True success happens when INTELLIGENCE and PERSISTENCE meet OPPORTUNITY. Let’s examine this thesis.

People believe that in order to succeed you need talent, you need money, you need to know influential people or you need to be lucky. Well, these things help, but they come to those who understand the formula and the process of how true success happens.

TALENT alone is not sufficient for true success and history is full of great examples. You have to put in the effort.

MONEY will buy you success, but true success must be earned. Remember, true success is about Who You Truly Are. Lying to yourself is not success.

It’s always good to know INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE, but if you don’t earn your way to success, that’s charity, not true success.

LUCK is always there in the waiting, but it won’t do much good unless you are truly ready for success.

IN SUMMARY: Talent, money, influential people and luck happen when INTELLIGENCE and PERSISTENCE meet OPPORTUNITY. Let’s break this down.

INTELLIGENCE

Everybody has intelligence. But what we’re really talking about is being educated. So, who is an educated person? An educated person is she or he who knows where or how to acquire knowledge and intelligently apply it. Nobody can know everything. But in today’s world almost everybody can know everything needed to succeed in her or his chosen path.

PERSISTENCE

Persistence will ensure you continue educating yourself until you are ready for success. Most people fail because they lack persistence. But how do you become persistent?

Persistence comes from desire and desire comes from understanding your WHY. Why do you need to do what you need to do? Everybody has their own reasons or WHY’s, and these reasons are almost always connected to PLEASURE. So, the question is: what pleasure motivates you?

For example, what motivates me, is understanding who I am and what makes my life meaningful. So, I do what I do because it adds value to my life i.e. it makes my life meaningful and this, in turn, gives me PLEASURE. Subconsciously, we’re all doing our best to avoid pain and pursue pleasure, but beware of this trap. Often we grow better through pain and sorrow, so take your decisions wisely. And after pain or sorrow, usually, comes even greater success. Anyway, let’s keep this short. It’s your duty and responsibility to find your WHY’s and pursue them.

OPPORTUNITY

I hear people complain “there’s no opportunity…” or “nothing ever comes my way…” or “everybody gets a break, except me…” and so forth.

Well, here’s the catch… Opportunity doesn’t come and then you get busy. First, you get busy and then the opportunity comes. Yes, some people are luckier than others. We in the West are most certainly more lucky than most people around the globe. But your challenge and destiny in life are not “other people” or contemplating “if scenarios…” Your challenge and destiny is YOU. So get busy with YOU and success will come. And inevitably you will discover that true success comes from sharing, collaborating, giving something back.