Why Principles Won’t Help You

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Rules [noun]: one of a set of understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity — Google

In your lifetime, you’ve probably come across tens, if not hundreds, of self-development materials with titles like ‘5 Rules for Staying Happy’, ‘9 Traits of Highly Effective Food Mongers’ and other similar titles. You probably have read some of those as well. Whatever your experience, one thing that you probably have noticed is that, depending on who is speaking (or writing), the rules are never always the same. And that’s where I come in.

You see, the problem with a topic such as ‘The 10 Rules of Success’ is that there actually is no problem with the rules… until you begin to believe those are the only rules.

Most success stories or principles that we read focus on certain aspects that fit the theme of what the writer/speaker is talking about. So for example, Mr Petite talks on leadership principles and decides to use Walmart as his case study. He talks about how the founder, (Sam Walton) relentlessly built the empire from the scratch, how his leadership inspired the executives under him to do exploits and blabla… you know the rest. Fact is he isn’t wrong. Truth though, is that these facts are in isolation and do not represent the whole picture of the success story. They don’t take into account that for Walmart to succeed, aggressive sales was needed, logistics and administration had to be sorted, supply chain had to be top notch, staffing and rewards needed a shrewd tweak. Perhaps the organization even needed to borrow money or get investors to help scale the business (as most businesses require). Of course, details of possible secret handshakes and undercover deals are not likely to be presented in this talk.

At the end of the leadership session, you are convinced that all you need to succeed in business and in life are leadership skills. So you go to set up a venture and GBAM! you are in for a shocker. Things don’t go as expected because you suddenly realize that having a Twitter handle isn’t enough — you have only two followers, both having the egg avatar and your selfies aren’t generating the amount of retweets you thought you’d get. It’s pretty similar to assuming that your car is going to function properly simply because you bought petrol (gasoline) when it doesn’t yet have a battery, a functional radiator, a working fuel pump or (insert car part).

The message is simple — there is no single route or requirement to succeed in life. Trying to copy and paste someone else’s strategy almost always backfires because you never get the full picture.

Let me remind you that nobody tells you everything, either deliberately or by omission from memory. Nobody tells you everything.

Am I saying that we shouldn’t listen to ‘The Fundamental principles of Academic Excellence?’ or ‘6 Ways To Achieve Your Dreams’? No. What I’m saying is that bear in mind that there is always more to it than can be captured in a simple set of rules. You should be willing to go the extra mile to discover those truths yourself if you are to succeed.

In the end, those who make waves are those that discover or create their own paths. The paths they create are what become the ‘Laws’ and ‘Principles’ that others after them study.

The End..