I want you to succeed

Yes. I want you to succeed, period. You see, some people around you, be it your family and friends, do not want you to succeed. Ok, I know some of you might be thinking, "what's he on?" or "has he completely lost it?!". Now, before you start 'flaming' me or dismiss me altogether, let me share with you why I said this. But before we get to that, let me ask; how many of you are afraid of success?

So, what is success? My favourite short definition of success is by Earl Nightingale, "the progressive realisation of a worthy goal or ideal". Because success is not a destination; it is a journey, or some will see it as a marathon without a finishing line. Metaphorically, the definition means that success is something that you achieve on an on-going basis. You set a worthy goal, something that is meaningful not just to you but also to the people around you and the environment that you live in, and you identify some milestones or indicators which shows whether you are on or off track. You see, success is not a grand prize that is achieved only by yourself. If that was the case, then you know your goal is not big enough. When you have a small goal, you not only limit yourself but you are also less motivated to work towards it because it does not move every pore on your skin.

When the goal you are after is huge, you need to enlist the help of others. And when you are able to do that, it means that people get excited about your goal. Perhaps it's because they would like to achieve a goal similar to yours but they feel they don't have the access to resources or they don't have the skills to do so. An example will be Dr Myron Wentz. His dream is a world free of diseases, which propelled him to sell off Gull Laboratories and start USANA Health Sciences. Given his dream to truly spread the word globally, he enlisted the help of several thousands individuals, who as independent distributors have little or no knowledge in cellular nutrition but are excited and shared about his dream. They participant in the business to spread the word and at the same time get compensated in monetary and other intangible gains, such as helping a friend.

You see, when your dream is big, it creates synergy that brings people from different walks of life, culture, faith, beliefs together to make it a reality. By taking on the leadership role, you paint a picture for others to dream about; you create a road-map to link their current situation to the dream, and more importantly you allow them to see for themselves how by connecting the dots they too will be able to achieve their dreams.

So, what is your own definition or favourite definition of success? I invite you to write it down. Make sure there is a worthy goal, that it's big and brings about synergy so that it will also excites others to want to participate.

Next, I'll like to invite you to list down the reasons why you think you are not successful (according to your own or favourite definition and not society's or your mom's definition - sorry mom). Once you have done that, distinguish those reasons that were caused by you and those reasons that were caused by external forces. Now, I've got good news and better news for you.

The good news is, for those of you who've got more external reasons than self-inflicted reasons you now know that you have mindset that needs to be changed. I mean, sure you can go out and blame your boss, colleagues, parents, friends, spouse, or even your cat for being the impediment to your success. Thing is, then who has control over your own success? Them or you? For those of you who've got more self-inflicted reasons or purely self-inflicted reasons, you now understand why you are yet successful. And the better news is, you are in control of whether you succeed or not from hereon.

Now that we have gotten over this, let us talk about why some people, including myself in the past, are afraid of our own success. To some of us, success, the way we define it, will result in some or massive changes depending on your size of the goal. The bigger it is, the more changes we anticipate. And being human, or the result of our conditioning, has led us to resist change. Why? Simply because we don't want to feel uncomfortable but like what Anthony Robbins said, "we want to move away from pain". By our definition of success, we foresee that it will cause us to become someone we don't want to be.

Some of us have strange prefixes such as filthy-rich or preconceived ideas that to be successful we have to be mean or cunning, or worse still, evil. Perhaps its something we picked up from shows such as Snow White (and her wicked but rich step-mother) or Working Girl (where the successful but lonely boss played by Sigourney Weaver). Or maybe it was your parents or relatives who related stories about how so-and-so who became successful by engaging in underhand or unscrupulous activities. Either way, these subliminal messages that reside in your subconscious mind are holding you back from your own success; hence you become afraid of your own success. Now, you need not go out and tell Walt Disney or your parents that they are wrong. As they serve a purpose. The purpose was to protect you, to show you the pitfalls before you fall. And these are useful because you now know that you can be successful doing the right thing. You can be successful being nice. You must not violate your own core values or you'll be sorry. So, embrace and acknowledge these messages and let yourself know that you will do the right thing and yet be successful.

So, the reasons why your friends or family don't want you to succeed is also because of such messages. It may not be the same as yours but they serve the same purpose. They don't wish that you lose your soul or become a totally heartless person when you become successful. Or on a less dramatic level, they want you to be around for them and to treat them the same as before. They do not want you to get hurt too. So, acknowledge that and better still engage them in your journey so that they can not only take part, but also contribute to your success.

Now, why do I want you to be successful? Why does this person who do not know you at all or well enough want you to succeed so bad? Because your success does not rob me of my successes. In fact, when you succeed it does not make me any less successful. It's not a zero-sum game. Or put it bluntly, your success has got nothing to do with me. So then why am I so darn serious about your success? It is because I believe that your success will bring about a better life for you and the people around you, providing your success does not accrue all benefits solely to you. And when that happens it allows others to gain their own successes.

Also, another important belief is that of abundance. Success, like I said is not a zero-sum game. In fact, there are people who wish you not succeed because they are envious or they want to feel superior that they are better than you. These are the people with the scarcity mindset. And not only will they hurt themselves as a result of this mindset, they will also impede others. And by adopting a scarcity mindset you do yourself more harm than good. So engage in an abundance mindset, a mindset that with more successes, it will bring about even greater successes. Hence, I really want you to succeed, period.