You have the power!!!

Have you ever wonder why some people seem to be more successful than others? Is it because they are special? Do they have special gifts? What do they do to be successful? Do they have a secret? What do you think? And now, let me ask you: how do you feel about yourself? Are you happy? Have you made your dreams come true yet? Do you think you can? Have you tried?

Let’s discover together the possibilities we have.

I was reading the book of Mark Manson ” the subtle art of not giving a… ” which perhaps you have come across already and just like me, realized that perhaps sometimes, we put ourselves in difficult situations… unnecessarily. In my case, I have often considered myself a lonely fighter and accepted challenges or more accurately…  put myself in difficult situations to prove/ show others what I could do. I know it sounds strange but… I guess, deeply inside, I only wanted to show how good and worthy I was and get attention, recognition, acceptance. The motivations might have been a little off because in many cases, the challenge or situation was not really what I wanted. Have you heard of it? It is called self sabotage.  Even when i succeeded, i was not really happy and when I failed, it was because I was not even convinced, however I tried and of course, failed. On the other hand, I have often succeeded when I was sure of what i wanted and made the effort for myself, pursuing my dreams or an objective with no intention to please anybody but myself, because I wanted, needed it, etc. Perhaps, I did it because I put the three important ingredients together: a dream or goal (expressed as a plan), faith that I could do it and the will to pull it off (with work, sweat and whatever it took).  

When reading some of the chapters of Manson’s book and thinking about what is important for me, I also remembered concepts I read once in the book of Dale Carnegie “How to make friends and influence people”: we project in our life our thoughts, feelings, behaviors and what we obtain is in a huge degree, the result of that mix. Even the way to get along with people impacts a lot the results. What do you think: are happy people successful? are all successful people happy? I tend to believe the first, happy people are successful because I know that some of the most successful people ever, with great achievements in wealth, social recognition and status are not necessarily happy and therefore, not completely successful in the areas which may be the MOST important: happiness.

Have you asked yourself the question “why am i here?”, “what is it what i want to reach, to have, to be?”. What have you answered? I don’t know about you, but when I got serious trying to answer, I started asking myself other questions like: What is failure to me? What is what i am good at? what makes me happy? What is the meaning of success to me? How can I measure how successful I am? If i had only one day left, what would I do? with whom?  Wow, and then I stopped…. and decided to go little by little.

And now, let’s see some of my answers… hopefully you will get some ideas to answer your own questions.

1. What is failure to me? What is success to me?

In the books I aforementioned, the authors say something about fears. Many of us may have paradigms about ourselves which perhaps our parents, the education at school, cultural rules, friends and many other influence sources have set in our minds and provided a path of what they “expect” from us or even worse, they have made us think of a path that we wish for ourselves (on their behalf), because we believe that we want to get their recognition, status and prove that we can succeed under their rules. But, is that really what we want? My father was a doctor and of course, he wanted me to become a doctor because he said, it was a great profession, with it i could help people while making a decent amount of money and having a good life. Thanks god he did not force me become a doctor and at the end he let me choose my own way. I became an engineer and am happy with it. However, I have friends who accepted what was proposed and now  they “only” have a half-way happy life (in the best case)  and others feel like a failure and may make a lot of money but are not happy.

But, what is a failure? Is it always bad? And what if we had the chance to make a correction? A failure can be a confirmation of what we do not want. It can be a sign that we need to change something. It could even be a motivation and inspiration for something bigger.

Success? When I think about success, i guess I see it as a combination of things. I would like to succeed professionally, economically and socially in such a way that I am happy and can enjoy my life. What about you?

If I think again about failures I have to make a point here related to my job. I work as a quality manager in the automotive industry and one of the concepts that I have always liked about it is the opportunity to improve. In my work there are at least three possibilities to improve:

a) through correction. If something goes wrong, an unknown factor pops up and causes a problem, a mistake, etc. you have the possibility to learn from it, make a change and prevent recurrence. I read that most of the greatest scientists and many of the famous artists, failed numerous times before actually making any progress or valuable piece of work. In many cases, the final result was kind of unexpected but they all have/ had something in common: they failed, stood up and tried again. They may even say: If you have not ever failed, perhaps it is because you have never tried anything important and challenging. So, failure may be an important part of any development. Are you afraid to fail?

b) through prevention. In my professional experience, this improvement technique can often be seen as “risk management”. The basic message is that you need to think before acting, define the objective, make a plan and then imagine everything which may go wrong. About all those failure possibilities, you may want to assess potential root-cause and consequences so you can then think how they may be prevented and take action. How many times have you gone through this process with your personal life? with your personal goals? Are you following your plan to make your dreams come true or are you letting yourself be moved by the circumstances?

c) through improvement projects. I call this “pushing the limits” or like the heroes in anime say “push past your limits”. This is like moving to a higher level or reaching 120% from what you currently have (100%) or from where you currently are. In quality, this requires a deep analysis of the current situation, flows, processes, etc. and then try to find a way to eliminate or reduce waste, cost, time and maximize profit, benefits, results or performance. In sports we could call it “becoming stronger, faster and better”.

What is then the overall message here? We can make the change. Perhaps a failure is only a possibility to learn and to improve!!

2. Why would I fail? Can failure be avoided? Am I focusing on the right subject?

Since this is a sports blog I would like to tell you a short chinese story that my kung-fu teacher told me when i was little:

Once upon a time there was a great master of martial arts who was admired and respected. Many young men would look for him and do whatever needed to become one of his students but in vain because the master only wanted to have one disciple at a time who would become after the long-time training also a recognized and famous master of martial arts. So, after some years with no students, the old master went to some little towns searching for his new student. Since his last two students had become arrogant and violent, this time he wanted to have a student with a great heart even if he wouldn’t be as good as the former students. And he chose a shy boy who was considered in town as good hearted but a little silly used by many because he couldn’t say no.

So the boy started learning and never complained despite the hard training and he learnt not only kung fu but also meditation and to value nature and mankind. The master was for the first time convinced that this young man could surpass him and be his successor, the new grand master. And therefore, without asking him, when he thought the boy was ready, sent him to a tournament. Since the master was so famous, the student was only to fight at the final match. But when the moment arrived, the boy was so afraid and shocked, so full with all kind of emotions that did not want to enter to the arena. The master found him and trying to run away. The master asked the boy why he was so afraid and the boy answered:

– The contender must be incredible good since he has defeated all others. He will eat me alive.

– I want to win no matter what to become as famous as you and have a great life.

– but what if I lose and make you lose face? what if all pity me and laugh at me when I fail?

So the teacher said, you are right. You should not fight. You cannot defeat all three enemies. – Do I have three enemies? I see only one , said the boy. – If you see the opponent as an enemy; if you want to win at all cost and if you are afraid to lose, you will easily defeated, answered his teacher. – So? what can I do? asked the boy. – Don’t be afraid to lose, don’t try to win at all cost and think of your opponent only as a training-partner. Consider this fight as a moment, a challenge, an opportunity to train with a formidable partner and forget the rest. Focus on what you know and do your best, said the master. I will feel exactly as you should feel about yourself now: proud regardless of the result. Believe in yourself!

The boy thought a little, entered the fight and won.

So, according to the kung fu master, fear, wrong motivation and wrong perception of the situation can lead to a failure. What do you think?