Pre-Ramble:
Jealousy… That is the keyword that comes to my
mind when I think of ‘Success’. How is jealousy and success related? Let me
elaborate. Every time I pick up a book for reading, there usually will be a
strong reason why that choice was made. Somebody from my friends’ circle would
have recommended that book for me or I would have read rave reviews about the
book somewhere or a simple case that the topic just fascinates me. Success is
one such topic that I really love to learn more about and hence when I saw this
book in a yard sale, it was natural that I picked this book. That is an easy
and logical explanation which would make sense for anybody.
Somehow, deep down I knew that there is
something more to my ‘Success’ fascination. I had to go deep inside myself to probe the
real reason for my fascination (Obsession?) with success. During this “deep
down inside” search, I acknowledged to myself that I was trying to come up with
my own definition of success. Why was this ‘My very own definition’ of success
required? Because I somehow had reluctantly accepted the fact that I could
never aspire or achieve the success of big houses, amazing bikes &
extravagant cars that my Facebook friends were having. Those things looked
really far-fetched and non-achievable given my circumstances at the time I had rejected
a job in the USA & moved to Chennai due to personal reasons. The jealousy
of seeing some of the new cars that my friends were proudly showing off in
their Facebook pages drove me crazy. And yet, at the same time, that jealousy
looked so stupid for I knew as well that a big house, the latest gadgets, the
wall-sized TVs won’t give me any happiness. In my heart of hearts, I
intuitively knew that those things don’t matter to me. An interesting dichotomy
within me came to my realization: the realization that I was jealous about not
having things that I was not interested in having at all! That got me thinking
about what my success parameters were in the first place.
Book Review:
Richard Shell is a professor at the famous
Wharton School & is the creator of the ‘Success Course’. He starts the book
with a short narration of his own personal story & how he ended up where he
is presently. This introduction gives a solid & yet grounded beginning to
what is to come in the book & I was excited by the direction in which the
book was headed! Shell divides the book into 2 distinct topics or questions:
the first question is the all essential “What is success?”. He provides us with
various perspectives or framework about what success means and asks us to make
our own definition from this framework. Once you have answered the 1st
question, the 2nd question he comes up with is “How will I achieve
it?”. As part of this book review, I will provide a broad introduction to the
subtopics within these 2 questions and hopefully that would enable you to pick up
this book for reading.
Question #1: What is success?
Step #1: Shell starts with a simple exercise
called the ‘Six Lives Exercise’ where he gives the reader a short paragraph
about the lives of 6 different people and wants us to rank those lives on who
we believe have achieved success. I felt this was an excellent exercise for it
gave me a chance to look at my ideal definition of success and as well the
practical manifestation of it in the way I was living/running my life. From
this exercise, it became clear to me that success always is a mix of
achievement & happiness, a concoction of outer-worldly achievement & inner
fulfillment. I learned that balancing these 2 aspects of
success (Where the balancing point lies is different for different people) is paramount. The sooner we realize this, the better we will be in terms of aligning our
goals & life so as to steer ourselves towards our final destination.
Step #2: According to Shell, when we ask people
to define success, the most common answer would be “To be happy”. He calls this
the ‘Easy answer’ and goes on to explain why this definition of success might
not be sufficient. He doesn’t discount the answer but he forced me to further
refine & define what ‘happiness’ meant to me. Along the way, he throws in
some wonderful thought starters and amazing quotes to further refine our
definition of happiness.
Step #3: The 2nd perspective that
the author provides for understanding success comes from a societal standpoint.
How does your society (Where you are born & brought up) shape your
definition of success? If your society values fame & fortune and considers
those as a measure of success, there is a high chance that you are following
that societal narrative. He asks us to stop and think whether the narratives
that we are acting out in our lives are really ours or are they coming from our
environment. What I found very interesting in this chapter (And the entire book
as well) is the number of real-life stories that are given to bolster the
narrative and add more weight to his analysis of success.
