I know exactly why I’m not a billionaire yet.

I have a pretty exceptional academic record. Cambridge and Harvard. Why? Because I worked hard, especially as concerns my Cambridge undergraduate degree. For many years, for many days and nights, at my boarding school in England, I studied. I studied very hard, for my everyday assignments, for project work, and for my exams. Actually, it started before England — my work ethic. When I was fourteen I was sent to America. From Moscow to Oklahoma! My English was broken when I arrived in the US. When I was leaving, a year later, I boasted straight As on my grade report. It’s not that I found my American school easy, not at all. I worked hard. I showed up and I achieved excellence that over the years helped me get to the very Olymp of academic excellence — attending the world’s greatest universities.

Fast forward a few decades. I had always loved running but in the last two years, I really committed to my passion for running. I showed up every day. Literally. I ran and continue to run every day, save for some occasionally planned rest days on Monday. There are nuances in my training that I could talk about endlessly, like the types of runs I do, but that’s not the point. The point is that in my running I’ve been showing up. Every day. Look what I got in the mail a couple of days ago after my marathon in California’s Orange County last month: