The Ingredients of Success

What are the basic ingredients that are required, for a person to be successful?

Now, aside from limiting social factors, and financial difficulties, if an individual wanted to set his mind to succeed, no matter in what aspect he/she wants to succeed be it financially, academically, or even socially, what kind of a mindset should he/she have?Let's first get the definition of Success correct. In contemporary parlance, Success means Financial security in a massive scale, fame and other glitz and glam associated with a famous person.

But that doesn't necessarily be the only definition of Success.

If you try to mend a broken relationship, or even set yourself a goal and want to attain it, then if you end up accomplishing it, it can also be translated as Success. It's all dependent on your mindset. Remember, Business principles need not always apply to business ventures. They can also be applied with resounding outcomes to everyday events in daily life. And the same goes for everyday experience being applied to succeed in business.

That said, its time to begin analyzing What is Required of you to begin succeeding in whatever you do.

Goals and a Burning Passion

Now before you set a goal for yourself, you should first have a faint vision of what you want to achieve. Be it delivering a simple speech before your colleagues, or a new project at work, only if you have a clear picture of what your end result should be, you can work towards it.

Why has the word "Goal" become associated with setting objectives?

In Soccer, the ball has to be kicked inside the goal post after having been tacitly passed around the enemy's defenses, and the goalkeeper, for the kick to count as a goal.

Picture the defensive players as the obstacles in what you're setting out to achieve, and the goalkeeper as Yourself, the one person you should have complete control over, in order to succeed.

Now why should you have control over yourself? Doesn't that sound ridiculous? Aren't we sane, steady thinking human beings? Yes, we indeed are. But, the Human mind is a complex organism unto itself.

Temptation is anybody's prima donna enemy. Temptation can be in the form of alluring casual activities, those that provide instant gratification, or temptation can be in the form of Slumber itself, giving way to procrastination, another great foe in working towards your goals.

So only if you have control over yourself, you can allay temptation, and therefore master procrastination and instant gratification compulsions.

How can you have control over yourself?

This question can have a lot of different answers for different people.

Its not easy for people to control themselves after they cross a particular threshold in their lives. It may be easier in the case of youngsters, but for those people who have seen a lot of emotional stress and other travails today's world has to offer, it is indeed a mammoth task.

So how can self control be inculcated when it cannot be done by self?

You can resort to a lot of mind-soothing activities. Meditation. Yoga. Breath Exercises. But, there's a catch.

The only person who can cure yourself is you, and yourself alone.

Medication doesn't help. Counseling doesn't help. They do, but what they ultimately do is activate your conscience and ultimately open your reasoning eyes.

So why go to the extent of so many long hours of counseling and medication that might run into thousands of dollars when you, after a few days of self pondering can counsel yourself and set things right?

You can argue with me that self counseling sounds good on paper but is not practically possible. But what if you had the willingness to actually change yourself, have you not heard of the proverb : Where there is a will there is a way?

All these will help in granting you a firmer determined self with which you can set achievable goals and work towards achieving them.

Passion

How can you define passion?

I'll try to explain it in a easy way. Have you seen the look on the faces of Olympic Athletes when they win a Gold medal? That's real satisfaction. How were they able to achieve real gratification?

They achieved something that was an extraordinary thing to do. They set in tremendous mind boggling hours into what they wanted to accomplish. They were determined, didn't swagger from their path towards their goal.

And when they finally outlast tons of competitors from all the other countries in the world and stand on the podium and have the medals hung over their necks, the look on their faces betrays whatever turmoils they underwent, to achieve their objective.

Instant Gratification is not satisfaction. It is a hurdle actually. By gratifying your ego for an instant everyday, you actually diminish your desire and your passion for working towards your goal. Your resolve gets weakened. Your Passion for life also gets weakened. Scoff at me, but this is the truth. By delaying instant gratification for prolonged periods of time, far greater gratification can be obtained.

Gratification is permanent satisfaction, and gives contentedness of the soul.

