Though he never finished high school, Story Musgrave went on to earn seven graduate degrees, including a medical degree. He served as a U. S. Marine pilot, a trauma surgeon, and a scientist-astronaut for NASA. He made six space flights and now operates a palm farm in Florida and works as a conceptual artist and speaker.

Raised on a dairy farm in Massachusetts, Musgrave dropped out of high school his senior year after a car accident and then joined the marines. Growing up, he had few strong, positive influences. “All the way through childhood, I had nothing but discouragement,” said Musgrave who said his family was marked by alcohol and physical abuse. “The discouragement I had was also powerful, ‘You’re not going anywhere.’ It was not only lack of mentor, it was discouragement. ‘You’re a loser and you’re not going anywhere.’ That is the only thing I got from family and school. I plowed on not knowing.”

Musgrave said he looked to the outside world for guidance. I had an amazing inspiration from the people who perform on the playing field — the Dorothy Hamills, the great artists, the gymnasts, the great musicians. Maybe I didn’t know them, but they served as massive inspirations, remote mentors to me. When I see people on that playing field, it’s a playing field for performance, of living up to the world’s expectations. It’s the people who are the best and keep raising the bar. “

“You cannot believe how bad and how sick my life was. Somehow, not even having the intellect to understand it, and not being conscious of it, somehow, I continued to take one little step after another at just plodding along,” said Musgrave. “I am who I am starting at the age of three. I have not changed one bit since the age of three. My operating mode has not changed. I came into an amazingly bad, sick world and at the age of three, I said, ‘I’m going to make it and go forward.’”

To Musgrave, passion is a key element to success. “No matter how bad, just take the next step. Find something that you’re in love with. Find somewhere your heart wants to go. There is tomorrow, and you can get a whole new start,” he said.

“Spirit is number one,” Musgrave continued. “If you have spirit, you never lose the possibility of optimism and a positive view of things. It’s a sense of tomorrow. Dog gonnit, I’ve got tomorrow, and this is what I’m going to do with it. I’ve got opportunities and I don’t care who I am. I’ll make opportunities and going forth, it’s a new playing field and I’m going to do what I’ve got to do.” 

“It’s a love for life. It’s a love for the playing field. That is the way I like to do it. I like the world to put their expectations on me, where I’ve got to live up to something. If the expectations are not internally driven, then I’ve got to live up to what they want. I can redefine my own objectives if the expectations are things that I create,” said Musgrave. “I’m on a playing field having fun. But when you’ve got, purpose, passion, and presence then, you’ve already got it there. My purpose in life isn’t to meet people’s expectations. My fun in life is to get on the playing field and kick to the finish line. I find that fun.”

Perseverance through tough times is important to Musgrave, even the brutality he faced as a child. “When I look at how bad things were. I mean, I got beat up so bad, I had to have neurosurgery to stop the hemorrhages and seizures,” he said. “How do I feel about all that? I feel just great because I’m here today. Every one of those seconds in the past, I needed to get here. The whole thing about going forward is that there is a future and there is hope and I don’t give a damn what happened back then. I am me and we’re going forward.”

“My real hero in life was my child – me, Story Musgrave, at age three. That is the person I live for. That is my mentor. My child is my hero. My child took me into adulthood with energy, with optimism, with confidence,” he said. 

“What you’re going to do next in life, you must identify and control and take hold of the factors that are going to help you get to the finish line, the ones that are going to get in the way, the ones that are going to stop you. It is essential to getting to places,” said Musgrave. “Nothing in life is simple. What you’re doing is a system within a whole bunch of other systems especially, nowadays life is a networked, social solution.” 

Musgrave reflected on the importance of being mindful of your purpose. “If you run into a situation that you don’t fit into and you’re trying to leverage everything you ever did in life and you’re not getting there, walk away,” he said. “You’ve got a dozen opportunities or infinite number of possibilities — if you’re running into a brick wall, in particular a human brick wall, say, ‘Adios. I don’t need you.’ I’ve got 10 other things I can do. You’ve got to be careful about determination, perseverance, stubbornness.”

