Success is no mystery, but simply the result of consistently applying some basic principles. The reverse is just as true: Failure is simply a result of making a few mistakes repeatedly.
HOW DO WE MEASURE SUCCESS?
True success is measured by the feeling of knowing you have
done a job well and have achieved your objective.Success is not measured by our position in life but by the
obstacles we overcame to get there.
Success in life is not determined by how we are doing
compared with others, but by how we are doing compared with what we are capable
of doing. Successful people compete against themselves. They better their own
record and keep improving constantly.
Success is not measured by how high we go up in life but by
how many times we bounce back when we fall down. It is this bounce back ability
that determines success.
EVERY SUCCESS STORY IS ALSO A STORY OF GREAT
FAILURE
Failure
is the highway to success. Tom Watson Sr. said, "If you want to succeed,
double your failure rate."
A man who failed in business at the age of 21; was defeated in a
legislative race at age 22; failed again in business at age 24; overcame the
death of his sweetheart at age 26; had a nervous breakdown at age 27; lost a
congressional race at age 34; lost a senatorial race at age 45; failed in an
effort to become vice-president at age 47; lost a senatorial race at age 49;
and was elected president of the United States at age 52. This man was Abraham
Lincoln.
Would
you call him a failure? He could have quit. But to Lincoln, defeat was a detour
and not a dead end.
In
1914, Thomas Edison, at age 67, lost his factory, which was worth a few million
dollars, to fire. It had very little insurance. No longer a young man, Edison
watched his lifetime effort go up in smoke and said, "There is great value
in disaster. All our mistakes are burnt up. Thank God we can start anew."
In spite of disaster, three weeks later, he invented the phonograph. What an
attitude!
LIFE IS FULL OF
CHOICES AND COMPROMISES
How is Life Full
of Choices?
When we eat too much, we make a choice to be overweight.
When we drink too much, we make a choice to have a headache the next day. If
you drink and drive, you make a choice to risk being killed or killing someone
in an accident. When we ill treat people, we make a choice to be ill-treated in
return. When we don't care about other people, we make a choice not to be cared
for by other people.
Choices have consequences. We are free to make our choice
but after we have chosen, the choice controls us. We have equal opportunity to
be unequal. The choice is ours. Life can be compared to a pottery maker who
shapes clay in any form he wants. Similarly, we can mold our lives into any
shape we want.
How is Life Full
of Compromises?
Life is not just party and pleasure; it is also pain and
despair. Unthinkable things happen. Sometimes everything turns upside down.
Bad things happen to good people. Some things are beyond control, such as we
cannot choose our parents or the circumstances of our birth. So if the ball
bounced that way, sorry. But what do we do from here; cry or take the ball and
run? That is a choice we have to make.
We can choose our attitude even though we cannot always
choose our circumstances. The choice is either to act like a victor or a victim.
It is not our position but our disposition that determines our destiny.
It takes both rain and sunshine to create a rainbow. Our
lives are no different. There is happiness and sorrow. There is the good and
the bad; dark and bright spots. If we can handle adversity, it only strengthens
us. We cannot control all the events that happen in our lives, but we can
control how we deal with them.
Richard Blechnyden wanted to promote Indian tea at the St.
Louis World fair in 1904. It was very hot and no one wanted to sample his tea.
Blechnyden saw that all the other iced drinks were doing flourishing business.
It dawned on him to make his tea into an iced drink, mix in sugar and sell it.
He did and people loved it. That was the introduction of iced tea to the world.
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, we can react
responsibly or resentfully.
Human beings are not like an action which has no choice. An
action cannot decide whether to become a giant tree or to become food for the
squirrels. Human beings have choices. If nature gives us a lemon, we have a
choice: either cry or make lemonade.
QUALITIES
THAT MAKE A PERSON SUCCESSFUL
1. Desire
The
motivation to succeed comes from the burning desire to achieve a purpose.
Napoleon Hill wrote, "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe,
the mind can achieve."
A
burning desire is the starting point of all accomplishment. Just like a small
fire cannot give much heat, a weak desire cannot produce great results.
2.
Commitment
Integrity and wisdom are the two pillars on which to build
and keep commitments. This point is best illustrated by the manager, who told
one of his staff members, "Integrity is keeping your commitment even if
you lose money and wisdom is not to make such foolish commitments."
Success is not in the achievement but in the achieving. Some
people never try because they are afraid to lose. At the same time, they don't
want to stay where they are because they are afraid to be left behind. There is
a risk either way. Ships that go out into the open water face risk from a
storm. But if they sit in the harbor, they would rust and that is not what they
were built for. That is the difference between playing to win and playing not
to lose. One cannot be committed and not take risks. People who play to win
thrive on pressure and those who play not to lose don't know how to succeed.
