Why so few succeed

 

Caterpillars are interesting creatures. Sharp-witted. Mystical. Yet, their behavior does not match their intelligence. I know what you are thinking – ‘. . . mwalimu, give us something refreshing, something more relatable. What have caterpillars to do with leadership and personal mastery?’ I’m glad you asked this question. Let me explain. 

Caterpillars, just like other minute creatures, enjoy being in clusters. They swarm a lot. You’ll hardly find a caterpillar moving singly. They travel in procession, mobilize foodstuffs, and feed in battalions. Curious about the brainpower of these creatures with reference to their behaviour, French naturalist Jean Henri Fabre, carried out a private study. The results of his study have since been universalized by leadership and personal mastery coaches. He put a group of caterpillars on a rim of a large flower vase so that the lead caterpillar touched the last caterpillar in a procession. 

They formed a circle. In the circle of the flower vase, Fabre placed pine needles, the favorite food of caterpillars. With an ample supply of food at hand and within visible range, for eleven days, the poor caterpillars circled the flower vase until they died from fatigue and starvation. Dear reader. I have a question. For you. Hand on your chest. Why do you think the caterpillars which are known for their huge appetite for pine needles died amidst plenty? Hmm - because they failed to change the course of the established path. Why? - due to the unquestioning disposition of their innate mindset. Their mental capacity is naturally conditioned. Locked. Fixed. 

At one time or another, most of us reading this article - me included - have fallen prey to caterpillar-type of thinking and behaviour: intelligent but mentally programmed and sloppy behaviour.  The world sells us a bill of goods that we should cling to the known, . . . that we should attend the same school that our older siblings attended, . . . that we should belong to the same religious belief that our parents belong to, . . . that we should not question conventional wisdom of elders or those in authority for doing so will be construed as dissidence, . . . that we should not cry when our emotions are hurt or broken for doing so will be interpreted as being weak, . . . that we should not lose touch of, or look down upon, our cultural values in favour of foreigners’ for doing so will be inferred to as inferior complex. We are expected to live within a certain circle of understanding and life. They even coined a dictum for it, “. . . when you are in Rome, do as Romans do” – implying that when we find ourselves in a certain environment or situation, we must make ourselves fit in every aspect of our manners, behavior, and habits with those of the forebearers. 

The argument is that if we go for phenomena that we are familiar with or cling to the known, we will be safe and accepted by the public. I have a different take on this. Yes, allow me to differ. Only today. Please. This is flawed thinking. Don’t allow this old counsel to hold you back. I pray. I strongly believe that the seduction of safety is always more dangerous than the illusion of uncertainty.

Consider Christopher Columbus. He couldn’t have discovered America - a newfound land by then - if he had tolerated this type of mentality. Columbus discovered America and brought success to his nation because he disregarded conventional thinking and practice – he sailed perpendicular to the mainland - instead of being seduced by the safety of sailing along the coast. He and his team ventured into the unknown. He took the road less travelled; rather ‘the sea less sailed.’  

Understand that Columbus was not the most experienced nor the best-sponsored ocean explorer of the time. No. The only difference between Columbus and those that went before him was that whilst the rest clung to the known and familiar route, Columbus did the unthinkable – he chose the illusion of uncertainty. You cannot write about the history of America without mentioning the name, Christopher Columbus. His legacy lives on. However, we don’t read about the other seafarers that went ahead of him. Why? – because they took a familiar route and ended up producing familiar results. Nothing new came out of their voyage. Nothing new to write home about. Was German physicist, Albert Einstein, not right when he defined insanity as ‘doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?’ 

As a scholar and coach of leadership and personal mastery, what I have come to learn and appreciate is that people who consistently produce outstanding results are contrarians. True, most of us behave like caterpillars. We find routine work irresistible. We are so in love with our daily results that we cannot think of and accept any change of strategy or plan. Our pattern of behaviour and way of thinking become so deeply established and rooted that it seems easier and more comforting to continue with those bigoted thoughts than cope with change even when change represents a better lifestyle. Sometimes, we even prefer to follow a follower akin to the caterpillars in the story above. 

At the end of the day, we get surprised by our poor results. We fail to take the road less travelled and engage in constructive independent thinking. Our psychology is flawed. Here is the thing. If every day is a reaction day for you, let the truth be told, I don’t need the prophetic ability to prophesy that you are headed for disaster. 

