TOW#452 — The reasons behind success
Without getting too philosophical on this topic, it’s generally accepted that when we mention that someone has attained success, or is successful, we’re talking about the fact that they managed to achieve a higher goal or purpose. When I say success, I’m thinking more about some kind of regional or international success. The kind of success that not everybody can achieve so easily. The success of a sportsperson, actor, entrepreneur or any kind of professional who has managed to stand out from the crowd and achieve extraordinary results.
When we see or read about someone that has achieved such success, we usually feel either admiration and positive emotions of support, or negative emotions, jealousy and envy. How did they manage to achieve that and not me?! Those people that read motivational quotes might even say to themselves “maybe I need to dream more, because the wise say that if you dream more there’s a greater chance of your dreams coming true”.
“Some people dream of success while others wake up and work hard at it”.
Napoleon Hill (author)
Nothing can be achieved through dreaming alone. If you’re not prepared to graft, give up, sacrifice a great deal of your freedoms, desires and leisure time, you’ll find it very hard indeed to achieve any kind of success.
When we see successful people, we only see the end result — the peak of the mountain. However, nobody sees or takes into account all of the things they did in order to achieve that result. Being truly successful requires: determination, passion, effort, discipline, facing one’s fears, courage, sacrifice, sleepless nights, pain, constant improvement, planning, patience, sweat, motivation, loss, resolve, will, good relations with others, sadness, tactics, focus, training, training, training and many other things.
You probably already know the stories of some successful people that achieved extraordinary results in their lives, but let’s mention a few of them:
J.K. Rowling (author of Harry Potter) — a single mother that lived on social benefits. She didn’t have the money to photocopy the excerpts she was sending to publishers, so she had to write out all the copies herself. She was rejected 15 times by publishers over two years. In the end, she found a small publishing house that agreed to publish the book, but they told her to find a day job because nobody could survive on just writing children’s books. She is the first book author to earn more than $1 billion.
Colonel Sanders (KFC restaurant) — opened his own restaurant at 40, and was among the first to have chicken meat on the menu. His restaurant burnt down. He opened a new one, but had to close it due to the Second World War. After the war he tried to franchise his restaurant, in order to find a partner that would help him expand the business. He was rejected 1009 times. He tried to commit suicide aged 65, because he felt useless and had lost the will to live. Today, KFC is the second largest restaurant chain in the world, with 18,000 restaurants in 118 countries.
Jim Carrey (actor) — lived in a trailer as a child because his parents couldn’t afford anywhere else. At the age of 10 he had to work full shifts (8 hours) after school in order to help his parents financially. He also had to battle with dyslexia, which caused him many problems at school. He left school at 16 in order to fully dedicate himself to comedy and acting. At the peak of his popularity, he was earning $20 million per film.
There are of course many more successful people and stories that deserve respect. Nevertheless, what makes them inspirational and unique is that they all possess the characteristics mentioned earlier, and made many sacrifices on the way to reaching their success.
If you’re prepared to walk along the same path as they did, then success is inevitable.
Wishing you success with the changes to come,
Petar Lazarov
“Tip of the Week” Team member
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