One Percenters

It’s what separates the champions from the also-rans.

2:14 PM the clock reads, and like most things it’s representative of the numbers game. Our world runs on the numbers, significant numbers and insignificant. They all count, pardon the pun.

Almost every success story is a tale of the one percenter; that differentiating quality that split the pack whether clearly or implicitly.

It’s pitching the quiet achiever, studiously avoiding distraction, against the conversationalist whom just loves wasting time.

The one percenter is that task we didn’t have the time for, yet we managed it anyway; that streak of genius we recorded during our sleep last night; the note of patience we clung hold of with our irritable child just now; it’s that thing we’re about to be challenged over—it’s the extraordinary effort manifest in the ordinary thing.

When we routinely manage the one percenters—those barely seen, hence barely captured opportunities—we snatch a living magic. It’s there for the taking.

And there shall be real wisdom known and seen in this person who not only takes hold of those mystical one percenters, but who just as mystically finds time to vanish from view during the contemptible moment—that place and time when no percentage is available to be gained.

Guile and poise are the possession of the one-percenter. The person selectively waits and pounces at the right time.

There’s a spark of difference. People notice the purveyor of the one percenter but generally for the wrong reasons. They can seem almost bizarre, even eccentric. Yet, how they can move.

They’re the movers and shakers of every realm known to humankind. They have the destiny of the world in their grasp, and they tweak opinion to the advantage of their vision. They live and wait upon the moment. They have undying patience of faith. They’re devoted to little things, for big things shall take care of themselves.

One percenters are habit to process people. The math computes. Congruence and alignment is their home field.

Being a one percenter is the narrow path that many do not take. It’s both lonely and adventurous, but it’s certainly not obvious. Unpredictability and agility is the stock-in-trade and the craft-note of their modus operandi. Hindsight is the glorious story of their fabulous victories.

Yet almost anyone, without many exceptions, can be a one percenter.

© 2009 S. J. Wickham.