Do you need to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth to make it to the top?
After all, networking goes a long way. The school you attended may be one factor. Mixing with the right people at the golf club and so on. That’s the easy way, though not always the successful one.
Or you may have wealthy parents who groom you to take hold of the reins to maintain the family ownership and control.
There’s no shortage of examples of CEOs who were born with silver spoons in their mouths and hardly worked an honest day in their lives to reach the top shelf.
Yet, there are heaps of these privileged bosses who finished up on the scrap heap.
Then again, there are other stories of those who reached the top of the tree the hard way. The tough ones. The dedicated winners.
Take the case of Oprah Winfrey. She was born to unwed teenage parents in Mississippi who parted after she was born.
Oprah was raised by her grandmother who was poor, but who taught her to read at the age of three.
At age 6, Oprah ran away from home to live with her mother, but due to her rebellious nature her mother shipped her out to live with the father.
From her grandmother’s vision in teaching her to read, Oprah Winfrey did well academically and worked her way up the ladder to be appointed as a radio host. Then a news anchor.
The rest is history!
Some readers may remember the keynote address to the US Democratic National Convention in 1988 when Texan State Treasurer Ann Richards modified the slogan when referring to the wealthy, well-born George Bush.
Poor George, he can’t help it … he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.
Lloyd Masel, Creative Copywriter