Today we will be reading an article by Stephen Afolabi, CEO African Business Classroom, A Book worm and great reader, he is a talker of change and today he will be telling us 3 Secrets No One Ever Told Us About Success:
The word “SUCCESS” is not the most popular English word, but I’m sure it`s the most desired. Everyone wants to be successful! But what is success?
Where do you have to get to, to be considered successful? Unfortunately,
most people will simply answer, “having a lot of money is success”,
“becoming a political leader is success”, “having many children is success”. Now, I want to disagree. Below are the three secrets you probably were never told about success
- Success Is Relative.
Success doesn`t have a definition. It`s highly relative to time and the person defining/pursuing it. Let me explain. When we desire success, the actual thing we desire is happiness. From here, let`s look at it this way…
what makes you happy is not what makes me happy. In fact, sometimes, what makes you feel fulfilled and happy can make me sad. Take for instance, becoming a bank manager can make you extremely joyful. As for me,
that`s hell. Hell because any vocation that demands my rigid, fixed time attention
(i.e. 7am-7pm, Mon-Fri) will not make me happy. I love flexibility. I will be happy working 14 hours a day whenever I want, than 10 fixed hours.
Another instance. Becoming famous (i.e. Nigeria president) is usually considered success, but is it going to make everyone happy? Not at all. Some people
are happier in the unknown corner of their room than with fame. Now, what do I really want from you? Stop seeing success as a public thing. It`s a private matter. An activist in prison may be happier than a political
thieve in White House. A poor poet who believes his poetry is changing the world may be happier than the richest African.
But, what about money and fame part of success? Are not people happier when they have a lot of money?
Maybe, but listen to this… “Success is not the key to happiness, Happiness is the key to success".
If you love what you are doing, you will besuccessful”… Albert Schweitzer
You may have some money (or even a lot of it) in the job or vocation you really don`t like, but you`re simply selling your happiness for money… that`s not success. If however, you make money from a vocation you love, then, you are successful indeed because you are making money from what you would ordinarily do for pleasure. The first
step toward success is to decide what is important to YOU in life, not what will make you money. You may be rich if you`re doing what is making you a lot of money, but you can only be wealthy when what you love doing is making you money.
- Ultimately, It`s Inside
Do I mean to discourage you from pursuing success? Why will I do that when I am pursuing success myself?
What I’m telling you here is, what you`ve got inside of you is what makes you truly happy. Here is an example. Let me say that you love Entrepreneurship
so much You love creating businesses. You`re excited about the challenges and up and down of the business world. As God will have it, you become rich
and successful. This is what will happen. People around you will see you as “successful” because you now have private jet, mansion and fame. But you will see yourself as successful because business, competitions, creativity,
etc. are making you happy. Believe me, if you`re opportune to meet many so called successful today, they don`t feel successful because of the external things, they feel successful because of the joy that comes from doing what they love… success comes from within, it lies in what you love doing.
- Success Isn`t Cheap
Mandela could just be as happy as he was on the street as at the time he was in the prison. Why? Because being in prison as a political activist (to him) was a great thing. Now, I am rounding off by saying, success has a price tag. Though all of us want to be successful, only few people will be. You may desire to Make A lot of Money that doesn`t mean you will make it. You may want to start a business, that doesn`t mean that you will succeed. The reason is because, Its requires so much work, determination and stubbornness (yes, stubbornness) to be successful. When you look at the way we were brought up, we were rarely told that we`re on earth to fight. In fact, school presented the idea of success to us as, “just get good grade and you`ll get
good job and all will be well with you”. That is a lie. Whatever you want to achieve in life, you have got to FIGHT for it. Becoming a successful Man/Woman in your industry sounds cool, but it may have to require some
of your blood (hard work).
Becoming the richest man in your country may sound cool, but it will require a positive “do or die” determination.
Conclution:
The first step toward a true success is to decide what you want your life to count for. What do you think will make you happy as a person? What is the greatest passion of your life? The second step is to see the way your can commercialize this passion. You have to learn how to make money from doing what you love, not trying to be happy with what is making you money.
Don`t forget that, ultimately, they joy you derive from your work is what will make you feel great. Third, be willing to pay the price for success. It was never easy for anyone, and it will never be.
"People who rule the world are warriors..."-Stephen Afolabi
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