Obstacles are opportunities
I.M. Soni

Determination, hard work and initiative have more to do with success than circumstances and the initial advantages of birth and family background. These sometimes hinder rather than help.

Disadvantages can be a powerful source of effort. Sir Patrick Hastings, a famous British legal luminary, has said that poverty was the greatest advantage his father had bequeathed upon him.

It forced him to work. It acted as a challenge. It brought to light hidden talents. Says he, “Had I been cursed with a private income, I might have degenerated into a playboy.”

Self-education and self-development are of more importance than anything anyone can give to anyone. This is best summed up in terse from: no law of success works unless you do.

There are numerous examples of people who have risen to eminence, and amassed wealth in spite of a meager education. As there are of outstanding achievements by people past their prime. Jawaharlal Nehru died at the age of 74. Atal Behari Vajpayee become the prime minister of the country at this age.

Two British prime ministers provide other inspirational examples. Lloyd George and Winston Churchill were 53 and 56, respectively when they took over office that too at a time when Britain was passing through a crises.

There are examples of people who started life from a scratch and have built mini-empires. MRB, who owns a chain of gold, diamond and gem jewellery shops in Delhi, once sold milk and later vegetables on pavements. Dhirubhai Ambani, who left a legacy of Rs 60,000 crore, started life as a poor petrol pump attendant. The owner of East India Hotels, MS Oberoi, was a clerk in Cecil Hotel, Shimla, which he later bought.

Einstein was dubbed a dullard at school. So was Winston Churchill.

People who achieve outstanding success in their chosen field, have one vital characteristic in common. This is: single-mindedness.

They have the will power to persist in following a single, well-defined goal, ignoring alluring distractions, moving relentlessly in one direction.

To be successful, they willingly pay the price success demands, the sacrifice of other allurements and attractions.

Thus, you find the founders of big business enterprises working for 16 hours and more, sacrificing off days, ignoring social obligations. All this to concentrate their attention, devotion and energy on the chosen goal of their life.

Most of us think that they do it to make money. This is a mistaken notion. They do it to achieve their goal. Money may come as a bonus.

To be successful, you must cut yourself from the world and devote yourself wholly to that aim for as long as it takes to achieve it.

Books which have changed the world’s course of action, for example, get written after years devoted to their preparation and completion. Darwin’s Origin of Species is a capital example.

To attain success in your chosen file, you must cut yourself off from the world. You must devote yourself fully to what you want. This is different from what you wish.

Sadly, few among the younger generation are willing to pay a price for their ambition. That is why they think to success in modest terms. They forget that success is a matter of attitude. If you lack it, you miss it.

Many have heard and read about the Indian cricket team ‘lacking the killer instinct’. It means only one thing — attitude. They lack the attitude for success.

Attitude is a cluster of opinions solidified into a pattern. It can be either positive or negative.

The concept is your success measured by your willingness to pursue it with the single-mindedness of a gimlet.

Some youngsters are easily distracted away from declared aims and objectives. They go about in circles, as it were. In other words, they give up their objectives, and adopt others. Then, they blame and give up those too. The circle is complete. They blame this or that factor. They blame everything, everyone, but their own self.

A young, reasonalbly taltented girl showed signs of developing into a good freelance writer. Then just as she was showing signs of progress, she lost track. Misguided, she started looking for sifarish in newspaper offices, and was dumped. She started fishing for alternatives, forgetting that ‘the dictionary is the only place where ‘success’ comes before ‘work’.