we will remove the objectivity of the term “success”. Every individual has his/her own definition of “success”. Therefore the terms “success” and “winning” do not have a definitive description. In other words, people might think that I am successful if I was a millionaire, but to someone else; success can be the simple fact of having sufficient income to feed one’s family. It all comes down to this, and this is my personal opinion; A man’s success can be measured proportionately to how happy he is in life.
Leaving the ambiguity of the term “success” and “winning” aside, I will attempt to provide a common definition for success based on what I have seen is popular in our time.
I personally believe that winning in life is fundamentally achieved by these three factors.
Personal effort. (Most important)
Nurturing. (Laying the foundation)
Basic brain functionality. (The ability of your brain to do it’s basic functions)
Personal Effort
Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Outliers; advocates the basic rule for personal success – The 10,000 hours rule. If you spend 10,000 hours doing something, then you can be called a “master” in doing that certain thing. What is it that you want to achieve? The skills required to reach to your goal can be attained by giving it 10,000 hours of your time. Sitting at home and blaming your circumstances and why it is everyone else’s fault that you are not successful is the attitude of the non-successful.
Nurturing
The environment and the way an individual has been brought up; plays a significant impact on how that individual will behave in his adult life. There is a study (I cannot cite it I do not remember where I read it) that says that more than 90% of criminals who have ended up in jail where constantly told by their parents that one day they will grow up and end up in jail. A classic example of a self fulfilling prophecy. Therefore as parents, we must create a positive environment for our children and we must always encourage them to do their best and we must re-assure to them that they are more than capable of over achieving.
Basic brain functionality
There are many genetics fanatics – so to speak, that encourage the notion of “You are smart based on your genes “I strongly disagree with that notion. As long as you have a natural/normal functioning brain you are more than capable of achieving almost anything. We can take Stephen Hawking for example; a man that was paralyzed head to toe, he achieved unimaginable levels of success and his paralysis was not an obstacle to him simply due to the fact that he had a functioning brain, passion towards his work, determination and the willingness to continue on his path
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I want to add that luck indeed does play a role in an individual’s success ofcourse, but I personally believe that to limit your potential and to bring your self down and to stop yourself from going out there and putting some effort in achieving something in life solely because you think that you need luck to achieve greatness, then by all means I will label this attitude as a shameful one. Go out there and find a cause, find a purpose, change people’s lives to the better so that when one day you are on your death bed, you close your eyes breathing your final breaths you think back and say to yourself; well I did my best and I’m proud of myself.
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