The 3Ps for success
Over the years in my work and personal life, I have learnt a lot and if I look at some of the key traits of my success, it always boils down to three things: People, Passion and Persistence which I call The 3Ps for success. I thought of sharing this post as it may be helpful for others to think this way when trying to do anything in life, be it work or outside work.
P.S: You will see lot of sports references here and yes, I am a sports fanatic… :)
People
It is always about the people you interact with every minute and every day of your life. Together with the people you can achieve great things which you may not be able to do alone. This is especially true if you work in the technology industry as you will be working with teams to achieve success and its not just about the individual.
Over the years, I have personally interacted with some amazing people. These are some things I have learned which have contributed for successful project launches or career advancements or a happy life,
- Best interest of the team: It is not about one individual, but about all the people in the team. For example: When you work on team projects or you are part of a local sports team, think about the end goal and you will have to work together as a team to achieve the goal. Time and again this thought process has proven to be a game changer for me personally. A great example would be the Greece 2004 European champions soccer team. They had an 80 to 1 odds to win before the championship started and they were underdogs from the get go, but they played together as a team and won the championship! This is a great example of the power of People.
- Mentoring and coaching: Empower and enable the people you interact with. Always think in the best interest of the people and help them achieve their goals and dreams. Every day , you should be thinking , how can I help someone today ? Believe me, the sense of accomplishment you get after helping some one is unbelievable.
- Learning: You will have lots to learn from the people you interact with everyday or every minute of your life. I truly believe that everyone is great at something and you should put the effort to learn. At times, people hesistate to ask for help and I have personally seen this happen. If there is something to learn from someone, go and talk to them and ask them for help and you will learn a lot. This learning will solidify your skill sets and will help you achieve your goals and dreams.
Lot of times you will think , why focus on the people and why not just focus on me? While its good to focus on you , if you want to achieve the goals, focus on the people and belive it or not it will help you immensely.
Passion
Anything you do in life, at work or outside work or while playing sports, you should be passionate about it. Energy, motivation and focus on getting things done fuel Passion and that will help you achieve anything you want to do in life.
- Energy: When you are doing anything in life, always go at it with full energy and make sure you focus all your energy in achieving the goal. Great example will be Indian Cricket captain Virat Kohli. Whenever you see him on the field or in a press conference you see the energy in the way he plays or way he talks and he truly believes that he can win every game he plays and that is fueling his passion to do great for his country.
- Motivation: You should be motivated in what you want to do or achieve in life. If you truly believe in something and want to achieve it, go at it 110% percent and give it everything you have got to achieve the end goal. You can see that in Tom Brady the New England Patriots quarter back. If you see him on television or on the football field he is really motivated to win every game and you can see that every time he plays. As you all know, he and the Patriots team have been immensely successful in winning multiple super bowl championships and Tom can just give it up right and not focus on one more championship? I believe it boils down to Tom’s motivation to achieve the goal every year.
- Get it done: You have the energy and motivation to achieve the goal. Now get it done then… Make sure you put the effort needed to achieve the goal. Just having energy and motivation and not doing the work will not help. You will have put icing on the cake by actually doing what is required to achieve the goal.
Let me repeat this again. Passion will truly help you achieve your goals. The right blend of energy, motivation and focus on getting it done is what you want to be successful in life.
Persistence
So, you focus on people and have the passion to achieve your goals and dreams, but what happens if you fail? You have tried everything, you are still passionate about the goal, but you are not able to achieve it. That’s where persistence comes in handy. What do I mean by persistence?
- Be patient: While trying to achieve your goal, there will be failures and generally there will be a lot of failures before you achieve success. At times you will get frustrated and for sure will want to give up and move on. Don’t give up! You have to be really patient and you do this by splitting your overall goal into smaller goals and milestones. Start achieving it one by one and that will eventually lead you to the end goal. Take failures in the stride, learn from it and celebrate small wins. Don’t lose focus of the end goal.
- Be positive: When you have failures or you are not able to achieve the goals as quickly as you would want to, negativity sets in and you will have all kinds of negative thoughts on why you will not achieve the goal. Can do attitude is what you need! Always think about all the wins you have had and why you actually are trying to hit the goal. Take the failure as a learning, improve and continue focusing on the goal.
- Be innovative:To achieve your goal, you will have to try new and different things. You have to be ready to take risks and do your best to achieve the goal. Innovation does not mean that it has to be cool all the time, but it is just a state of mind. If something is not working, think out of the box, change the way you are approaching the problem, shake it up and try again, keep on trying! This will actually improve your chances for achieving the goal.
A great example of someone who has exhibited persistence recently will be MotoGP Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso.
Even though he was the secondary rider in the Ducati team and was a long shot to compete for the 2017 MotoGP championship, he has exhibited patience by sometimes settling for second / third places in rainy races thinking of the championship (end goal) in the mind as some points is better than nothing, positive attitude by not giving up even when he had bad races and innovative thought process to try different things to keep in contention and with this, he actually has a chance to win the 2017 MotoGP championship in the last race of the year, which is truly amazing!
The 3Ps for success have helped me a lot and I feel that collectively people, passion and persistence skills are necessary to any individual. I hope this philosophy will help you all in anything you want to do in life.