The challenge of success – 1

I have never met anyone who does not want to succeed. One question I regularly ask participants in my seminars is, “How many people want to make it?” Promptly everyone in the audience raises up his/her hand. I then ask the follow-up question, “What is the “it” that you want to make? Who would like to tell us?” Then the hands suddenly go limp. Maybe after a few seconds, one or two people volunteer an answer. Usually the answers are very vague and unattainable in the way they are presented. You hear things like, “I want to fulfill my destiny.” Ask the person to define his “destiny” and he rambles on and on from one usually religious statement to another. Or how do you handle a statement like “I want to become somebody in life”? Nothing specific or tangible. For some, the “it”, or the success index is about a lot of money and material acquisitions. Then I ask further how much is enough. At that point, they usually draw a blank!

Sad to say, this is the story of several people on planet earth. One of life’s greatest tragedies is the desire for something or a life that you cannot clearly define. Everyone wants to succeed but most people have no idea what success is for them! A desire for success without a specific goal or line of pursuit is nothing but daydreaming. Every beggar dreams of becoming a millionaire even when he has never interrogated why he is a beggar. Wishes are free. But they are not horses. If they were, every loafer would jump on one and ride! Desire is only a tree of life when it leads to purposeful pursuit and accomplishment. Desire without a clearly articulated vision and goals-driven pursuit can never translate to success. You cannot find what you have not first defined!

If material acquisition alone were to be the goal of success, then every wealthy man should be happy and every poor man forlorn! But we all know that that is not always the case. Many that society looks on as successful are dying slowly inside. Some are battling depression, suicidal thoughts – and many have gone ahead to commit suicide! – loneliness and a desire for true, genuine relationships! They get to what many refer to as the pinnacle of life and all they can ask is, “Is this all that there is to it?” They climbed the tree of success they planted only to find out that it had no fruits on it! Only the people who are very close to them know that as the title of the popular sitcom goes, the rich also cry! What happens when a man gets what he always wanted only to discover that that is not what he always needed?

When a man cannot find meaning beyond where he currently is, whether he is rich or poor, he has started his journey of misery. For many, the frustration comes from falling from what could be regarded as the dizzying heights of “success” and the attendant loss of face and social acclaim.

So what is success? Can anyone really be successful in the real sense of it? How needful or useful are the several books that are hyped to be the silver bullet guaranteed to give us all the steps that we require to climb the ladder of success? I know many people who have read and still read volumes of books and can parrot the contents offhand but yet are largely unfulfilled because they do not know exactly where they are headed.

In my personal consideration of these issues, I came to one conclusion. For the most part, the deficiency is contingent on our flawed definition of success that leaves it in the realm of the esoteric and intangible. Some have the fatalistic “Que sera sera” (what will be will be) approach in the misguided notion that if they follow a particular route long enough, it would lead them somewhere. What they do not know is that the destination must determine the route, not the other way round.

This led me to a personal definition of sustainable success. But first, let me tell a story.

A wealthy American business man visited a village in China. In that village, because of its proximity to large bodies of water, the inhabitants were largely fishermen. On his second day in the village, the visitor saw a man lazing on a hammock under the shade and puffing slowly and with relish on a pipe. He seemed to have no worries at all in the world. Close by, the visitor saw a fishing boat that seemed to have just been emptied of new catch. However, the problem, to the visitor, was that it was only 10.00 am and so too early in the day for anyone to be relaxing. Unless of course the person was like him, on vacation! So he walked up to the fisherman and asked him why he was idling on a hammock at that time of day. Prompt came the answer, “As you can see, my boat is right there and I have been out fishing earlier and caught what I needed for today.”

To which the visitor replied, “Waoh! But then, considering that it is still early in the day, you could have gone back to catch more fish.”

“So that what can happen?” the fisherman asked.

“Well, you could make more money and double your present income,” came the answer.

“So that what can happen?”

“You would be able to save enough money to buy another boat.”

“So that what can happen?”

“Then you can employ other fishermen who will work for you in addition to what you alone are able to do.”

“So that what can happen?”

“You can expand your fleet and employ more people.”

“So that what can happen?”

“You will become very rich and keep expanding your capacity and even buy a trawler or two.”

“So that what can happen?”

“Well, when you have all the money you ever wanted, you can sit back and really enjoy yourself, stretch on a hammock and swing all day puffing away at your pipe and having a really good time”

The reply he got threw the visitor off-balance.

“So what am I doing now?”

Because of a lack of definition, there are too many people who go through a tortuous and clearly circuitous route to arrive at a destination that they may have been so close to. All because they never had a clear definition of what success is.

Some people are already at their success point. But because they are constantly looking over their shoulders to borrow the definitions of other people, their envy of what they perceive to be success in others blinds them to the appreciation of their own accomplishments and state in life. What most people who always think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence often overlook is the fact that the colour of grass is the same everywhere it is watered!… continued.

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!