Step #4: “Life’s too short for the wrong job”
is the quote that begins this chapter that elaborates about finding “Meaningful
work”. Shell classifies the work we do into 3 distinct buckets namely job,
career & calling or meaningful work. A job is something that we do to
support us & our family, to get money on the table to allow us to pursue
whatever it is outside of our work. A career is something that one pursues in
order to achieve certain goals in their lives: be it a certain responsibility,
fame or fortune. A meaningful work is something where the work they do allowed
people to live their values on a day-to-day basis. It could be a social cause
that they believed in or a chance to live the principles they associate with
themselves. The author not only defines meaningful work but also provides a
great framework to move towards it. He explains it in terms of 3 intersecting
circles namely rewards, emotions and talent.
This is one insanely good framework from which
to look at the work one is doing and to realign our work to be at the
intersection of these 3 circles. Shell as well goes on to provide 7
‘foundations’ on which meaningful work could be found. He uses the acronym
PERFECT to describe these foundations.
P à Personal growth & development
E à Entrepreneurial independence
R à Religion or spiritual identity
F à Family
E à Expressing yourself through ideas,
invention, or the arts
C à Community – serving a cause,
helping people in need
T à Talent-based striving for
excellence
The key takeaways for me from Part-1 of this
book is the fact that there is no “one size fits all” definition of success. Even
though I knew this intuitively before, the examples and various theories that
are presented in the book made it very easy for me to understand that “My
definition” of success will be different from someone else’s definition. Also, I
became convinced that my definition of success should eventually be an
amalgamation of happiness, relationship, fame & fortune and meaningful
work. I also understood that this definition will be an evolving & growing
entity and not a static definition. As I mature, grow older & priorities in
life changes, there would be a need for me to revisit this definition and re-calibrate
my compass to keep moving in my chosen right direction.
Question #2: How will I achieve it?
If all that one needs to achieve success is to
understand what success means to them, then reading the first part of this book
would suffice. However, defining success for yourself is only the start of a
long journey. It is like understanding what are the items that you need for
your long trek. Getting those items, actually getting started on the trek &
eventually sustaining the trekking to give yourself a chance to complete it
requires another set of skills. Shell provides us with a clear set of skills or
capabilities that will be required to start & sustain this journey.
Step #5: Discover your capabilities: Each one
of us is endowed with a special set of capabilities and harnessing these
capabilities is important for maintaining the success journey. Even though it
is easy to say that one is not endowed with this skill or that particular
capability (Outside-In if I have to steal the words from the great Stephen
Covey), the better place to start would be from what is inside us (Inside-Out).
Shell calls out 4 diamonds that each one of us
should unearth from within us. They are:
- A
persons’ interests and passions
- Aptitudes
& skills
- Past
experiences
- Personality
strengths
These are the places from where we will be able
to identify our own capabilities and if our journey is based on these
strengths, it would be a much smoother ride.
Step #6: Motivation: If you have read any kind
of “Success books”, you would have noted that they would ask you to set
ambitious goals & then to pursue it with a single-minded focus. Though this
is a valid and very important step, what I have found missing in all of these
books is a way to motivate yourself to pursue these goals on a daily/regular
basis. I have always set myself audacious goals at the beginning of the year
(Or a month or a week) and yet the motivation to pursue these wanes slowly as
the days roll by. Shell talks about using a judicious mix of internal &
external motivation to sustain ourselves. He also provides some methods of
motivating oneself like:
- Making
yourself accountable
- Interacting
frequently with role models
- Creating
rituals that motivate you
- Bettering
your own records or a continuous self-improvement
- Proving
yourself to someone else (Like a rival)
- Harnessing
your survival instincts
For all of the above methods, Shell provides us
with some great examples and how to utilize these methods to motivate
ourselves. Once again, I found the examples refreshing and the methods to be
very practical.
Step #7: Self-Confidence: This chapter begins
with the quote “It is not always the people who start out the smartest who end
up the smartest” and I immediately could connect with this quote. If there is
one thing that I am really proud about myself, it is about my ability to work
hard to master any complex topic. I don’t consider myself the most brilliant
person around and this realization has made me understand the significance of
working hard to improve myself and compete with the best. In the book, Shell
talks about earning the ‘Rite of passage’ by doing, failing, picking oneself up
and then finally succeeding. If you have gone through any kind of failure in
your life & then used that failure as a learning opportunity and propelled
yourself forward, you would immediately understand the concept of ‘Rite of
passage’. Each of us would have gone through some similar experiences and the
idea is to go back to those hard times & use them to boost your
self-confidence for the present situation you are in. It is about believing
that if you have overcome failure before, it is possible to overcome failures
now as well.
