A successful executive once told me that, when he was 15, he was obese. Back then, concerned about his health if he remained that way for long, he adopted a plan to eat well and play sports, hoping to improve. Two years later, he had lost 90 pounds. This moment he described as an “inflection point,” because, having accomplished what he had, he thought he could accomplish anything. In fact, he came to attribute much of his later successes to the self-belief that this one experience gave him.
In Book V of his Politics, Aristotle writes, “No one attempts what is impossible.” Listening to this executive’s story, I thought of that quote, which strikes me as a profound observation about the nature of human motivation. For the executive I knew, a single significant achievement changed his view of what was possible to him, and that view prompted lifelong actions that he otherwise might not have taken.
His account makes me wonder, Are such “inflection points” common in productive people’s lives? I know that I experienced one, early on, too. Have many others? Have you?
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