| The common denominator of success—the secret of success of every person who has
ever been successful—lies in the fact that "THEY FORMED THE HABIT OF DOING
THINGS THAT FAILURES DON'T LIKE TO DO."
It's just as true as it sounds and it's just as simple as it seems. You can hold it up to the
light, you can put it to the acid test, and you can kick it around until it's worn out, but
when you are all through with it, it will still be the common denominator of success,
whether we like it or not.
It will still explain why people have gone into a business or profession with every
apparent qualification for success and have been nothing but disappointing failures, while
others have achieved outstanding success in spite of many obvious handicaps. And since
it will also explain your future, it would seem to be a mighty good idea for you to use it
in determining just what sort of future you are going to have. In other words, let's take
this big, all-embracing secret and boil it down to fit you.
If the secret of success lies in forming the habit of doing things that failures don't like to
do, let's start the boiling-down process by determining what are the things that failures
don't like to do. The things that “failures” don't like to do are the things that you and I
and other human beings, including successful people, naturally don't like to do. In other
words, we've got to realize right from the start that success is something which is
achieved by the minority of people ... and is therefore “unnatural” and not to be achieved
by following our natural likes and dislikes nor by being guided by our natural preferences
and prejudices.
The things that failures don't like to do, in general, are too many and too obvious for us to
discuss them here, and so, since our success in every endeavour lies in our ability to
persuade others to do what we would like them to do, let's move on to a discussion of the
things we don't like to do. Here, too, the things we don't like to do are too many to permit
a specific discussion, but I think they can all be disposed of by saying that they all
emanate from one basic dislike common to all of us. We don't like to talk to people about
something they might not want to talk about. Any reluctance to approach someone, to
suggest a change in their activity, to persuade them to take a new approach is caused by
this one basic dislike.
Many people with whom I have discussed this common denominator of success have said
at this point, “But, I have a family to support and I have to have a living for my family
and myself. Isn't that enough of a purpose?”
No, it isn't. It isn't a sufficiently strong purpose to make you form the habit of doing the
things that you don't like to do for the very simple reason that it is easier to adjust
ourselves to the hardships of a poor living than it is to adjust ourselves to the hardships of
making a better one. If you doubt me, just think of all the things you are willing to go
without in order to avoid doing the things you don't like to do. All of which seems to
prove that the strength that holds you to your purpose is not your own strength but the
strength of the purpose itself.
Perhaps you have wondered what is behind this peculiar lack of welcome on the part of
those we're trying to persuade. Isn't it due to the fact that our prospects are human too?
And isn't it true that the average human being is highly resistant to change even when it's
for their own improvement, and is therefore prone to escape our efforts to persuade them
to do something they don't want to do by striking at the most important weakness we
possess: namely, our desire to be appreciated?
Perhaps you've been discouraged by a feeling that you were born subject to certain
dislikes peculiar to you, with which successful people are not afflicted. Perhaps you have
wondered why it is that those who accomplish most seem to like to do the things that you
don't like to do.
They don't! And I think this is the most important and encouraging statement I have ever
offered any person. But if they don't like to do these things, then why do they do them?
Massa Baroudi
http://www.massabaroudi.com |
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