How Success Happens -The Key Factor !

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Reading Time: 20 minutes.

My conclusion :

Your Success = Your ability to Amaze or Change  other people lives in one way or other!

Higher the number of people ,longer the period you’re able to amaze or change , higher the success you would get.

Sounds strange! Please read through to understand how I have reached this conclusion.

 

Few common questions that I try to address here:

What makes a person successful ?

Why few people are one day wonder & few get life-long success ?

What are key factors for success ?

What’s the real meaning of success?

I keep on pondering over these questions and have realized that it’s quite difficult to come up with an adequate answer.

This is because I feel there is more to success than what the average human being perceives it to be.

My take on these complex questions is the result of my personal experiences and the insights that I got while going through the success-stories of several products and personalities from different fields.

Warning:

Success is a bit serious business, don’t expect a recipe for a wonder-drug here

 ‘Success’  & ‘Outcomes-of-Success’ -Understanding the Difference

For most people, success is obtaining specific titles or certain objects (brands, items, etc. etc). We all feel this kind of success time to time -getting a promotion, buying the latest iPhone, basking in the scent of a fresh new car or having a fancy house in a so-called posh area as a status symbol.

For many others, success is to become famous or to be a celebrity.

But let’s think about it, whether ‘success’ is in acquiring  any of the above  or these are ‘outcomes of success ‘ ?

After a bit of introspection, hopefully, we all will agree that fulfilling some desires can’t be termed as success as such, rather it will be more appropriate to name these as ‘outcomes or fruits of success’.

Because all of these things come after you’ve earned enough money or you become famous after achieving or doing something unique, something better than others.

 

Achieving Success – How?

Hope by now ,you’ve  understood the difference between ‘success’ & ‘outcomes-of-success’ , now let’s focus on understanding the ‘success’.

Think about a few contemporary blockbuster products/services as well as about few successful people 

Try to find out some common underlying causes of their fame and success.

Let me make it easier for you! An acceptable list for blockbuster products/services to everyone may include certain comparatively new brands like Facebook,iPhone, Uber, WhatsApp or Amazon.com . And we would all agree that  Thomas Edison, Michael Jackson & Buddha can be considered as globally successful people.

Here’s a question:

“What’s the one common factor that helped all of these products/persons to conquer the world?”

Hint :

You can’t measure the level of your own success, the extent of your success depends on how other people rate you .”

Please stop reading for a few minutes & think about all the reasons that made these brands/names very popular ,thus successful. This understanding is very important because the secret to the meaning of success lies in the answer to this very question.

Good, hope you already have a long catalog of reasons to justify the fame & triumph of these persons and products.

Ok, here is how I interpret it.

  • The one common factor for the success of all of the brands/persons is rooted in their ability to change or amaze a huge number of people for a long period of time.

Yes, Success is one’s ability to amaze or change other people lives in one way or the other!

Higher the number of people ,longer the period ,you’re able to amaze or change other people lives in one way or the other, higher the success you would get.

Success happens if one can amaze people with one’s extra-ordinary talent (Usain Bolt, Michael Jackson) or one can change people’s lives by making it easier or better (Edison, Steve Jobs, Rites Brothers) or by changing their thoughts (Gautama Buddha, Confucius).

If a sportsman, an actor or a singer can manage to mesmerize others with his/her performance and if certain products & services are able to bring some change, however small, in other people’s lives, they are destined for success!

(It can be as big as Facebook changing how we used to connect or Buddha’s effect on a whole society while showing them new ways of having a peaceful life or it can be as small success as a new mom-n-pop shop opening in the neighborhood that saves travel time for shopping, thus bringing a small change in life of nearby residents)

Checklist :

Whether you or your idea/product can succeed!

Whereas the ability to amaze or change people lies at the core for something or someone to be successful, here are few more aspects to it:

1.Think yourself as Producers & others as Consumers

In simple terms, the whole world can be divided into 2 categories -producers and consumers. Producers’ job is to create something and if that is liked by the maximum number of consumers, the producer can be considered to be successful.

Each one of us plays both the roles all the time,either we’re creating something or we’re acting as a consumer of some product ,some TV program or some article (like the one you’re reading).

If we want to be successful as a creator/producer ,the very first thing check is whether our product /service/talent can make our existing/potential consumers’ life easier and better or can impact the prospects by changing the way they think.