I have just given a glimpse into what Passion really means. It is just the tip of the iceberg.

So, Having seen how Goals and a Burning passion make a few of the ingredients of success, its time for everyone of us to sit down and ponder whether we're giving fuel for long term satisfaction or instant gratification.

How to be Different

Great things were done not by following the norms and rules that exist in society, but by actually creating a new pathway to do a particular thing. Tons of examples can be done to reiterate this fact. Your success may lie with your genius as much as your willingness to experiment,
And your willingness to experiment will only arise when you're willing to be different.


Being Different


Being different is nothing special. Its not some inherent quality. Its not a quality that's present only in intelligent people.

It is possible for every normal person to reach out to the world and be different in what he does.

And, Society, even though it firmly directs you to abide by its rules, ALWAYS APPRECIATES PEOPLE WHO DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY.

You might've read the expression: Winners do things differently. How to set about doing things differently?

The first thing you should do is, whatever the thing that you're doing, you should get to know all there's to do about it. Learn it. Read about it. See how the thing is done by others.

One of the basic stepping stones to success is, your familiarity with what you're setting out to do.

Only if the Teacher is well versed in his subject, he can teach effectively right?

So, You , like the teacher, only after getting to know something very well, can do it effectively right?

The first step, therefore lies in knowledge. By knowledge, I don't mean textual, factual knowledge. Its just the basic Know how of doing a thing.

After you make yourself extremely familiar with what you're doing, you'll find yourself that you naturally develop a flair for it. Once you develop a flair for doing stuff, automatically, you'll get involved with doing it.

Once Involvement arises in an activity, then all the rooms are laid bare for Innovation.

With Innovation, there comes doing things differently.

You'll find yourself Asking the question:

"Hm, What if, This was done the other way around?"

There, you try to innovate. When you try to innovate, you improvise, and when you improvise, you perfect yourself, and by perfecting yourself step by step, at the end, you end up being different than others.

Its a cycle, its like:

Familiarity ->
Flair ->
Consistency->
Satisfaction->
Thirst for more-->
Innovation
Improvisation
Perfection
Difference

This IS NOT A BUSINESS PRINCIPLE.

This does sound like one, but this is actually what happens when people try to be different.

BEING DIFFERENT IS NOT A SKILL OR TALENT.

Being different is just a NEED, a PERSONAL DESIRE. It only arises after a person gets INVOLVED with what they're upto.

Without Involvement, there cannot be satisfaction. Without satisfaction, there cannot be perfection, and without perfection, there won't be any difference, it will only fall short.

You can also see how Thinking Differently helps you out, and also about Positive Thinking.

Thinking Positively

The world has lots of success stories. Some made it from, literally, Nothing. Rags to riches tales, heard of them? There are stories of Orphans making it to the highest Government offices. Not in novels, but in real life. What made these people achieve what they set out to do?
Was it just Opportunity, right decisions at the right time, or mere luck?

Not withstanding all the external influences and advantages they might've encountered, there is one very important attribute one has to consider. They thought. They kept thinking they could do it.

They kept telling themselves they HAVE to do it, they WANT to do it. They wanted it, they craved for it, they thought about it every second in each day, they made it their obsession to achieve their dreams.

This is what made them successful, to an extent.

Think of You and your aspirations in this situation.

You have lots of ideas, lots of thoughts, lots of concepts, lots of new brainwaves every day. But, do you actually see them through? Do you work on them, and do you translate them into reality?

Why aren't you doing it?

There can be a lot of factors.

a)You might be occupied with something else.

b)You might have other responsibilities. (Family, Girlfriend, Work etc.)

c)You might be lazy. (Sounds funny, but isn't it true?)

Okay, there are hurdles towards you achieving your goal. But, imagine if No one had any hurdle in their lives, NO PROBLEMO with nothing, then, will not the world be a peaceful happy place where everyone achieved what they wanted?

Yes, the world isn't a perfect place. So, its replete with obstacles. Success isn't a one day story.