“A lot of times, it is one step at a time. It is doing things that are working for me in the moment. I’m going forward and am able to master this discipline, this domain at this time,” said Musgrave. “I’ve walked away from so many false starts, but they’re not even in my emotions or mentality. If I don’t get a high school diploma, is that a failure?  Most people would think that’s a failure. Well, I don’t know if that’s a failure or not.”

A pilot Musgrave knew said he liked Syracuse University, so Musgrave decided to apply there after service in the marines where he had learned to fly planes. “I went there. They didn’t take me. That was fine because I showed up anyway,” said Musgrave. “I knocked on the dean’s door and, ‘Sir, I’m getting out of child labor, I’ve never finished school, and I’m coming back from the marines ready to go to work, sir.’ He didn’t hesitate one second. He walked me out front and said, ‘Matriculate this gentleman.’”

When Musgrave wanted to pursue a medical degree, he ended up at Columbia University. “I liked this place, so I did it. I went through this place and was going to pick up the pieces later and see how it is going to fit,” said Musgrave. “The heart is unbelievably important in where you’re going tomorrow. It’s not just intellectual analysis or, ‘Is this college going to get me where I need to get?’ No,” he said the question to ask is, “Do you love it?” 

In addition to the medical degree, he has advanced degrees in math, computers, chemistry, literature, psychology, and physiology. “Throughout life, I was pursuing things and I didn’t know where I was going. It’s one step at a time. I got my first PC at 48 years old. It’s a brand-new life and a new opportunity that was never there earlier,” said Musgrave. “You just keep moving down the line and don’t know where it’s going. All of a sudden, it’s a push and a pull. My life is pushing me out of that world, but I see another huge pull, so that is where we go. It’s not a failure anymore,” said Musgrave. “You just bend that into something else because it’s not going well and it’s miserable. You take it somewhere else. I never leave anything behind. I take it all with me. I take my medicine with me, I take my physiology, I take my marines, my flying, I take it all with me. So, I end up with a multiple domain synergy and skill set.”

“If you sit around drowning in your own pessimism, there is a lack of hope and it’s not going to work. You’ve got to do something,” said Musgrave. “The winners, the losers, everybody do something, and then make that thing matter. Once you’ve done that thing — it’s another playing field, another opportunity.”

“Something I learned is to take it with you and don’t ever forget that you did that thing because the synergies and relationships you will be able to apply that wherever you go next. Do something, learn it, and you’ve got to do it to the best of your abilities. The more you put into it, the more you’re going to learn,” said Musgrave. “You cannot sit around and dream about the failures. I look at myself and it’s like hope springs eternal. I don’t care about the past.”

“There is luck in life, unfortunately. It isn’t where you go and how well you do, it’s not just that you’ve made the right choices and did the right things,” said Musgrave. “At times, life is not going to be good to you. I don’t like luck. I like people to get where they got. I like a merit-based system.”

To Musgrave, your product is your purpose. “You have to build a storyline unique to your experience. I don’t care what your product is. If you’re not customer-oriented, you ain’t goin’ nowhere. If you ain’t got the investment behind you, you ain’t goin’ nowhere,” he said. “I had it all, what it took to get the job done. You’ve got content, but how do you get it to the world? It can be public speaking, it can be mathematical equations, you have to be able to get yourself out of there.” 

“I appear to be competitive, but I am not. I do my thing, one little step at a time and became a differentiated person. So, I’m not competing,” said Musgrave. “I’m able to leverage every possible thing that I did in the past to my current endeavors, and that is unbelievably powerful. I’m able to use everything that I ever did. I’m a differentiated person that follows my own passions and my heart and I do what I do for better or for worse.”

“I will fail in certain areas and I will excel in others and I pick the places where I will do well. I don’t work on my weaknesses,” Musgrave said. “You don’t go through life saying, ‘I’m not so good at this, I need to improve.’ No sir, you raise what you’re good at to a higher level and differentiate yourself. That is the way you go forward. This is my brand, it’s what I do, it’s my handle.”