Success does not happen by chance. What I know and strongly believe is that success happens through change. It’s intentional. Success is a science. It follows certain laws for its attainment. One must obey and apply certain principles to achieve success. One needs to think and do things in a certain way. No man is born incapable of achieving success. Although only a few achieve success, the door to success is open to everyone. No one is barred from attaining success because of parentage, social status, race, creed, level of education, or where one lives. No matter how poor your parents may have been or how unlearned they were, as long as you go about doing things in a certain way - like what Columbus did - I guarantee that you are a potential candidate for success. In every area of your life. Everything your hands will touch will turn into gold. 

The opposite is true. Those who do not submit to the laws and principles, and fail to do things in a certain way, no matter how hard they work or how intelligent they may be - like caterpillars in the story above - remain unproductive and unsuccessful. Here’s the test. If I sneak into your house tomorrow, while you are out to your workplace or gone shopping and I ask your spouse or any person I find there to show me a schedule of activities and plans on your calendar, what will they show me?. . will they, in a dash of a second, be able to take me through the various projects and courses that you are currently working on and enrolled in?. . will they be able to lead me to your library and show me the books and other intellectual literature that you are currently studying and explain why you are consuming them?. . Or will it be terribly obvious that you don’t even have a single project on a calendar, nor a shelf of books to point at? Tell me. Please. Will I leave your house satisfied or disappointed? If you were to allow me to call your human resource manager and ask them to send me your personal development plan for the next three years, will they, in the dash of a second, share the plan or I should expect a litany of excuses as to why the two of you have not sat down to create a development plan for your career growth? If you were to give me access to your smartphone and I comb through it, what learning, and growth materials will I find in the podcast app? Go back. Re-read the title of the article. 

Answer this question - are you still surprised why so few succeed in life? Do you have something in your life that is a constant problem?. . something that is always a challenge?. . something that is always frustrating you?. . and you’ve given up, surrendered because it is uncomfortable or because you are used to it?. . are you the type of person who - when confronted with problems that are larger than what you have handled before - immediately feel defeated, disengage, and withdraw from it? If the answer is yes, verily you have what personal mastery coaches call a fixed mindset. That’s a signal for change. It’s a trigger that something in your life needs to be attended to. By you. No one else. But you. 

Understand that the size and number of problems that you solve determine the size of the person you are. People will get attracted to you or avoid you because of the problems that you solve or fail to solve for yourself and others, respectively. Let me remind you – if you are a salaried worker, you are recruited to your position to solve the problems of your employer, not for any other reason. Your level of success is very much a function of the problems that are thrown into your in-tray. Your net worth or prosperity is a direct proportion to solutions that you offer to people’s problems and challenges. Pay attention to the problems that people bring to you. The intensity of your responsiveness can make or break you. James Allen, the celebrated author of As a Man Thinketh,  understood this better than I do when he narrated, “. . . you will become as small as your controlling desire or as great as your dominant aspiration.” 

Are you surprised why some people make dream after dream come true while others of equal physical ability and talent continue to dream and spend their lives building dreams for others? Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. From time to time, we experience certain phenomena that when they occur, signify, or reveal something deep about us or our situation. Their occurrence triggers a signal that we need to change certain things surrounding our life. Vigilant people pick cues instinctively and act on them promptly, thus, can produce epic performance and become successful. 

If every other day you have fights with your partner, . . . if every payday you find yourself accumulating more and bigger bills than your income, . . . if every other week you keep on tipping the scale with excessive weight, . . . if every time you sit for examinations, your test scores are below the passing mark, understand that those are triggers that something is amiss. In your life. 

Here’s my advice - don’t disengage from them rather treat the phenomena as signals to grow and improve your situation, not as signals to shut down and give up. Achievement of success sounds simple, but why do only few succeed? That’s the question. True, success is simple, but not easy. Most people are happy with their results. They are satisfied with the way things are. They don’t want to change. To them, engaging in laws, principles, and actions that could catapult them to success is taxing. 

We need to understand that under the sun, we have strategies for producing just anything. Yes, anything that we can think of. There are strategies for the achievement of financial success, . . . strategies for creating world-class relationships; at household and corporate levels,  . . . strategies for attaining emotional freedom, . . . strategies for building successful business, . . . strategies for passing examinations, . . . strategies for attracting promotions at work, . . . strategies for public speaking, . . . strategies for winning political elections, . . . et cetera. Success is built by the application of certain principles, following certain laws, and doing things in a certain way. If you look at successful people in any field, you’ll find that they are not necessarily the best nor the strongest nor the brightest nor the fastest nor the most experienced nor the ones with the loudest voice in the room. They are simply people who do things in an unorthodox way.

Lester Chinyang’anya ǀ General Manager - Operations ǀ Minet Malawi