Character is just another word for having a perfectly disciplined and educated will. A person can make his own character by blending these elements with an intense desire to achieve excellence.
Everyone is different in what I will call magnitude, but the capacity to achieve character is still the same.
[Javits Wild] When he was in the country, he always asked the people he chanced to meet what "normal life" was like, because he had forgotten. The answers varied, and he gradually came to realize that, even when he was surrounded by other people, he was absolutely alone in the world. He decided to draw up a list of what constituted normal attitudes and behavior, based on what people did rather than on what they said.
It gives us a feeling of control. Marshal Goldsmith explains: People who believe they can succeed see opportunities, where others see threats. They are not afraid of uncertainty or ambiguity, they embrace it. They take more risks and achieve greater returns. Given the choice, they bet on themselves. Successful people have a high "internal locus of control." In other words, they do not feel like victims of fate. They see their success as a function of their own motivation and ability — not luck, random chance, or fate. They carry this belief even when luck does play a crucial role in success. — Marshal Goldsmith(resource) Eric Barker, Barking Up the Wrong Tree
If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. When there's no clear path to success, no relevant model for what you're trying to achieve, trying crazy things may be the only way to solve the issue.
—Eric Barker, (resource) Barking Up the Wrong Tree