Pressure makes people who play to win, prepare harder. For
those who play not to lose, the pressure saps the energy. They want to win but
they are so afraid to lose that they can't reach their full potential. They
lose energy worrying about losing instead concentrating their efforts on
winning.
Losers want security, winners seek opportunity. Losers are
more afraid of life than death. Failing is not a crime but lack of effort is.
The
quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to
excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
Vince
Lombardi
Conviction Leads
to Commitment
There is a difference between preferences and conviction.
Preferences are negotiable; convictions are not. Preferences give way under
pressure; convictions become stronger. That is why it is important to have a
good value system so that our convictions are worthy because convictions in
turn lead to commitment.
3.
Hard Work
Success is not something that you run into by accident. It
takes a lot of preparation and character. Everyone likes to win but how many
are willing to put in the effort and time to prepare to win? It takes sacrifice
and self-discipline. There is no substitute for hard work. The world is full of
willing workers, some willing to work and the others willing to let them.
One cannot develop a capacity to do anything without hard
work, just as a person cannot learn how to spell by sitting on a dictionary.
Professionals make things look easy because they have mastered the fundamentals
of whatever they do.
The
average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world
takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and
stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.
--Andrew
Carnegie
Success is the result of believing in asking how much work
and not how little work, how many hours not how few hours. The best musicians
practice every day. Winners don't need to apologize for winning because they
work hard and long. It didn't come easy. Everything that we enjoy is a result
of someone's hard work. Some work is visible and other work goes unseen, but
both are equally important. Some people stop working as soon as they find a
job. Regardless of the unemployment statistics, it is hard to find good people
to work. Many people don't understand the difference between idle time and
leisure time. Idle time amounts to wasting or stealing time; leisure time is
earned. Procrastinating amounts to not working.
Excellence is not luck; it is the result of a lot of hard
work and practice. Hard work and practice make a person better at whatever he
is doing.
Hard work is both a beginning and an end in itself. The
harder a person works, the better he feels; and the better he feels, the harder
he works. The best ideas will not work unless you work the ideas. Great talent
without will power and hard work is a waste.
There
is no magic stick for success. In the real world, success comes to doers, not
observers.
A horse
that pulls cannot kick; a horse that kicks cannot pull. Let's pull and stop
kicking.
4.
Positive Believing
What is the difference between positive thinking and
positive believing?
What if you could actually listen to your thoughts? Are they
positive or negative? How are you programming your mind, for success or
failure? How you think has a profound effect on your performance.
Having a positive attitude and being motivated is a choice
we make every morning. Living a positive life is not easy; but then neither is
negative living. Given a choice, I would go for positive living.
Positive believing is a lot more than positive thinking. It is having a reason to believe that
positive thinking will work. Positive
believing is an attitude of confidence that comes with preparation. Having
a positive attitude without making the effort is nothing more than having a
wishful dream. The following illustrates positive believing.
5.
Give More Than You Get
It is easy to succeed today. We have no competition. If you
want to get ahead in life, go the extra mile. There is no competition on the
extra mile. Are you willing to do a little more than you get paid for? How many
people you know are willing to do a little bit more than what they get paid
for? hardly any.
Most people don't want to do what they get paid for and
there is a second category of people who only want to do what they can get by
with. They fulfill their quota just to keep their jobs. There is a small
fraction who are willing to do a little bit more than what they get paid for.
Why do they do more? If you fall into the last category, then where is your
competition?
The advantages of doing more than you get paid for are:
¨
You
make yourself more valuable, regardless of what you do and where you work.
¨
It
gives you more confidence.
¨
People
start looking at you as a leader.
¨
Others
start trusting you.
¨
Superiors
start respecting you.
¨
It
breeds loyalty from both your subordinates and your superiors.
¨
It
generates cooperation.
Always think in terms of giving value added whether to
customers, friends, your spouse, parents or children. Whenever you do anything,
ask yourself, "How can I add value to what I am doing?" or "How
can I give added value to others?"
The key to success can be summed up in four words: "and
then some more." Winners do what they are supposed to and then some more.
Winners do their duty and then some more. Winners are courteous and generous
and then some more. Winners can be counted on and then some more. Winners put
in 100% and then some more.
Why are some highly intelligent people, with impressive academic
qualifications living failures, or at best practicing mediocrity? Because they
become experts at why things won't work and build a reserve of negative energy.
They don't want to do what they get paid for or they only want to do what they
can get by with. No wonder they are living failures. When we give or do more
than what we get paid for, we eliminate our competition. In fact, we become the
competition. This attitude is much more important than intelligence or a
degree.
6.
Understanding of Nature's Laws
Success is a matter of laws and these are the laws of
nature. Change is nature's law. We are either moving forward or we are going
backward. We are either creating or disintegrating. There is no status quo.
