These days I was reflecting with someone about my student days. Wasn't everything better then? Was it actually possible to foresee what you would become back then?

"Oh, you were always like that back then..." I was told. "What was I like?" I asked. - "Somehow different from the others." Well, that's a great statement, I thought, I can't do much with that. Everyone is unique and therefore different.

I remembered that I had to give a talk in a student fraternity. My first lecture in life, apart from reciting a poem at Christmas. The tables were arranged in a U-shape. Most of them were asleep on one wing and playing sink ships on the other. My lecture couldn't have been very exciting, in fact it was pretty bad.

After the event, one of the older gentlemen came up to me and said it was the worst thing they had ever experienced here. And he never wanted to experience anything like it again. Because of my miserable performance, he bought us young students a rhetoric seminar.

Today, I am "at home" on a wide variety of stages around the world. The largest group I've ever spoken to was 8,000 people. And people say I'm a born speaker.

Was it possible to foresee this when I was a student? Hardly.

But I dared to put myself in front of people despite my poor ability and get started. You could see that I was ready to do something. But nothing more than that. I practiced and I endured the fact that things went wrong. If you're prepared to do that, you'll be successful. Even professional footballers shoot more often beside the goal than into it. And it's only because they keep their nerve and keep going that they are successful and get recognition and money.

Amateurs always want to get it done in one shot. But the saying goes: "No master has ever fallen from the sky." and "Practice makes perfect."

Everyone has a chance. Even you!