Your legacy is up to you
If you want success, you can stroll along life’s pathway, hoping that it will happen for you. If your luck is in, it might, but it probably won’t. Alternatively, you can track it down, running straight towards it, with determination and outstretched arms. Which approach is more likely to achieve success?
Which approach to success are you taking?
Questioning yourself
You have to decide what success looks like for you and then work tirelessly for it. The first part is defining that success, by typing it out. Most people don’t do this, instantly reducing their chances of ever stretching themselves and achieving the greatest of things.
Asking yourself fundamental questions is a pivotal exercise. What level of success would I be happy with? How do I measure that? Is that realistic? When do I need to achieve it by? What can I do to achieve it? What else can I do to achieve it? What have I missed out? There’s always something else, what is it? Who can I ask to help me?
What questions are you asking yourself?
Eddie Hall’s question
The 2017 World’s Strongest Man, Eddie Hall wasn’t born into a family of strongmen and strongwomen. He was inspired by the idea of becoming the World’s Strongest Man. He defined that as his success. He manifested it. He was going to be the World’s Strongest Man. Only a tiny number of men had ever achieved it. But Eddie would not settle for less. Nothing else meant success. Eddie fully and totally committed to achieving his goal, whatever it took.
His route to success wasn’t linear. His chances of achieving it accelerated after he asked himself a simple but fundamental question. The answer empowered him to achieve his success. By asking himself who he was doing it for, who he was ‘fighting for’ he found the motivation to work exceptionally hard.
Whenever Eddie was really suffering during his training, he reminded himself who he was fighting for. Eddie convinced himself that he wasn’t selfishly doing it for himself, but selflessly for his wife and children. That allowed him to give it everything, endure the pain and carry on day after day after day.
This approach created a virtuous circle. Eddie loves his family. They inspire him. They’ve also helped him to achieve all he’s achieved. Without them he wouldn’t have achieved what he has. Doing it for them, has also been achieving it with them.
Eddie fights for his family. Who are you fighting for?
David Bowie
The late David Bowie is a global music icon one of the greatest artists of all time. But he wasn’t born into a family of famous musicians. He wasn’t born with a silver guitar in his hands. He had to become a musical legend on his own merits. He had to create his own songs, perform them and hope that enough people liked them.
David Bowie was born David Jones, in 1947, only two years after the end of the Second World War. In the 1950’s his father brought home a vinyl single of Little Richard’s ‘Tutti Frutti’ and Bowie felt that he “had heard God’. Inspired by this song and other hits from America, David Bowie started to get creative.
What was his approach to achieving success? David Bowie described his approach to writing songs as “searching for notes and pieces of music that don’t exist”. His ambition was to create something entirely different to what had gone before. He didn’t just want to walk the road less travelled, he wanted to make a new road altogether.
What road are you travelling on?
Bowie had help
David Bowie was the driving force and creative genius, but it took others to help him deliver his ideas, album after album. Music Producers Tony Visconti and Brian Eno played vital roles, as did his Manager Tony Defries; and his longtime guitarist Mick Ronson, to name but a few. Many people wouldn’t give them sufficient credit, but David Bowie did. He knew he needed other people to help him.
I want you! I need you! Anyone out there? Anytime? Will you see that I’m scared and I’m lonely
‘Sweet Thing’ by David Bowie
Success is made by you and others
Success is almost always made with help from others. So, it’s partly self-made.
We all need other people to help us. Some people think their success is all down to them. It isn’t and that’s fine.
To deny others help you is delusional. Who built your house? Who made your clothes? Who ordered or collected your shopping? The list of helpers is endless. Seek them out. Embrace what they bring. Then credit them.
Does the help of others diminish your success?
Our success is always shared with the people who help us. But it’s still ours. Asking for help and accepting help don’t reduce our success, they make it possible.
Who’s helping you? Have you thanked them? Who else could help you?