What is success? What is the secret of success? How can I succeed? Are there some people who were born to succeed while others were born to fail no matter how hard they try? As a Life Coach and Corporate Consultant/Trainer, these are questions I am regularly confronted with by people who struggle with different paradigms about what success is without being able to settle on a definition that can give a specific bearing to their own lives. I have walked that road before and I can clearly understand the frustration, especially in a society that sees success and prosperity from the parochial lens of crass materialism and primitive acquisition. Sucked into the vortex of such narrow definitions, many people who feel that they don’t measure up to the expectations of a mammon-worshiping society, usually feel frustrated and spend their lives benchmarking themselves with people they believe already line up with those parameters. Failure to measure up leads to competitive jealousy, strife, anger and many other toxic emotions that only makes a person focus on others while neglecting the treasure-house that he represents. Such a person goes through life believing that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Trust me, it is not a very comfortable place to be.
My understanding of the way creation works has taught me that success is not some elusive, esoteric phenomenon that is only accessible to a few, while others who don’t or cannot have it are locked outside and all they can do is gaze from a distance in never-ending admiration.
Cults and several fraternities and sororities are founded on this esoteric myth of success. It operates buy bringing some people together under some binding codes of a special community of people with the sole aim of controlling certain outcomes while mystifying others in the process. As the members of that collective rise through the social ranks and climb the ladder in their businesses or professions, they help other members of the group to advance in a way that seems to exclude others who do not belong to their circle. In time, such a collective seeks and eventually perpetuates the myth of success as the exclusive preserve of those who are “fortunate” or “lucky” enough to be granted the prerogative of membership.
Through the perpetuated myth of exclusivity and subscription to certain rituals of association, cooperative endeavors and privileges may result in trappings of success that are limited to members, especially in the areas of the cult’s original pursuit. Because of the leverage that the group affords its members, it is only a matter of time before their members occupy very important positions in the society. In the lexicon of such an association, the buzzwords are identification, connections, power, material wealth, community, communality, an enigmatic aloofness that posits as dignity, or a semblance of it, uniforms that distinguish them from others in a gathering or which must be worn at meetings of the group, rotes or rituals. All these are the things that arouse the curiosity of the non-initiate and which make him want to do everything in his capacity, even if ill-advisedly, to belong. When hooked, he will stop at nothing to become an insider. Until he gets in and discovers some putrid underbellies, by which time it is usually too late to beat a retreat.
Such success is ephemeral and at best, cosmetic. It is borne out of the relentless and unending effort to ascend the ladder on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, a warped philosophy of human existence that is almost canon in today’s average psychology and Management classes. At the base of the pyramid is man’s need for food, clothing, shelter and other basic tools in the survival kit. At the top of it is the need for self -actualization, where a man feels so fulfilled that he practically can claim self-sufficiency. Between these two levels are the need for security, affirmation, and self-worth. On the surface, the hierarchy appears logical because it defines the base nature of man and his relentless drive to dominate his environment and unfortunately, everyone around him in the misguided notion that he will only be important when he is able to make it to the zenith of the hierarchy. Unfortunately, even Maslow himself made it clear that few people, if any, have really made it to the top of the pyramid. Yet, several people kill and are killed daily as they try to make their way up this mirage of a hierarchy that defines success.
Take a look at the rest of creation. A tree does not leave the spot in which it is planted unless it is uprooted by an external force. It bears fruit in that same spot, provides shade to those who seek shelter under it and is sometimes landlord to some birds that nest in its branches. The success of that tree didn’t start when it brought out fruit. The reason it brought out fruit is that it succeeded already at being a tree. The fruit is merely the evidence of that success. This is why it will only produce fruit according to the seed that produced it. An orange tree never seeks to be like a mango tree by attempting to produce mangoes simply because more people in its environment enjoy mangoes more than they do oranges. The coconut tree never seeks to produce maize because it is a quicker way to manifest evidence of fruitfulness. A fish didn’t become a success when it started swimming. It succeeded as a fish from birth because of an internal configuration that makes it swim as soon as it is hatched from the mother’s egg. What makes a lion a successful hunter and carnivore did not start with its first successful hunt. It comes with its DNA. It is an internal configuration before it is an external manifestation. This is why, no matter how harsh the economy of the jungle is, the lion will never eat grass! No animal or person who sees a lion asks for proof of the number of bones of its preys that the lion has been able to accumulate to know whether it is a successful hunter or not. Those who do the things that count hardly have the time to stop and count them. If material acquisition, a good as they are, is all that you have to show for your existence here on earth, you are indeed, as the Bible says, of all men most miserable. Material wealth is a tool, a representation of reward for value created, not a pursuit.
True success is not reflected in what you have acquired or can acquire, even though very often, success comes with rewards that may be manifested in material returns which we know as wealth. Success is first what you become before you manifest it in action. Nobody can do what he has not first become. You do almost effortlessly what you have become internally… Continued.
Remember, the sky is not your limit.
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