Is success = hard work ?
Work is defined as an activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result. It is based on the definition of work which is antiquated. When human societies moved for hunter gatherer, to agrarian to industrial the definition of work became concrete. In the dawn of new age work is less dependent on physical exertion so the old rules and definitions also need questioning. If you talk to someone who you consider successful, they will talk about hard work, working efficiently, creating leverage, 10,000 hours, never stop learning and so on.
Less is talked about luck, chance or serendipity or fate, which is almost rejected by those successful however if we closely look at that, we will find it to be the main driving force behind all success there is. I am not saying hard work is not important. In fact it is the key element it is necessary but hard work alone is not sufficient to cause success.
Most motivation, self help books will suggest you focus on positive thinking, faking it till you make it, believing a different version of you. However it is also like learning swimming, you want to learn swimming, go and buy a book on swimming and you will be a champion, I must be kidding, if that does not work, go buy another book and perhaps another. Still can’t swim, there must be something wrong with you, it is all your fault. The real reason why we have success or failures in life are akin to learning swimming, you need a coach who is a good swimmer, someone who knows the path and can guide you there. It is like an in car navigation system that will get you to your destination even if you don’t know the path. You also need someone to support you while you are on your journey.
One can chose to work hard to be successful or be lazy. Firstly I would say that
Choice is an illusion.
Contrary to the popular belief there is no true choice but only a palette of choice that is available. You can chose to turn lights on or off in your room instantly but to do the same in the house next door may require you to know the person, knock the door, turn security off and then turn the lights on or off. That choice may not be available to you. Seems logical and simple, such are the choices in life. At any given point in time we have a palette of choices and we may choose a combination to create colours or outcomes we desire.
Still don’t agree, lets uncover your birth, you were one of the 250million sperms chasing to reach the same egg to come to existence, is it your hard work yes but you did not have eyes then, so it was a random chase ( just as we do in life) and you were successful. I know you are as you are reading this. If you are born by IVF I guess someone made that choice for you ( again it was not yours). Either ways time (it is important for everything, including a startup venture success. You may like to watch a TED talk by Bill Gross), place and environment defines the outcome.
Once born in a family your fate was again governed by how you were raised, how your family responded to a situation. A was talking to a friend whose family was embroiled in litigation all her growing life, I asked here if it was painful. Nah, she said. I did not know any different. As my late friend Mihir Thaker used to say, in the family of thieves an honest person always feels guilty. Your actions are very well aligned with what you imbibe from you family and relatives. If you were exposed to certain behaviour or patterns you are likely to imbibe them. Consider if Roger Federa was born of a poor peanut framer in Bangladesh (noting that almost 350,000 people were born on the same day), his name could have been Aftab Ali, born after six sisters he would be busy worrying all his life how to make his end meet and few chance events may have made him a successful businessman but a Tennis Champion, very less likely to figure out on his choice palette unless some serendipitous event triggered it. When it comes to serendipity you may know that Steve Jobs was adopted and Bill Gates was able to use computer easily when others queued up, should these events not occurred, their lives could have been different.
World is full of random events and good and bad. Serendipity plays its own part. Christopher Reeve, superman in 1995 he became paralyzed from the neck down following a horse-riding accident. He founded the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation in 1998 to promote research on spinal cord injuries. He died of cardiac arrest in 2004. Misery is not a choice but being miserable is.
Many successful ventures in business were created purely by accident or coming together purely by chance of two people. Microwave oven, penicillin, X-ray, post it note the list is long. Equally long is the list of individuals that came together purely by coincidence to start a venture and take it to astounding levels. Is it chance or that chance purely by design. You don’t have to work hard to be born in a rich, poor, musical, business ….family.
You can’t choose the family you are born in, Given the palette of the choices you can chose how you relate to them. But you can chose your friends or can you. Look around for your few best friends, could be you lived in the same neighbourhood, went to the same school, college, same job, same flight, same train, you are starting to get the picture the choice you make will be based on your economic and social position. The time you may have available to make a million dollar decision will vary based on the level you play at. If that is equal to your life’s savings then it may be a matter of live and death for you. If you are a billionaire then it is a small portion for you.
You get new ideas from the movies you watch or the books, articles or blogs you read. How do you find a book, there are lot of clever people around who may not be equally keen to share their thinking. With the advent of social media this palette is certainly grown in size but sill you only get to read what is available to you. If you know about books you will also know that publishes will need to make money. If you self publish a book you will need to make some money to keep refining it. It is not the strength of the idea that you share it the popularity of the idea that will make it propagate. Chance continues to manifest the world as books like Harry Potter are not written everyday and dramatically change the industry it all started from an idea that she turned into a story.