Failure is just the first step, Success is the final step.

In order for you to succeed in any venture, be it a multi million dollar investment, or a simple negotiation for more play hours from your mother, you have to firmly believe in one thing: Tell Yourself you can do it, you will do it.

What are you doing here?

You're simply thinking positively.

By merely thinking positively, you automatically open yourself to positive ways to achieve your goal.

Picture this. You think that a venture of yours will fail. Now, even if it isn't supposed to fail, it will fail, because you KEPT THINKING it would. You unknowingly do things that will make you fail.

Having seen what a negative attitude does to you, should you not henceforth think positive and stay positive, to actually materialise your desire and ambition into reality?

It is possible. Every one, notwithstanding their social status, economic limitations, age, gender, can become anyone, amass any amount of wealth, be famous.

What counts is: THEIR DESIRE TO ACHIEVE WHAT THEY DESIRE. Their thinking that they will do it.

Start Thinking, Start transforming your dreams into reality. The world might be a hard place, but nothing is impossible, yet.

Think Differently

How much of a real questioner of beliefs are you? Are you the one in a million person, who dared to think differently, and managed to make a difference? OrAre you just another raindrop from the sky, finding its place among so many other raindrops in the rain?

A Nobody or Somebody?

Who Are you?

You might want to answer this question in so many different ways. You will begin to reason that you were, still are, a different and unique person than everyone else. Or you will simply own up and accept that you're like anyone else, didn't dare to think differently, and just went along with the ebb and flow of life and came to where you are today.

Ever wondered if something in your life had happened in a different way, and your life took a massive turn? Wonder what would've happened if you had dared to come up with something controversial to the normal unfurling of events in your life. Maybe there would've been a sea of difference. Maybe there might not.

But the bottom line is, after you've spent all your life's energy, you might find yourself sitting at some reclining arm chair and wondering, "What was my life all about?"

Now, if you were a successful businessman or an entrepreneur, you might have the satisfaction of answering that question all by yourself, "Yes, I was a hard working innovator!"

If you were just an employer for someone else, the someone being a reputed organization or any individual for that sake, you might find yourself having a not so satisfactory answer for the question you asked yourself.

What's the deciding factor, that demarcates a 'normal' life, and an 'extra ordinary' one?

Its the willingness to question things.


Throughout our lives, we've been trained to accept things for what they are. Always trained to do stuff how its meant to be done. Right through schooling, right down to working at some company. We never are allowed the chance to THINK, in the sense, to actively question WHY something happens and why it should happen.

Rarely one in a bunch of ten people questions why life has become so mechanical in contemporary times. Why? Because society has grown so vast that the room for a single human being to stand out as somebody apart from the normal mold, is getting smaller and smaller!

Successful people got where they are today not simply by hard work or luck. They did Hard AND smart work. Work hard, work differently. By differently, I mean a whole lot of things.

The basic foundation for all this uniqueness comes with the ability to ask questions.

If Newton had sat there, took the apple and just ate it, we never would have known about what made the apple fall, any day.

What did he do, that set him apart? He Questioned WHY.

Remember, nobody is more intelligent than anybody else. Intelligence, as far as humans are considered is mere APPLICATION of whatever you KNOW.

Intelligent people, simply apply what they know and tend to find a solution for

problems much faster than so called un-intelligent people.

Intelligence is merely a gauging factor for one's level of understanding of how human society operates at the scientific and theoretical level.

Take for example, something happens in your everyday life, that is totally abnormal from your daily routine. Do you stop to question WHY it traversed, instead of just simply getting on with it?

By merely asking the question WHY, you accomplish a whole lot of things.

It begins with you searching for an answer to your question. While searching for that answer, be it an emotional answer, a practical answer, whatever it might be, you encounter a whole lot of new situations to grapple with.

Now each and every unique experience in your life is a chance for you to LEARN something NEW.

