What success means...

MS Dhoni, Narayana Murthy, Shahrukh Khan, Barack Obama have something in common – they were not standing on the shoulders of the giants but rose up and saw beyond the vision set for them. They believed in what they saw and they believed that it was their raison d’être to achieve what they saw. The greatness lies in that they had the courage to walk over the unknown to reach there.

My friend once said ‘If you come from rich successful family, you are almost half successful right from the birth’. Such lucky bunch of people get the giant shoulder to stand on right from their childhood. Many things come for granted for them because they think it’s a commonplace. They are able to physically see the world of success – they see successful people early in the life and can envisage their own future similar to these successful people. They take such successes almost for granted because for them, it really exists in front of them, everywhere! It’s the way of life for them. May be this is what is meant by ‘it’s in the blood’! Nothing succeeds like success.

For people like Dhoni, Murthy, SRK, Obama etc., there is a challenge leering around. They have seldom seen success physically – success in a person, or in some institution – with own eyes in their early lives. Most probably, they see people failing (or not very successful). In a sense, it’s more of a physical failure around them. They see failures and only hear/read about success. For them, it’s a matter of choice between the physical failure and ‘somewhere there’ success. For them, success is in third person – something that exists, but not anywhere around. These men are in true sense leading themselves. They are the self-leaders first and leaders next.

It’s a simple concept that what can be perceived can be learnt easily. Newtonian physics is easier than quantum physics. Visible success is easy to learn and imitate. Third-person success is difficult to perceive and follow. A self-leader has to go there to see it in person. To go there, the self-leader has to cross the bridge that joins his world with the successful world. This bridge is long and tough. It is easy to get lost in the self-doubts that are lurking like sharks. There is hardly anyone to look up to, to guide. The only weapon to fight all this is the passion to cross the bridge; the burning desire to see what lies on the other side of the bridge; be game to take into stride come what may.

So what success means to such people? For them, success is in believing that success exists. Success is in being a self-leader. It is in choosing the‘somewhere there´ success over the physical failure existing around them. Success is to strive to convert the third-person success into a first-person success; and be a third-person success to self-starters like they themselves were once, thus carrying on the legacy.