Fake! Fake!! and serially Fake!!!. Quote me! anywhere, it is fake! Success without scars of failures.
Nothing validates the genuineness of ones success more than scars of failures as fringes around it. Look for scars of failures , disappointment etc if none of these is found in the narrative of ones success, it may quack like it, roars like it, even glints and glows like it, it is not success.
Success is brewed out of struggle, challenges, shame, embrassment and difficulties. A by product of many stumblings, many tipping over stones, falling, hitting of toes on rocks and the gushing of blood most times, for success to be pressed out.
It isn’t a walk on the park. Not clinging glasses of champagne. Like a raw gold under the heat of a furnace, a must before it could be called purest not coated, nor platted gold.
It isn’t a copper. Rather a gold. Nothing makes raw gold pure and refined gold but furnace. Nothing equally makes success outside failures, challenges, trials, pains etc.
If you have not experienced any of the above, your success story is still far flung. Either faked or stolen.
I challenge you, look for any successful person without failures. If you find, such a fellow certainly must be a person with a fake success.
If you desire to succeed, be ready to fail. If you desire to be a person of influence and authority, be ready to have a palm filled with scars of failures.
Success without scars of failures, disappointment, shame, hopelessness etc is like food without salt,oil and pepper. However expensive the food may seem, nothing better than bland taste remains its taste.
Think about Oprah she was fired from her first job as a television news anchor. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple in 1985 . Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star because the editor felt he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas. Colonel Sanders was rejected by over 1,000 restaurants before establishing KFC. Soichiro Honda was fired from his first job as a mechanic before founding the automotive giant, Honda.
What about Henry Ford? His first 2 automotive companies failed. Beyoncé was rejected by several record labels and faced financial difficulties early in her career.
Warren Buffett made several unsuccessful investments and lost significant amounts of money early in his career.
James Dyson’s innovative vacuum cleaner design was rejected by numerous manufacturers and investors.
Have you thought about Thomas Edison? He failed in 1,000 experiments before perfecting the light bulb.
Stephen King’s first novel “Carrie” was rejected by around 30 publishers. Apple came close to bankruptcy in the 1990s. Amazon barely survived bankruptcy 2001. Twitter struggled during its early days and nearly ran out of financing.
The highly and profoundly celebrated Einstein was turned down by many universities and even expelled from his first school.
Abraham Lincoln failed in many business ventures and political campaigns over his life. these are names that pop up when successful persons are logged in. Their present may be good and sparkling but their past was filled with ups and down. Pains and sorrow, failures and shames, disappointment and disgrace.
Look through their palms, the scars of failures that dot their palm would make success to a lilly heart uninteresting.
Ask those that succeeded in life how many failures they recorded, how many loses they incurred, how much money they lost before their oil pot was hit.
If one thinks success is given on a platter, a whiff whaff game etc, wake from a deep slumber,my sincere advise.
Tell a young man what it takes to be successful, he would rather prefer to remain poor. This idom defines what success is and the inevitable scars of pains, agonies, sufferings etc that come with it.
Success isn’t for the lily livered. It is not yahoo automated, nor yahoo plus. It is a swim across an ocean filled with sharks, dragons and Crocodiles. Swimming across and getting the success crown, one would have to contend with bites and attacks of those reptiles.
Fear him who shows up with a crown of success without the bites of a shark and the craw marks of Crocodile. Either such a person circumvented the ocean swim in the race or was never in the race but stole his crown from him who endured the ordeal of the ocean swim.
Until you show me your scars of failures, the craw marks of the Crocodile on you, your success story certainly may be fake.
The situation we find ourselves today, may be that scar that would eventually validate ones success story. Embrace it and turn them as they come into lemonade.
Jarlath Uche Opara can be reached via Dr.Jarlathuche@gmail.com