If you keep learning new things each day for all of the remaining years in your life from this moment, will you not gain something, Something that might of be any use to you sometime in your life? Isn't it better than just being yet another victim of life, going along with the flow and drowning when your share gets filled?

So, Question. Seek the answer to whatever question that arises to your mind. Let your thoughts go on a free trail. Think about the things that happened in your life, question why they happened, and from the answers, derive the experience to equip yourselves to face your future with a better version of You. Question the stuff around you, you'll begin to notice so much difference from the banalities of every day life, and why you've been wasting the chance you've been offered all along to make a difference in this world, however be the magnitude of it.

Seven Magic Words for Success

If I told you there were just Seven words which stood between success and you, would you believe it? Probably not. You'll just dispel the concept as yet another myth. But, Truth is, these six magic words do make an impact on everyday lives to a resounding extent.Most of us begin a day, not by thinking what we are going to do in the day that is to come, but by spending it on thinking about what happened the previous day.

Well, It IS good remembering the past, but living in the past isn't good at all, not even a tiny bit. What it stands to bring you is more grief and disappointment, and that is not going to help you or any loved one any bit at all.

The past just serves as experience for you, experience from which you ought to have learnt that whatever went wrong, shouldn't be repeated at all.

There's a saying,

Whenever you fall down, Pick up something, and stand up and start running again.

Its a rat race that goes on in today's world. You have to keep running fast, just in order to stay at the same place where you are. And in order to improve yourself, you need to run EVEN faster.

This might remind you of the Evolutionary theory by Darwin. Believe me, it applies to human lives too. Except that, humans evolve emotionally and intellectually each day.

Its therefore important that you channel your thoughts towards Improving yourself by analyzing your past for lessons learnt from mistakes and unpleasant events, and make sure that such mishaps never repeat themselves again.

Having read through this post, you might have noticed that I still haven't thrown light on those Seven Magic Words for Success.

What you think is who you're

They're those magic words. Its only you who can change who you are, if you want to improvise yourself. You'll be amazed at the results that arise from thinking differently, even an empaneled Shrink won't give you the results that you give yourself via positive thinking.

Communicate Effectively

Communicate Effectively

Most of us, no matter how capable we are, what talents we have, what our individual intelligence is, will not achieve our real effective potential unless you and myself develop the ability to communicate effectively.

Lets look at this from a boiled down standpoint.

What does communicating effectively mean?

To Communicate effectively Does not, I repeat does not imply that one should have elaborate body language or facial expressions while talking, communicating with others.

Communicating effectively is just the way of expressing what we think and what we want others to know in a simple, concise and precise manner.

What are the mistakes most people do?

While talking, most of us are rather unfocused. We begin to talk on a particular topic, and during the course of talking about it, we tend to catch upon a phrase, turn to talking about it, and thus get distracted from what we set out to talk upon.

The primary measure to communicating effectively is to stay focused while talking on any particular topic with anyone.

In order to do that, you need to have a clear thoroughbred understanding of the topic you're going to be talking about. That implies, before trying to impress people with what we are going to say, we should impress the fact that we are proficient on the topic, upon ourselves.

Once You assure yourself that you withhold enough information on a particular topic, then the required confidence to communicate effectively on it comes naturally. Confidence is most often a feeling that arises when one is sure of what one is about to do.

Having imbibed the much needed confidence via garnering enough information on the topic you're going to talk with anyone, you eliminate most of the obstacles that stand in the way of effective communication.

These tidbits of information that are required for effective communication is also echoed by Wikihow

"No matter what your age, background or experience, communicating effectively is something that every person can achieve. It requires self-confidence, good articulation and knowledge of how communication can be made more effective."

No matter which person you're talking to, be it an average joe or the President of the US of A, if you follow a set of etiquette that goes behind effective communication, then you can always be assured that you accomplished in getting across all of your thoughts across the board effectively.



Effective Communication is a skill that can be learned by anybody, regardless of age, educational qualification, financial limits, and effective communication might make the difference between success and failure.



