Two kinds of prescriptions

There’s the kind of prescriptions that work and the kind that don’t work. By prescriptions, I refer to a recommendation or a note that a person in authority puts forward.

When you go to a doctor for a viral fever that is bugging you and you get handed a prescription- it only works if you follow it. The act of speaking to the doctor alone will not fix you. Likewise, asking your mom the recipe of her famous chole bhature but not following the recipe won’t get you ‘her’ chole bhature (based on your cooking skills you might get a better or worse version of the dish but it won’t be the same). For simple tasks, prescriptions work the best.

However, more often than not we fall in the trap of the second kind- the unimitable prescriptions. Let’s say, Warren Buffet is your uncle and he wants you to succeed. So he walks you through every single thing he did in life in order to help you create all the wealth that he did. Now let’s say, you go ahead and follow his prescription completely. Guess what- you still won’t get the results that he did.

Why? One big reason (among many others which I won’t get into) is that a key variable has changed- the person following the prescription i.e YOU.

This is why asking someone their “mantra for success” doesn’t work (Success of any form- financial, social, romantic, spiritual…) In fact, the truth is even they don’t know exactly what worked in their favor and what didn’t. Does this mean we should stop getting inspired by people who are doing well in their own lives? No, it doesn’t. Inspiration is great and if you allow it to be that way, can be found anywhere and in any form- it can show up in your life in the form of a well-suited businessperson, a shabby hippie, an ant, or even a wildflower.

The problem starts when we get inspired and right after that we get lazy. We wish to distill their mantra and use it as a shortcut to imitate success for ourselves. This is why there are as many self-help books as there are and also why most of them don’t work. Success by definition means the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. Whose aim? Yours. So whose mantra can get you there? Yours and yours alone.

Be a voice, not an echo