up in the dirt and rose up). He grew up on the wrong end up racial taunts
and pulled himself up. Was he normal? He’ll probably beg to differ but I think
he was extraordinary in his determination to rise up.
Normal is about accepting your circumstances and doing
what everyone else does. Sometimes its necessary to bow down and accept that
there are things you cannot control. As a prominent banker once said “Learn how
to lie low when market forces are against you but prepare to come back.
Whilst there’s a lot of be said for playing it safe
because its normal, the guys who inevitably live “special” lives break away
from definitions of normalcy.
The second moment that caught my attention from this
TikTok clip was when Mr. Lamborghini talks to his team about building the “greatest
car,” and how they cannot fail because if they fail, they fail searching for
greatness.
Again, this points to one of the main traits of “successful” people. It’s called “vision” and the belief in pursuing greatness. People who believe in their vision and are almost “obsessed” by it, tend to actually achieve it.
As a secondary point, they are also willing to learn
from failure. In the eyes of a successful entrepreneur, failure is part of the
learning process and its not a disaster as long as you continue to search and
work towards the greatness of your vision.
The tractor tycoon wasn’t a normal man. He had a vision
for what he wanted to achieve and did it. The Lamborghini car that we see today
is a testament to that determined vision of a tractor tycoon who believed that
he could be so much more.
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