A seed, if it is not planted in the earth to create,
disintegrates. Change is inevitable. It is going to happen whether we like it
or not. All progress is change but all change is not progress. We must evaluate
change and accept it only if it makes sense. Acceptance without evaluation
amounts to conforming behavior, a sign of lack of confidence and of low
self-esteem.
Laws of Attraction
We attract to ourselves not what we want but what we are.
The old phrase, "Birds of a feather flock together," holds true.
Negative thinkers are dangerous. They attract other negative
people, react negatively, expect the worst and they are not disappointed.
Have you observed how at any social occasion successful people attract other successful people? Failures attract other failures, and
together they will moan, groan and complain. Our friends are not the kind of people we want but the kind
of people we are.
Law of Karma / Law of Cause and Effect
In order to succeed, we need to understand the law of cause and effect. For every effect, there is a cause. The law of cause and effect is the same as the law of sowing and reaping.
The law of sowing and reaping says
five things:
¨
We
must have the desire to sow. Desire / thought is the starting point.
¨
What
we sow, so shall we reap. If we sow potatoes, we are only going to reap
potatoes, not tomatoes.
¨
We
must sow before we reap. Sowing takes place before reaping; we must give before
we get. We cannot expect the fireplace to give us heat before we put in the
fuel.
Some people are
constantly looking to get before they give. It does not work this way.
¨
When
we sow a seed, we do not reap a fruit--our harvest is manifold. If we sow a
positive seed our harvest will be manifold in the positive, and if we sow a
negative one the harvest shall be manifold in the negative. It is not uncommon
to see people going against nature's law.
¨
A
farmer knows that we cannot sow and reap in the same day. There is always a
period of gestation.
It is like the law of physics. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Most of the time people are trying to change the effect while the cause remains. Either we feed our mind with positives constantly or negativity automatically fills the vacuum.
Many ancient sages have said - A man's mind is like a
garden. If we plant good seeds, we will have a good garden. But if we don't
plant anything, something will grow and they will be weeds. That is nature's
law. The same is true in our lives. I would go a step further. Even if we plant
good seeds, weeds will still grow. The process of weeding goes on forever.
Our thoughts are causes.
You sow
a thought, you reap an action.
You
sow an action, you reap a habit.
You sow a habit,
you reap a character.
You
sow a character, you reap a destiny.
It all starts with a thought.
7.
Pride of Performance
Excellence comes when the performer takes pride in doing his
best. Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it, regardless of
what the job is, whether washing cars, sweeping the floor or painting a house.
Do it right the first time, every time. The best insurance
for tomorrow is a job well done today.
8. Willingness
Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we
never use. --Charles Schultz
Success involves taking calculated risks. Risk taking does
not mean gambling foolishly and behaving irresponsibly. People sometimes mistake
irresponsible and rash behavior as risk-taking. They end up with negative
results and blame it on bad luck.
Risk-taking is relative. The concept of risk varies from
person to person and can be a result of training. To both a trained mountain
climber and a novice, mountain climbing is risky, but to the trained person it
is not irresponsible risk-taking. Responsible risk-taking is based on
knowledge, training, careful study, confidence and competence which give a
person the courage to act while facing fear.
The person who never does anything makes no mistakes.
However, he doesn't realize that not doing anything is his biggest mistake.
Many opportunities are lost because of indecision. It is
habit-forming and contagious. Take risks but don't gamble. Risk-takers go with
their eyes open. Gamblers shoot in the dark.
Once
someone asked a farmer if he had planted wheat for the season. The farmer
replied, "No. I was afraid it wouldn't rain." Then the man asked,
"Did you plant corn?" The farmer said, "No. I was afraid of
insects eating one corn. Then the man asked , " What did you plant ?
" The farmer said, "Nothing. I played it safe."
Everyone has a will to win but very few
have the will to prepare to win--Vince Lombardi
Preparation
Most people spend more time planning a party or vacation
than planning their lives. Confidence comes from preparation, which is nothing
but planning and practicing. Winners put pressure on themselves. That is the
pressure of preparing and not worrying about winning.
If we practice poorly, we play poorly; because we play as we
practice. The difference between success and failure is the difference between
doing exactly right and almost right.
Several
years ago Lockheed introduced the L-1011 Tristar plane. In order to ensure
safety and test the strength of the jetliner, Lockheed exposed the plane to the
roughest treatment for 18 months, costing $1.5 billion. Hydraulic jacks,
electronic sensors and a computer put the airplane through its paces for more
than 36,000 simulated flights, amounting to 100 years of airline service,
without one single malfunction. Finally after hundreds of tests the aircraft
was given the seal of approval. *
There
is every reason to believe that this plane would be safe to fly, because of all
the effort put into preparation.
9.
Ability to Recognize Opportunity
Opportunities come disguised as obstacles. That is why most
people don't recognize them. Remember that the bigger the obstacle, the bigger
is the opportunity.
