Table of Contents
A. What is Success?
Success in a single cell is its ability to survive, thrive and reproduce. Even in a multicell organism, success remains the same.
So one is more successful in life if one:-
1. Lives longer and healthy.
2. Has a productive system intact and opportunities available.
3. Growing in life.
(Female after menopause in mammalian species realize their reproductive goals by helping other pregnant females deliver a healthy baby)
Thriving means making the environment outside better so that life is not challenged every day.
B. Success=1/Anxiety
Anxiety is a neuroticism of unmanaged stress. Stress at any level is the brain’s perception of fear and threat to survive, thrive, and reproduce.
So, the more your stress about the three key biological challenges, the higher stress you will be under, and the more anxious you will be.
Anxiety is also the fear of failure.
C. Stress=Force/Area
If have lost your job, you will be under too much stress. Job loss is the force here. But when you see many others have lost their job, and together you try to overcome the force, you will find yourself more confident.
So, the area here is total brains+bodies operating together to overcome a force. (The force has to be a common biological challenge to all the brain+bodies).
Just like physics, you reduce stress by increasing area, because often you don’t have control over the force.
D. How to be successful?
Simple
1. Increase area of force handling–> more brain and body affected by force,
2. Take decisions and execute.
3. Convert fear to threat and act on the threat.
E. Problem
When people have a strength and weaknesses, people often try to overcome their weaknesses.
When you focus on overcoming your weakness, your strength reduces, as the surface area is the same.
Say one is a good singer but gets hurt by people. So the singer decides to study psychology to strengthen the mind. By the time that happens, the singer loses singing skills.
F. The solution
“Strengthen Your Strengths and Find those who are strong in your weakness, where both of you are facing the same force(threat)”.
Each part of the above is the key.
So a singer has to find a composer, the composer has to find instrument players, all of them together have to find a producer, the producer has to find a market, and then all of them together become successful.
The story of Alexander the Conquerer and Nepolean Bonapart
There have been many warriors before and after Alexander from Macedonia who went on to become great conquerors. Alexander went on to win nearly the entire reachable world at his time. Alexander learned the art of warfare from his father Phillip II of Macedonia, who is considered one of the most brilliant minds in war strategy.
However, Olympias, Alxender’s mother realized that it is not enough to win a land, but you would have to rule the land also. A warrior wouldn’t necessarily be good in politics and strategies of governance. So Olympias arranged for Aristotle to tutor Alexander.
When Alexander set foot to win Persia, he did not end up ransacking the land. He would win an area and then would adopt the local culture. He also went to the tomb of the great Persian ruler Darius the Great. Aristotle had taught him the art of governance through Vessal states, whereby you could instill a local man who is loyal to you, and rule. This is the exact same way centuries back Persian ruler Darius the Great had ruled.
By reducing the pressure of war through governance strategy, Alexander could focus on a larger area and win a larger land.
On the other hand, many of his contemporaries kept fighting war after the other. Napoleon Bonapart, an 18th Century French commander would win almost every war for nearly ten years, but France could neither rule nor govern them because Bonapart couldn’t apply the pressure reduction strategy of governance to his war mastery.
G. Conclusion
1. Achievement is not a success(like getting a dream job)
2. Success always has many humans together.
3. A bigger success always needs a bigger existential threat and force.
Life is about interdependency and not independence. The day you mistake achievement as success and self-sufficiency as independence, you are going to see some drastic downfall and a downhill journey in life.
Archive, and make others around you also achieve, and together become successful.
H. Further Reading
I am sure, you want to read about success in more detail, as well as want to check what is your likelihood of becoming successful. Here is a self-assessment test, and a detailed blog on success respectively.
Check your probability of becoming successful
Read the detailed theory of success