Consider this. You might be a computing wizard, or a cooking expert, or an extremely humorous person. But Unless you go ahead and talk with someone, and talk in an understandable and impressionable manner, they aren't going to know that you have such talents!



Having talents is good, but making others know that you have them is even better. That can only be achieved if you are able to get across all your thoughts and ideas across in a good understandable manner. This is where effective communication steps in.

Communicating Effectively is an art.

Renowned Communication (Human communication, mind it! Not Circuitry!) expert Dale Carnegie in his book How to Win friends and Influence People says this when it comes to effective communication.

Dramatize your ideas.


What does this mean?



Your ideas need to be given a pedestal. Research upon your ideas. Look up reference material pertaining to what your idea is all about. Read, read, read. Remember, the more the information, you only stand to gain more, nobody loses! Information is knowledge, Information is wealth, Information is what that contributes towards the evolution of a successful individual.


Talent development site Chllibreeze> advocates the use of Simplicity while communicating for the greater good.

Instead of flamboyant, belligerent words, if the words and phrases used during communication are Simple, Precise, Cut to the chase, and have brevity yet resound meaning to them, they very well serve the purpose in helping you communicate effectively.

Speak to impress, Not to Express


What's the point if a 100 million dollar movie was made with a A list star cast but had sloppy dialogue?

Just get that picture in mind and most of you will know what's the real deal when it comes to effective communication.

Here's what Talk show host Queen Oprah Winfrey's website has got to offer when it comes to effective communication:

"We tend to look at the world from a negative, pessimistic perspective, rather than the positive one. Stress and lack of sleep cause people to lack patience, gives them a rush to criticize, be easily irritable and condescend others."

Do you see how simple, everyday stuff like sleep, psychological factors like stress contribute towards how you communicate with others?

When you're tired, stressed out, or not in the right frame of mind, and you're talking with a person, how will the conversation be? It will be either drawn out, straightaway boring, or might be rather quick with you ending on the bad books of the other person.

This stresses the need for you to have a clear frame of mind while you're communicating important stuff with others.

Solhaam.org has this to say when it comes to Improving Communication:

1. Clarify your own ideas before attempting to communicate them.
2. Be clear about the purpose of the communication. For example, its purpose could be to inform others, to obtain information or to initiate action.
3. See if the other person can repeat what you have said, in his or her own words.

This implies the importance you need to lay on Empathetic Thinking.

While communicating, only 20% of the entire job is done by you. Disagree? Read on.

There is the most important part of your communicative efforts, the listener. You have to get your thoughts across, that the listener is able to grasp them and understand them and he should also be able to recollect on it and give a few words when asked about it!

Ever read the Einstein and his Driver Story? (See here : Anecdotage) When Albert Einstein had difficulty explaining a particular concept to a group of scientists, it was his driver that came forward and clearly in layman's language explained the concept to the astonishment of the scientists. What a great genius couldn't achieve by means of his intellect, a simple average individual accomplished by his effective communication.

30% of the job while you're communicating is done by the listener, he's a receptor for the information that is pouring from you, the remaining 50% is lying with your choice of words and the body language you use while communicating.

Body language while communicating is a vast science unto itself. You needn't be like a Stand Up Comedian flapping your arms around, you just have to make the much needed Eye Contact with your audience.

Collegewebeditor has this to offer when it comes to effective communication.

-> Find your voice and keep it real

-> Use humor

Now, the use of humor while communicating is a significant aspect. This isn't a totally necessary entity of communicating effectively, but when you'er employing it, make sure the humor isn't crass, just keep it on a friendly casual level.

There are lots and lots of other factors which go into effective communication.

Take the internet for example. Professional Blogger, Internet Blogging Hero Darren Rowse of problogger.net uses simple, down to Earth language when it comes to composing his blog posts. Same goes for all the other successful bloggers out there. They use simple, right words to get across their points to an audience spread over millions of people.

Brevity, Simplicity and Conciseness is the key.



