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What we don’t know about Success! — Part 1
The European Renaissance accelerated the notion of ‘individual genius’, where the idea was paramount and the ideator deserved the entire credit for the success or failure of its implementation. During the Industrial Revolution, capitalism adopted this idea and thus the modern entrepreneur was born! Colonialism and globalization have ingrained these ideas the world over and success has been locked away since, with the ‘key’ available to only a few people!
Ask anyone what the key to success is and you get answers like hard work, discipline, reading books, waking up early, taking breaks to run, and other such tips! It implies that any of these is exclusive to a handful of people with what one may readily define as success — wealth, fame, appreciation, power, fulfillment, freedom, security, etc.
These are naught but techniques to regulate your thoughts and workflows. And you do see exceptional stories of people who have wielded these and many more such practices in ways that inspire! But they fundamentally miss out on understanding the nature of success. It is not like a lock that has a key. It is more like a combination lock — not a combination of skills and luck and discipline and all of that — but a combination of people and circumstances.
The first dial of this combination lock is the individual! All these wonderful things that one imbibes within oneself — genius/intellect, skills and attention to detail, perseverance, Karizma, sacrifices, principles, all of it! These are things within one’s control and the only part that one plays in their success! And it is directly affected by the second dial
This is one’s immediate situation — parents, upbringing, spouse, kids, siblings, close friends. These have a direct impact on success. Their support, encouragement, sacrifice, wisdom, and at times even the distractions they offer, readily contribute to performance. And one has less control over it than one might think. One may love one’s family without even realizing the effect they have on success — positive or negative — and I’m not for a moment suggesting that one must condition love or respect on such a contribution. But the idea is to illustrate their role. A lot of individual success is due to sacrifices made by people of immediate proximity, and those sacrifices are, in magnitude, often equal to or greater than those made by the individual.
The third dial is another one made of people of relative proximity. Friends, colleagues, teachers, mentors, bosses, etc. are all party to one’s success — albeit a little more indirectly. These people may not make major sacrifices but are there when one needs them. Teachers provide knowledge, encouragement, and guidance. Friends provide support and social security. Mentors provide feedback and pathways. Bosses (good ones) place trust and responsibility, along with the occasional pressure. They all contribute to the experience of an individual that enables them to grow into the person who has what it takes to become successful.
Now, the dials discussed so far are familiar. People are more than willing to acknowledge the contributions of those in their immediate surroundings. But this is not about that either. This is about questioning the idea of credit. It isn’t enough to simply give pieces of the pie to those who have contributed because that list is still long. It is about asking, is success truly achieved by a person? Or is it the result of a system that we have created throughout history — where we need to ascribe it to people, as a label, for society to function?
Stay tuned for the next post, where we discuss the remaining, far less obvious contributors to success.