Shell as well talks about 2 levels of
confidence. They are:
- Level
one confidence which is essentially a belief in your own self combined with an
absolute belief in your commitment to high personal character standards. In
simpler terms, it is the belief in your own goodness of character, ability to
take action to improve an existing situation by positive actions.
- Level
two confidence deals with specific skills and activities. It is essentially the
belief that you could get smarter and better at any skill if you decide to work
on it.
As usual, Shell talks not just about the levels
of confidence but as well on how to go about acquiring it. This is a recurring
theme in his entire book wherein he introduces a topic and then goes on to
provide practical examples & tips about how to acquire/improve on that
particular topic.
Step #8: Passion, Imagination, Intuition and
Reason: In this chapter, we are introduced to the 4 mental powers each one of
us are endowed with namely passion, imagination, intuition & reasoning. Shell
outlines a method for using all these 4 powers to move towards success.
Consult your passions – identify a worthy goal
Let your imagination & intuition generate
ideas
Commit to a specific, challenging plan
Break it down into small steps
Improvise & adjust – then close the deal
(The 5 lines above are taken verbatim from the
book)
Shell provides the example of Charles Lindbergh
(The first person to fly nonstop over the Atlantic) to illustrate how Lindbergh
used all the 4 mental powers to achieve his feat. Even as Shell dives deep into
the ‘success’ story of the Trans-Atlantic flight, he comes back to remind us of
the life that Lindbergh lived and asks the reader to consider whether such a
life could be considered as a ‘Successful’ life. This as well is one of the
highlights of the book as the author provides a balanced view of things &
always provides a holistic view.
Step #9: Influence others: Even though the book
is all about the pursuit of personal success, the last chapter makes it very
clear that personal success is never a one man show & always requires the
help of others. The author talks about 2 aspects that are required for
influencing others namely credibility and dialogue.
Credibility is what you earn by doing the right
things and this allows one to earn the trust of others. Only when we have the
trust of others will we be able to influence them to cooperate with you on your
pursuit.
The chapter also delves deep into what a
‘friend’ means and Aristotle’s categorization is given as an explanation for
understanding what a ‘friend’ means. Aristotle classifies friends into 3
categories namely:
- Friends
of pleasure
- Friends
of utility
- Friends of virtue
If credibility is one important aspect for
influencing others, the other aspect is the ability to engage in meaningful
give-and-take dialogues. As the wise saying goes ‘Listening is a primary act of
love’, engaging in meaningful dialogues encompasses listening as much as
sharing your thoughts. I was reminded of Stephen Covey’s “Consideration &
courage” when I read about the importance of listening. Unless we are
considerate enough to listen without judging and then have the courage to
express our viewpoints, the ability to influence others will not be in our
grasp.
Conclusion:
What are the key takeaways for me from this
book?
- There
is no universal definition for success. It is something that I need to define
for myself considering the various facets like happiness, relationships, fame,
fortune & meaningful work
- The
keyword seems to be ‘Balance’. A balance between inner & outer success
measures, a balance between internal & external motivators.
- Fame
is fleeting and even the most ‘popular’ personalities live in the minds of only a small percentage of people for a short span of time. The key question, I
understood, is whether my work would transcend time & make a difference in
this world?
Post-Ramble:
Circling back to where my obsession with
success started, have I overcome my feeling of being jealous? I would
definitely be lying if I answer that it is completely gone. There is still some
residual jealousy that springs out now & then but it is really less when
compared to a decade ago. The moment a thought of jealousy pops into my mind, I
quickly acknowledge it, realizing that the other persons’ life (And success
parameters) are different from mine and my journey in this world is unique and
by comparing myself with them am only bringing myself down.
(And oh, did I tell you that am no longer
active in Facebook? 😊 )