The movies we watch, the books we read or how we feed our body and mind starts impacting our body and the hardwiring of the brain. Though the palette of options remain the same our focus can shift dramatically due to the influence we have from these factors. What we choose or decide the next palette of options that follow at the same time our focus on bright or dark side of the palette cumulates the outcomes and remember not all choices are made by us some can be imposed upon us some we are born into. It is human arrogance that compels one to think about someone who is self made.
The game then continues like a never ending game of chess what comes forth may appear to repeat itself however every move builds on earlier moves. That earlier move may have been made by someone else at the same or earlier point in time. The one who is playing the game may be playing some place else.
Every move imprints your knowledge and memory impacts your actions in the time to come. Your actions can impact the outcome however due to the interplay of lot of other moves occurring the outcome is not certain. That does not mean that you don’t make a move. It simply means that you make your move anticipate the outcomes but assuming 100% certainly may be a fallacy. Buddhism hence suggested detachment from the outcome.
Is success = arrogance?
To quote my brilliant friend Anna Stanford, who summarises this eloquently Particularly amongst “high achievers”, there is a tendency to take an undue amount of credit for ones successes... without realising that we are so often high achievers because we’ve been born into privilege and aren’t facing the obstacles which are so usual for so many. Similarly, so often people struggle not because they aren’t trying or they are somehow “less than”, but because their reality is genuinely worse. Compassion and humility is the key to both situations
You can make a cup of coffee for yourself easily but what if I told you to grow your own beans and roast them and then built the machine that makes it. You may have to spend a lifetime making a cup of coffee. Success is exactly like that. To a bystander success is like buying a coffee cup at a coffee shop. You only worry about the exchange and what is visible and
It appears no matter what we do our fate is cast in stone and we have no control over it or what we achieve or success. Not quite. The reality is different. You cannot be Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warrant Buffet or whoever your role model is. You can only be the best version of yourself. Which is fantastic as that way you do not have to compete with anyone and thrive on your own uniqueness.
Even your intellect is shaped by choices others have made for you or you have continued to make for yourself. So when someone is busy sharing their ideas there are merely dumping the options from their palette to you. It does not necessarily have to align with the choices you have.
Then how does one really get successful.
Though in no certain way you can define a successful outcome on the onset. You certainly can improve the prospects of success by improving the choice palette. Someone who has had astounding success may attribute to hard work and the person is right as the series of choice palette’s encountered may have attributed to the outcome. The person who suggests hard work has not given ay success to him or her is also true as there may not be congruence between outcomes sought and the exposure to the choice palette or misalignment between outcome desired and elements of choice palette picked. There is never a certainty of success however these may contribute to the outcome desired.
Be born in a successful family. That will not guarantee it but significantly improve the odds. If this does not apply to your case read on. If it does perhaps you need to understand how to stay on course.
Well at every moment of time you can decide to do better with what you have. Pick something better. Even if you chose to entertain yourself, well entertain yourself, don’t waste time switching channels. Pick up something which is more meaningful Learn something every minute.
Given a choice, move your body around, meditate, exercise instead of sitting. I have heard many people complain that they have no time to exercise. Well that is enough time to do a push up. It is about making incremental choices. James Clear talks about it in his book Atomic Habits. Sometimes overnight success takes decades.
Given a choice eat and drink healthy.
Strange enough you are never taught how to breathe properly hence our breaths are shallow. Learn to deep breathing. Breathing has healing effect on our body, mind which changes how we act and react..
Make better friends - Should your friend network is not feeding your brain or is a drain on your energy, plus if your network only is attempting to siphon off you or have a parasitic relationship with you. It is time to find new friends.
Read regularly - for fun, for information, for entertainment and for knowledge
Do charity regularly that does not mean money but it also means doing things for others, contributing in other peoples lives. You can pay others with kind gestures, words of gratitude.
Feed your faith system. Given the Chaos of choice the palette of choice thrown at you can alway push to to the dark end it is your faith and belief system that encourages you to believe that future is derived on positive set of choices. Your future self that is derived from positive choices that you are making today creates a new present you.
Express love: You are spreading positive energy in the universe to send the signal on the choices you are making and likely to make. Just to ensure universe adjusts itself by aligning what it has to offer from here on based on your palette preference.
Nikola Tesla had to work as a labourer however his association and participation in social events gave him the exposure he needed. Perhaps you can consider the events where people who can add value to your life hang.
Host events yourself, become a leader of the tribe you want to be associated with. There are lot of people around who want the solutions to be laid for them but lack the initiative. Take that extra initiative.
The universe is full of serendipity and randomness. Hard work will prepare you when opportunity knocks your door.
When you give serendipity an opportunity to knock your door, your preparedness will enhance the probability to bring positive change. The more chances you take the higher the probability the harder you work the higher the probability.
Be your best only then the next only then the move is going to be yours.
Still not convinced drop me a note or post comments here. If you continue to believe that hard work will bring you success you have been tricked.