How to understand success and diagnose failure: A simple formula
People often mention that Sam Walton didn’t start his first Wal-Mart until he was 44 years old. It’s a powerful lesson that it’s never too late to start. And they are right; it is never too late to start.
But it’s the wrong lesson, and it’s based on ignoring inconvenient facts.
Sam Walton took over his first store at the age of 26. In three years he had had almost tripled the annual revenue for that store. By the time he opened his first Wal-Mart, in 1962 he owned 16 other stores!
His career didn’t start there though, prior to that he had served in the military and earned the rank of Captain.
But his history of success didn’t start with the military either. While in eighth grade he earned the title of Eagle Scout. The youngest Eagle Scout in the state of Oklahoma’s history.
If the lesson isn’t that it is never too late to start, then what is it?
It’s that success, real success takes a foundation of consistent effort built over time.
Our society consistently puts successful people on a pedestal. What we ignore is the most important part, the time and effort it took to place them there.
We want to replicate their success in a tenth of the time. Rarely, if ever, do we understand or take the time to learn the level of effort required to get there.
It’s true, Sam Walton didn’t open his first Wal-Mart until 1962, but he had been putting in consistent effort since he was a young child. He built the foundation for his success over decades.
The Formula
Success is a result of the effort and time one puts into an endeavor multiplied by the amount of knowledge they have on the subject.
Knowledge (Effort + Time) = Success
K(E+T) = S
Success
The first and most significant problem with success is that so few people bother to define it. Success is a sort of mental collage in their minds of shiny pictures, it’s happiness, and wealth, and fun. They know what other people vaguely consider successful and never bother to define it further.
This can be a real problem. The result is that you put inconsistent effort towards a vague definition that, if you thought about it, isn’t your definition anyway.
The result is, as you can imagine, not success.
At best it’s a few half successes here and there that allow you to feel good about yourself for a little while.
But are you fulfilled by these? Never, and the reason is that you don’t even know what success means to you. The definition of success is very personal so unless you’ve defined it for yourself, there’s a high likelihood that you are headed in the wrong direction. Away from success, away from fulfillment, away from where you want to be.
Effort + Time
I apologize for what I am about to say because no one wants to hear it let alone accept it.
Success requires consistent effort over time. Not only consistent effort, but the right effort. You cannot skip this. Sporadic effort over time won’t work. Tremendous effort over a brief period won’t work.
It takes consistent effort over extended periods of time to produce tremendous results.
We tend to grossly overestimate the amount of time we put into something.
I have been “closing the rings” on my Apple Watch forever.
I just hit 200 days. Like I said, forever.
Well, it feels like forever anyway.
But it’s just a tiny blip in the 28,000 days or so I will be alive. Two-hundred days won’t even improve my overall health if I don’t maintain this consistent action. Consistent effort over time is the only way to be successful.
Knowledge
Knowledge is the multiplier for time and effort. The more we know about a subject, the more effort we have put into learning about it, the time we have put into studying it, all can act exponentially when applied to time and effort.
Knowledge allows us to overcome obstacles, solving the problems we encounter along the way.
There is one problem with knowledge. People often use it as an excuse not to act. They are too busy researching a subject. They are studying the best way to enter the market. What they are not doing is taking action.
These people fail to realize there are two components of knowledge.
1. The first is what I just talked about, researching a subject, studying information on the topic that will allow you to avoid mistakes others have made. If you can learn from the mistakes others have made, great! Do so. But something else is required.
2. Experience is the other component of knowledge. It’s always amazing to me how many people talk about how they are “hands-on” learners but never take the first step towards getting hands-on experience. Experience requires action.
Our society often mistakes knowledge for something strictly gained in a classroom environment. Or worse, as rote memorization.
Again, action is required to gain experience.
Remember the 16 stores Sam Walton opened before his first Wal-Mart? This experience, the knowledge acquired from opening 16 stores previously, allowed him to grow Wal-Mart from one store to 190 stores in 15 years. Eight years after that he had grown Wal-Mart to 800 stores.
He averaged more than 34 stores a year!
The time and effort that Sam Walton had put into every endeavor his entire life, combined with the knowledge he gained by doing, resulted in tremendous success.
Diagnose a lack of success with these four questions.
1. Have I put enough time in to make this a success? We all want shortcuts. You have to decide if you are willing to put in the time required to reach where you want to be.
2. Have I consistently applied the right actions to reach success? Targeted, consistent effort in the right direction is critical.
3. Is this a failure, or is it part of the process required to gain experience and eventually succeed? Sam Walton was forced out of his first store. Instead of quitting he used the experience as a catalyst for his future success.
4. Have I defined what success actually is to me? If you don’t know where you want to be, you’ll never get there.
Knowledge (Effort + Time) = Success
K(E+T) = S
This may seem simplisitic, but don’t confuse simple with easy. There is nothing easy about success.
Success is for the rare people who are willing to consistently put in the time and effort over great lengths of time.
Overnight success does not exist. It doesn’t.
Acknowledge that fact and start applying consistent effort over time and one day you’ll be an “overnight success” too.
Dan’s passion is growing and developing the next generation of leaders. He has decades of experience as a leader and mentor through his time in the military and law enforcement. Interact with him on twitter @dantruex