  1. First,Best or Different

I read it somewhere that for an idea or product to be successful ,it needs to be first ,best or different .

Think about any of the above-mentioned products/persons or any other success-story that comes to your mind.See whether this formula works !

  1. Reach out, Network

If you’re the first,best or different in your area of work, your success is almost inevitable with an important caveat however,it reaches the right customers.

The best idea (buried in someone’s head) or an innovative product( lying in a factory ) might not enjoy the fruits of success if it is not taken to the masses,the right audience.

I call it ‘Area of Influence’.A product, service or idea need to expand its area of influence by various means.For a company it can be through a distribution channel,a marketing campaign or both,for an individual it may be the presence in different social forums,media,events or all of these.

An example here is of Baba Ramdev in India. He is famous and successful as a Yoga Guru. He achieved it by taking Yoga into every home despite the fact that the product (Yoga) nowhere fits into ‘First,Best or Different’ formula. He is not the first Yoga practitioner,he does not teach any different type of Yoga and off-course he is not the best Yoga -teacher.

What made him successful ? Think about it !

Here is the answer.

He is the first to exploit the ‘reach’ factor to create awareness about Yoga at a large scale. He organized public events around it,used media to promote it and was the first one to give free Yoga lessons at a mass-scale.

In short,he increased his ‘area of influence’ by reaching out.

More the area of influence of a product or service ,bigger the success will be.The greater the awareness, the more the consumers,the better the success.

Hone your skills & gradually make the whole world your stage .

What Success looks like?

One may get respect (Mahatma Gandhi) or one may get money (Bill Gates), one may get a position (Barack Obama/ Narendra Modi) or one may get everything (Ronald Reagan).

“Outcomes of Success” as mentioned above are mere side-benefits of success, the satisfaction of being outstanding is much bigger than these ephemeral things.

What is in it for Me ( WIIFM )

While talking about these ideas around success, I normally come across a question from several of the colleagues/employees across the organizations i.e.

“I am not an entrepreneur who makes products, I am neither a singer nor a writer, how this definition of success (ability to change or amaze people ) can help me to be successful”

A genuine question!

But please keep in mind, all the principles of success described here are applicable to every individual and in almost all the situations.

As an employee:

Ask yourself :

1. Are you making your customers’ life easier or better by going extra-mile for them?

 

2. Are you g your area of influence by reaching more & more customers ?

3. Are you constantly striving to improvise on your skills by reading  ,by learning from the masters of the fields, by contemplating everyday on how you you can improvise what you do everyday-every small thing? There is a rule known as ‘10000 Hours Rule’, it says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field.

4. Are you giving new ideas (first,best or different) to your management?

5. Are you spending 1-2 hours/week on reading/training to further improve your domain knowledge to add magic to your assignments?

6. Are you making your boss’s life easier by providing him better solutions?

If the answer to the majority of the above questions is yes, then it will be hard for someone to stop you from achieving success.

For Individual Artist/Entrepreneur/Business-Owner:

Ask your self :

  1. Whether the service/product/talent you are offering to the customers in your area follow the principle of ‘First, Best or Different’
  2. Are you trying to increase your reach (area of influence) by marketing, networking & social events, etc?

3. Are you constantly striving to improvise on your skills as a dancer, as a singer or as a doctor? Are you contemplating every day on how you can improvise on every small thing that you do everyday ?There is a rule known as ‘10000 Hours Rule’, it says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field.

4. Are you able to amaze your audience/consumers with your talent ? Does your product/offering somehow bring any change in their lives (better margins/saving of time/increased knowledge / helping them succeed etc. etc.)?

That’s all on this topic,hope it gave you a few new insights .

If you feel I missed some aspect (except ‘the luck’ factor), do write back, will love to add the same here.

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YOU ARE A SUM OF YOUR DIRE NEEDS EVERYTHING ELSE IS JUST CRAP!”

11 COMMENTS

  1. Greetings sir!!!

    Thank you for making it clear ” what is success “. I love this article.

    I have been following you since last two years. I still remember I tried so hard to invite you for guest lecture when I was pursuing MBA. I have so many screenshots Mr Pran”s Quotes. Someday will make a book of it n will gift you.

    Thank you Sir for always inspiring!!!

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