The Challenge Of Success – 3

True success is a form of triumph over several obstacles that had the potential to stop anyone. Suffice it to say however, that greatness is not in the victories a leader recorded. It is in his ability to refuse to be intoxicated by the success. It is about being victorious without being voracious. In the series I did on The Ziklag Factor in leadership, we saw a good example in David after he won the battle against the Amalekites. He had a right to all the spoils, if only to get back at his troop that had earlier mutinied. Besides, a third of them had decided to stay behind because they complained of being too fatigued to go to war. But what did David do? He did not get greedy. He split the spoils with everyone of his soldiers including the ones who could not go to battle. He did not stop there. He extended the largesse to the elders of Israel who did not even know that he went to war! Benevolence is the hallmark of true success. When you see a man who has gone through thick and thin to succeed, he allows nothing material to stick to him. Extending generosity to others is never a problem to such a person because he understands what it is to be in a fix. Furthermore, he has no reason to want to prove a point to anyone. Those who become tight-fisted, or still try to prove a point after overcoming odds or after acquiring material wealth are actually victims of their acquisition. They are still victims not victors!

When you meet a truly successful person, he has a story to tell. His experiences in life have made him a voice on certain areas of life. When he speaks on those issues, you know that you are listening to a star who has scars and who has earned his pips! However, he must never allow his voice to project a vice. When someone expected to be a voice becomes vicious, he simply shows how undeserving of success he is. Voices are advocates of a cause. That should be a virtue, not a vice. Those who only spew bitterness and resentment when life gives them a platform can hardly be said to have succeeded. They are to be pitied.

Successful people are assets to any society. This is because they are seen as role models that many people not only look up to but seek to be like. When life makes you valuable, never use it as a platform to be violent. Violence is the language of weaklings. It is an overrated way of manifesting a self-esteem that is stymied by an internal incongruence that seeks expression through force as a way of being noticed. Unfortunately, when some people get to the top of their game, they lose sight of the essence of the privilege and use the resources afforded by the success to lord it over others. In time, when they should be role models, they become local terrors. Instead of being celebrated, they become tolerated only for their nuisance value.

Deep rivers flow in majestic silence. A successful person needs no noise. True success announces the successful in the same way that goldfish is said to have no hiding place. Success will naturally make you visible. When that happens, do not go around vaunting. Only empty barrels make sounds at ear-jarring decibels. Anyone who needlessly boasts of his accomplishments is only trying to convince himself that he has actually succeeded. Success that vaunts is nothing but megalomania on display. When the brothers of Joseph first saw him in Egypt as Prime Minister, they did not recognize him but they had no doubt that they stood in the presence of power. He did not even introduce himself to them!  A little over twenty years earlier, they had sold him into slavery and had reported his ‘death’ to their father. From slavery, Joseph had been thrown into jail. But by the time his brothers saw him again, he had become the Prime Minister of Egypt and was practically feeding the then known world! That was a good reason to vaunt his achievements! But he did not. Why? His aura said it all! Those who constantly flaunt their achievements for everyone to see soon end up as social irritants! You hardly hear the voices of the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Aliko Dangote, Oprah Winfrey, Mike Adenuga drawing attention to themselves and their achievements. And these are some of the wealthiest people anywhere in the world. Successful people simply let their achievements speak for them. Those that do the things that count hardly have the time to count them. They leave that to historians. Highly successful people hardly talk about themselves or their success. They leave that to others to do.

Because of what he has had to confront and overcome, when you meet a truly successful person, valiance is a virtue he naturally exudes. This gives him an air of confidence that can sometimes be misinterpreted as pride by the undiscerning.  However, the valiant disposition of a successful person is never at variance with certain core values that he espouses. This is because highly successful people understand that only the virtues that took them to the top can sustain them there. Joseph did not become wise after he became Egypt’s Prime Minister. He became Prime Minister because he was wise! Only those who cut corners to get to the top or got there through the Machiavellian mindset of “the end justifies the means” – or shall we say the meanness – have no qualms about a values somersault. When your valiance is at variance with your core values, that is not valour, it is braggadocio.

Finally, highly successful people are usually vanguards. And vanguards are not vagrants. True success should make you a trailblazer in one or many respects not a mendicant vagrant to the rest of society. You ask, “how can someone be successful and be a vagrant at the same time?” It all depends on what you believe that success is. When your definition of success confers no direct value on the society but simply makes you a dispensable speck in our collective narrative, you are a pest, not a success! When your success is a product of the diligent pursuit and attainment of divinely inspired goals, you have earned the right to be an icon. Such achievements bring benefits to many people who can attest to the truth of your success. Divinely inspired dreams serve others.

A successful tree does not eat its own fruit. Others do. A successful river does not drink its own water. Others do. True success is always other-centred, never self-centred! When you know that you are blessed and positioned purely so that you can make a significant difference in the lives of others, managing success at any level becomes a piece of cake!

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