This is a three year old post that, due to recent events, I thought I’d resurrect…

Are you a “successful” person?

I’ve had a few successes in my life. I guess the fact that I’m still here after 53 years is, in many respects, a success.

But I’ve also experienced this phenomenon throughout my life that generally arises on the heels of success…

Failure!

Be it moral, financial, colossally stupid-ital, or otherwise.

Why is that?

And it doesn’t seem to be an occurrence unique to me.

Can you identify?

Here are a few notable for instances…

The iconic music diva. She may have come out of nowhere to achieve fame and fortune. But once it arrives she morphs into a super-sized bitch of epic proportions.

The child star. A ironic example because even though the head hasn’t developed enough to handle the success (so they pay others to do that for them), they tend to implode from big-headed-ness.

The rock-star politician. Need I name names? They may have gotten into it as a champion of the people, but once they achieve talk-show celebrity fame…it all tends to become about something different…about them. “The people” just don’t matter that much anymore.

The tele-evangelist. They engage in fiery rhetoric encouraging us to be like Jesus, but behind the scenes their actions are better characterized by Satan than the Son of God.

Success is like air to the ego…it inflates.

Sometimes to the point of a spectacular and very public bursting.

All too often an inflated ego gives rise to this elitist mindset that somehow we are different. That we have been touched with greatness.

Well, “being touched” has a more negative connotation that might better explain the reality of the situation.

And, if you’re not careful, that can lead to a more permanent condition of derangement.

It happens again and again with so-called celebrities. But it also happens on a smaller scale with you and with me.

I know I’ve experienced it. In fact, I recently posted about a notable success I once had that landed a big payday.

And you know what? Almost immediately thereafter I blew it…my life literally imploded from my own big-headed-ness.

I made virtually every mistake in the book and failed from almost every perspective possible.

We remain the same potential putz of infinite negative possibility.

That is, success never makes us immune from following it with something really dumb.

In fact, it often dramatically enhances the probability of that occurring.

If we’re not careful.

While those who are driven by the potential for impact tend to stay more ego deflated.

It’s kind of like the difference between a Blake Mycoskie (maker/giver of shoes, billions of them) and a Donald Trump (billionaire/real estate mogul/loud-mouthed celebrity clown).

Who would you rather emulate?

It really comes down to motive…your why.

And that’s in large part what this blog is all about.

The moral of the story…

don’t let success go to your head…

because in reality, it’s still just a stupid head.

Thinking with the big head is better than its opposite. Thinking with A Big Head can get you into even more trouble. Tweet it Out!

image credit: Matt Woitunski via Compfight cc