The facts discussed here only cover a limited range of topics. There are tons of other factors which make or break a person in communicating effectively.

Need a Good Vocabulary? Here's What People Say

Following my previous blog entry on the need for a good vocabulary, Do you need a Good Vocabulary? I proceeded to begin a discussion on the popular Blogger's hangout Blogcatalog The discussion elicited a lot of responses, and it was Very informative, So I took it to task that all the opinions offered there should be clubbed together to present a consensus on the question. Here's what people have to say about the need for a good vocabulary:

Meds, who blogs at Gears of Rock says:

As long as you can write clearly, then I feel there is no need for an extensive elitist Shakespearean vocabulary.

He also says by using excessively difficult words, one shouldn't end up sounding incoherent.

You shouldn't be a jerk about knowing special words. It only impresses the weak so stop taking advantage of them.

Jenn thorson, who blogs at Thriftshopromantic says a good vocabulary is Absolutely needed, and it helps in impressing the readers and makes them come back for more.

As bloggers, having a good vocabulary is one terrific way of making our posts compelling-- of giving each sentence variety, flow and saying just the thing that we want to say.

It allows our work to have a flow that SOUNDS right, that crackles with interest (and otomotapoeia!) and makes people want to come back.

Zentastic, the advocate of Geek Confidence went forward to write an in depth comment on the real need for vocabulary and its advantages as well as shortcomings.

I think of vocabulary as a toolset - the right word for the right time. Obviously, the more tools you have, the better, but using the wrong tool in a situation just makes things worse.

I value people who can get the point succinctly. If I were working in a fast-paced environment, the last thing I'd want is to have to read an essay any time someone sends me a memo.

People who have a limited command of vocabulary often resort to throwing around as many big words as they can in order to impress. The problem is, people who actually know how to use vocabulary elegantly can see right through that.

Me-me King from MadMadMargo Unequivocally supports the need for a Good Vocabulary.


Shiley Gnu, from Proof Positivity has lots of personal experiences with her husband when it comes to excessive use of difficult words. She says sometimes she ends up intimidating her husband and makes him think She's actually swearing at him whereas shes really cuddling him with soft yet rarely used words.

My husband thinks I'm cursing at him half of the time because of my vocabulary.

I keep doing the free rice thing that does the vocabulary (I'm addicted). My husband doesn't want me messing with it. I say "It's for a good cause." He huffs off and says "It figures!" He won't admit it he's just as bad I fall asleep reading text books and he loves them. I must love slaughtering language.

Touche?!

Arnous and Steve both concur that :

Good Vocab is when you can use words to say less and mean more.

Arnous blogs at The Arnous Blog and Steve is from Zobop Republic

Karin, a ski expert from Sweden who blogs as the Silly Swedish Skier is of the view that a Good Vocabulary is needed, but only in a moderate amount, more like a casual necessity.



Hatingtherain from the Rain Hate blog also accepts the view that vocabulary is only a tool of necessity.


Jeremy Long from Good Internet Marketing dismisses the need for a good vocabulary. He says the ability to express thoughts clearly will do.

not necessary...
Just be able to express your thoughts, feelings, etc , clearly.

Maddie from Irrelevant Twaddle says a good vocabulary contributes to the overall personality of an individual.

I think having a good vocabulary is vital as it enriches your understanding of information in general and creates a good impression to those that see your good use of vocabulary, beneifical in emplyoment, education, et al.

Sofia from Filosofia, a philosophical blog, says that a good vocabulary is an Indicator of the overall monetary success of a person.

The Conviction is that people with larger vocabularies tended in general to have larger incomes.

Bottomline

Various people of different ages, different walks of life all concur that a good vocabulary is indeed a valuable tool. But, they also imply the fact that it is not a mandatory necessity. The lack of a good vocabulary doesn't limit an individual, it is just an enhancing attribute in any language.

A Good Vocabulary is in the end, a valuable tool, that should be used wisely as to the benefit of effective, simple communication.