How Can I Become Successful?

Photo by Anton Tabuena

The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus.

– Bruce Lee, Martial Arts Legend.

The above statement can never be further from the truth.

I notice that most of the answers in this forum deal with success from a financial perspective. 

However, success can be very subjective and takes many facets and dimensions of life.

Most of the answers adequately address the question of success and the methods by which anyone can become successful. Most of these are great answers as they deal with success from the common view as defined by society. I’m learning a great deal myself from all these wonderful Quorans.

Many issues like passion, ambition, determination, perseverance, persistence, sheer hard work, etc., have already been covered.

Allow me to address the topic from a different perspective. Success means different things to different people, but whatever your view of success, please remember that you have not yet achieved success if you still feel inadequate. In fact you cannot deceive your own conscience.

There are many ways on how one can become successful and whole books have been written about it, but I’ll try to avoid the theories for now.

There are literally tons of FREE success books, courses, videos and resources available on the internet. In fact for a few extra bucks, you can even get yourself a ton of premium success programs ranging from simple audiobooks to premium success courses complete with audio/video, ebooks, tutorials and mentorship.

However, no amount of education, success programs or courses can help you succeed if you have not first understood and dealt with the fundamental principles of success, and particularly, the fundamental principles of life.

The questioner asks, “How can I be successful?” without specifying what kind of success. Most answers have adequately covered how anyone can be successful financially or economically. And that’s fine, but you have to realize that there are other kinds of success such as; career success, academic success, athletic success, matrimonial success, parental success, humanitarian success, health success, happiness success, spiritual success, etc.

Whatever your view of success is, just realize that you cannot achieve any meaningful success until you have first dealt with the fundamentals of life. And we start by exploring ancient wisdom and the fundamental factors that affect our success.

One thing is for sure:

“The most successful person is the average human being who has done extraordinary things to impact others positively”.

We start by making a bold statement:

THE GREATEST TRAGEDY IN LIFE IS NOT DEATH!

Yes, you heard that right!

In fact there are three tragedies in life:

1. Ignorance
2. Foolishness
3. Purposeless Life

Ignorance

Ignorance is simply the lack of knowledge or awareness in general; uninformed about or unaware of a specific subject or fact. Ignorance is the opposite of knowledge and a great impediment to a successful life.

As you would expect, ignorance can be cured by simply educating yourself. This doesn’t necessarily mean going to school or going to college. Quite to the contrary, I’ve seen many self-educated people who are extremely successful. Many of them didn’t even go to school.

Successful people are lifelong learners. They never stop reading books. They never stop learning something new.

Unsuccessful people stop learning immediately after graduating from college. They let life push them and never even try to push back.

Foolishness

Foolishness (stupidity) is the lack of good sense or judgment; silly or unwise; selfish.

People who think they know it all suffer from foolishness and cannot be taught. Yet they actually know nothing. And they are all around us. Foolishness is the opposite of wisdom and one of the greatest obstacles to a successful life.

Foolishness can be cured by simply becoming a listener. If only you could have shut up your mouth and listened, you would perhaps be a very successful person today in whatever field.

You can learn a great deal from others, perhaps even more than you could ever imagine.

Purposeless Life

A purposeless life is simply a tragic life. I don’t know a simpler way to put it. A purposeless person is the average man or woman who let’s life just ‘drift’ by. Life without a purpose is miserable and is like ‘living in hell’.

A purposeless life can be cured by answering the following fundamental questions:

• WHO AM I?
• WHERE DID I COME FROM?
• WHY AM I HERE?
• WHERE AM I GOING?

The first is a question of identity (nothing to do with your name).

The second is a question of origin (nothing to do with your home town or country).

The third is a question of purpose (this is the most important question here).

The fourth is a question of destiny and I wont add anything to it.

If you can answer even two of these fundamental questions you can achieve tremendous success in life.

Why am I even discussing this?

Because these are the most fundamental factors of success.

Let’s return to our opening statement by the late Bruce Lee, one of the most successful ‘Kung-Fu’ martial artists. According to him, success comes to the average person who is most determined, hard-working, and focused – NOT THE RARE GENIUS.

Yes, success can be learned by anyone, ladies and gentlemen! And anyone can become successful.

Success comes from a deep desire to succeed – a passion to succeed in whatever you want from life; a never-dying spirit, a determination to succeed at whatever cost, and laser-like focus.

Is there a SECRET to success?

Perhaps this ancient legend about Socrates may help us to better understand how to become successful in any aspect of life:

The Secret To Success

In ancient Greece, a young man asked Socrates the “secret to success”. Socrates told the young man to meet him at the nearest river the next morning.

Next morning, the young man, eager and very determined to learn something from the great philosopher, was very prompt and they met.

Socrates asked the young man to walk with him into the river. Wondering what Socrates was about to do, the young man was very apprehensive. “Perhaps one of Socrates’ many

philosophies”, the young man thought…

The water was now up to their waist…

When the water got up to their neck, Socrates suddenly seized the young man by surprise and pushed him under the water.

The boy struggled to get up but Socrates, being a strong man, held him under the water until the boy started turning blue. Socrates pulled his head out of the water and the first thing the young man did was to gasp for air, choking and breathing desperately to stay alive.

Socrates asked, “What did you want the most when you were down there?”

Still in shock, the young boy replied, “Air”.

Socrates remarked, “That is the secret to success.""When you want success as badly as you wanted the air, then you will get it. There is no other secret of success”, Socrates said.

A burning desire is the starting point of all accomplishment. Just like a small fire cannot give much heat, a weak desire cannot produce great success.

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