One is called a farmer not because he stays on a farm but because he tills and works on the land. Success is a journey - not a destination. It takes planning, effort, and hard work to move from one level of the journey to the other. Taking the right action leads to success. Inaction is a suitable fertilizer for failure. Leadership guru, John Maxwell, asserted in great eloquence that “. . . successful leaders have the courage to take action while others hesitate.” To win you must begin. One cannot fulfill one’s destiny with dreams alone. No. Goals are realized by taking the right action on well-thought-out ideas.
None of the secrets of success work without commitment to action. It takes work to succeed. The work may be painful but slowly it puts one on the road to success. Perseverance and patience based on action and faith realize great success. Faith is the mother of success. A shady person never produces a bright life. Do you want to accomplish something tangible and visible in life – something that you can point at? You must know that whatever you want to accomplish in life requires action, persistence, and faith. Success depends on knowing what action to take and how long that action takes to realize the intended results.
The great English writer of all time, William Shakespeare, put it so splendidly, “. . . nothing comes from nothing.” You may conceive plans to achieve success. You may develop certain strong beliefs concerning success. But plans, ideas, and beliefs are worthless unless they are converted into action. Stay hungry for success. Andrew Grove – former CEO of Intel – wrote, “. . . only the paranoid wins in today’s competitive world.” Success is open to everyone, but it eludes those who are inactive - who do not want to roll up their sleeves and work. Success is achieved by people who generate great ideas and execute them.
Striving for success without work is like trying to harvest where one has not sowed. What one sows is what one reaps. Farmers know this principle very well. They till the land, . . . bury seeds into the ground, . . . water the seeds until harvesting time. I will be the first to admit that it is not enough to dream about success without waking up and acting on the dream. Leadership coach and humanitarian, Robin Sharma, sagely revealed, “… with daily consistent effort in the direction of your dreams, you get to a place you have always dreamt of getting to.” Brilliant. Success starts as a dream and like a house, it is built brick on brick.
What you dream of doing or having or being, does not amount to much unless you wake up from your dream and take action. Do not just dream. No single person I have read about, heard about, or seen achieved success on a silver platter without rolling up his or her sleeves. All great sons and daughters of planet Earth achieved success by working hard on their dreams. They etched success brick by brick. Block by block. Mortar on mortar.
One way to construct success is to always surround oneself with quality people. Some people are cynical and sceptical of life achievements - avoid that type of people. Associate with people who go for the right moves when stakes are high, . . . when situations seem impossible for success. Associate with people who lift your spirits when the going gets tough. Avoid negative thinking people. I would rather spend time alone, read, and learn from awe-inspiring books than associate with a pessimist. Winners surround themselves with fellow winners. The great sages from the East said, ‘. . . birds of the same feathers flock together.’ The writer of Proverbs put it even better, “. . . an iron sharpens another iron.”
Another way to build success is to keep practicing in your area of gifting. Each one of us was planted on earth for a reason. We came from where we came from with nickels of golden talents. The high power gave each one of us some precious talent. Just like miners extract diamonds from the ground, one needs to unearth one’s talent. It is buried somewhere in our encephalon, waiting to be discovered and nurtured. When a diamond is extracted from the ground, it is dirty and unattractive. Miners and goldsmiths know the secret - they expose it to intense pressure and polish it before it becomes a commodity of value. Likewise, we need to nurture our talent. Practice. Practice. Practice. More practice in our area of gifting. Then execute.
A word of caution - not all practices lead to greatness. As a matter of fact, it is not practice that achieves results but methodical practice. We can practice all day long, all night long, but if we do not know what we are doing, no matter how much talent we have, we are perfecting an error. If we are busy with wrong engagements, I am sorry, but success will elude us. It is like taking a road that leads to nowhere. We need to practice in our area of gifting. Be a specialist. Focus on and immerse yourself in your talent. Your niche. I need to be clear here – I am not saying that you should not be informed of the broad fundamentals and generalities of life. Lead a life of balance whilst you focus on your area of gifting. As my high school tutor, Mr. Taylor, used to advise us, “. . . you need to know more and more of less and less.” Wise man. Concentrate on an area that brings you the largest returns. When he was active and in his prime, did you ever see Usain Bolt carrying a golf bag to challenge Rory McIlroy at the Masters golf tournament? Bolt knew his area of gifting. You would not find Bolt on a golf course but on athletic tracks taking other sprinters head on. The best of the best know what they are good at and stay in that line through and through. They excel. Successful people are not more gifted than the rest of us. All they have done or are doing is uncover their area of gifting, nurture it with methodical practice, and act on their dream. Identify your niche. Devote your energy to one thing - yes, the thing that you know yourself that you are good at. Do it fantastically well and people will celebrate and call you a genius, legend, celebrity, guru, hero, or industry icon. Don’t scatter your brilliance. Success is defined by a task - successful entrepreneur, successful hotelier, successful insurer, successful lawyer, successful carpenter, successful street sweeper, successful coder, et cetera. Picasso was not a computer programmer and a painter. He was the latter. James Bond wasn’t a specialist in music and film acting. He found his niche in the latter. Michael Schumacher wasn’t a Formula One racer and an architect. He was the former. Tolstoy is regarded as the greatest writer of his time - not as a barista and a judge. In his days, Muhammed Ali referred to himself as the greatest boxer. He didn’t say he was the greatest pugilist and engineer. Have you not heard someone saying something about a successful person, “. . . Huyu Mzee alizaliwa kwa ajili hii (this man was born for this responsibility).” Legends are revered in this manner. You can be revered likewise if you stay in your area of gifting. My advice is ‘don’t spread yourself too wide.’ You cannot be everything to everyone, every time. Stick to your lane.
Successful people never stop learning. They live as if they will die tomorrow and learn as though they will live forever. As Ben Franklin aptly put it, “. . . a man died at 25, but was not buried until 75.” Ben Franklin was describing a man who stopped learning. It is sad that some people do not understand that we achieve success in proportion to what we attempt and what we do. Each one of us has the potential and opportunity to succeed. Success is open to everyone. It takes just as much effort to lead an unproductive life as it does an effective life. Many people languish the whole of their life aimlessly in prison of their own life due to inaction and procrastination. They have not decided what to do with the talent that the high power gave them. The good thing with life is that you can predict a person’s future by what he or she does today. You are what you are today because of what you did in the past. Who you will be tomorrow is determined by today’s effort on your talent. What you do today constructs your future and destiny. Do not take lightly what you are doing today. The words you speak, the thoughts you think, and the actions you take, are all shaping who you are becoming. Your life in the future is a function of today’s actions. Opportunities come and go. You need to act on them as soon as they show up. This reminds me of the wise words of Mark Twain, “. . . twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than the ones you did.” The door to success will not open unless you push on an opportunity. Success grows larger by nurturing it with action. Ask any successful person and they will tell you that crafting a successful life takes hard work. It takes effort. You cannot get the juice out of an orange without squeezing it.
Views from the top are that if you are reading this article, it means that you are alive. The high power is keeping you around for a reason. Do not sleep at the wheel of your life. You were meant to soar like an eagle. Take action. Work hard. Today.
Lester Chinyang’anya ǀ General Manager - Operations ǀ Minet Malawi
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