10. Overcome
to Fear Factor -
Fear can be real or imaginary. It makes people do strange
things and primarily comes because of a lack of understanding. To live in fear
is like being in an emotional prison.
Fear results in insecurity, lack of confidence, procrastination.
Fear destroys our potential and ability. We cannot think straight. It ruins
relationships and health. Some of the common fears are:
¨
fear
of failing
¨
fear
of the unknown
¨
fear
of being unprepared
¨
fear
of making the wrong decision
¨
fear
of rejection
Some fears can be described, others felt. Fear leads to
anxiety, which in turn leads to irrational thinking, which actually sabotages
our solution to the problem. The normal response to fear is escape. Escape puts
us in our comfort zone and reduces the impact temporarily, while keeping the
cause. Imaginary fear magnifies the problem. Fear can get out of hand and
destroy happiness and relationships.
Fear of failure often can be worse than failure itself.
Failure is not the worst thing that could happen to someone. People who don't
try have failed before attempting. When infants learn to walk, they keep
falling; but to them it is not failing so they get up. If they got
disheartened, they would never walk. It is better to die on one's feet than to
live with fear on one's knees.
11.
Have Discipline
Have you ever wondered why some people never reach their
goals? Why they are always frustrated with reversals and crises? Why some
people have continued success, while others have endless failures? Anyone who
has accomplished anything worthwhile has never done so without discipline,
whether in sports, athletics, academia or business.
People without discipline try to do everything, but commit
themselves to nothing. Some so-called liberal thinkers have interpreted lack of
discipline as freedom. When I am in an aircraft I want a pilot who is
disciplined and does what he is supposed to do and not what he feels like
doing.
Generally children brought up with excessive freedom and a
lack of discipline grow up not respecting themselves, their parents or society,
and have a hard time accepting responsibility.
12.
High self-esteem
Poor self-esteem is a lack of self-respect and self-worth.
It leads to abuse of one's self and others. Ego takes the driver's seat.
Decisions are taken more to satisfy the ego than to accomplish anything
worthwhile. People with low self-esteem are constantly looking for identity.
They are trying to find themselves. One's self is not to be found but to be created.
Idleness and laziness are consequences of poor self esteem
and so is making excuses. Idleness is like rust that eats into the most
brilliant metal.
Greed comes out of poor self-esteem, which manifests itself
as false pride, pretense or keeping up with the Joneses. The way out of greed
is to learn to live within your means and be satisfied. Being contented does
not mean lacking ambition.
13.
Improve Knowledge
The first step towards knowledge is awareness of areas of
ignorance. The more knowledge a person gets, the more he realizes what areas he
is ignorant in. A person who thinks he knows everything has the most to learn.
Ignorant people don't know they are ignorant. They don't
know that they don't know. In fact more than ignorance, the bigger problem is
the illusion of knowledge, which can mislead a person.
14. Effort Does it
Life without vision, courage and depth is simply a blind
experience. Small, lazy, and weak minds always take the easiest way, the path
of least resistance.
Athletes train 15 years for 15 seconds of performance. Ask
them if they got lucky. Ask an athlete how he feels after a good workout. He
will tell you that he feels spent. If he doesn't feel that way, it means he
hasn't worked out to his maximum ability.
Losers think life is unfair. They think only of their bad
breaks. They don't consider that the person who is prepared and playing well
still got the same bad breaks but overcame them. That is the difference. His
threshold for tolerating pain becomes higher because in the end he is not
training so much for the game but for his character.
15.
Set a Purpose
If we read stories of people who overcame serious
disabilities, it becomes evident that their burning desire to succeed was their
driving force. They had a purpose in life. They wanted to prove to themselves
that they could do it in spite of all odds--and they did.
When people lack purpose and direction, they see no
opportunity. If a person has the desire to accomplish something, the direction
to know his objective, the dedication to stay focused, and the discipline
required to put in the hard work, then other things come easy.
16. Courage
Successful people are not looking for miracles or easy
tasks. They seek courage and strength to overcome obstacles. They look at what
is left rather than what is lost. Wishes don't come true; beliefs and
expectations supported by conviction do. Prayers are only answered when they
are supported with courageous action. It is courage and character that is the
deadly combination for success. This is the difference between the ordinary and
the extraordinary.
When our minds are filled with courage we forget our fears
and overcome obstacles. Courage is not absence of fear but the overcoming of
fear. Character (justice and integrity) without courage is ineffective, whereas
courage without character is oppression.
SUCCESS SUMMERY
¨
Play
to win and not to lose.
¨
Learn
from other people's mistakes.
¨
Associate
with people of high moral character.
¨
Give
more than you get.
¨
Don't
look for something for nothing.
¨
Always
think long term.
¨
Evaluate
your strengths and build on them.
¨
Always
keep the larger picture in mind when making a decision.
¨
Never
compromise your integrity.
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