why only a few are successful despite the presence of many books around the world that teaches how to
be successful walk into any bookstore today and you'll certainly find tens of books that teach
us how to be successful proudly displayed on the shelves these books claim to hold
secrets to the hidden and not so hidden secrets of the most successful people in the world today
some of these books are direct how-to's such as how to be successful how to become a millionaire
how to create wealth how to build a successful business etc others have less straightforward
titles that doesn't directly portray their contents these are popular books by famous authors
and you've probably heard about and read at least one of these books and although you would admit
that the contents are rich inspiring educative and eye-opening would you sincerely answer yes
if i asked if the books has significantly affected your life and made you successful
or at least put you on track for success no doubt there are plenty of people that books
that teach success truly transformed their life or their way of thinking however the ratio of
these plenty people when compared to the world population is significantly low probably as low
as one in thousand people who have read a book on success have actually gone on to achieve success
in america for instance there are less than 20 million millionaires and even much fewer
billionaires with less than a thousand americans boasting of a net worth of over 1 billion out the
over 300 million americans let's look at the broader range according to forbes there were
2095 billionaires in the world as of march 2020. how does it compare to the world population of
over 7 billion a tiny fraction do these mean that these books are ineffective at what they
claim they do or are there any underlying reasons why successful people are still very few compared
to unsuccessful people despite the thousands of books that teach success in today's market
a lot of people this question in mind some of us think that becoming successful requires destiny
fate or luck or that you have to have talented some are of the belief that the key to success
is in reading however most of the time events and happenings have shown that this is not true
there are three factors that answer the question why are only a few are successful
despite the presence of many books around the world that teaches how to be successful
factor one the determinants of success there is little or no truth in the popular belief that the
result of everything is directly proportional to effort there are many factors aside from
efforts which are outside our control and are equally just as important for achieving success
while it's highly admirable that a lot of successful people are capable
intelligent and smart and have other positive attributes nobody can teach us to be successful
or how to advantage of every single opportunity that presents itself half the time we cannot
even comprehend what lies ahead of us that's the way humans are built nobody can know everything
some successful people also do us the disservice of promoting their stories of how determined and
focused and devoted to what they did the truth is there are many others too who were even as
or even more determined focused and devoted but they were unable to achieve little or no success
how then do people get rich people get rich in any one of the following ways
some were born to rich parents or families some had the right idea at the right time
the chance to execute it and the right connections success is a complex phenomenon that's not tied
solely to how many books about success someone reads there are some factors that also determine
whether someone would be successful or not they are intelligence this is an internal factor
and can be controlled to an extent hard work and persistence this deals with the amount of effort
and continuity put into work this is an external factor that can be fully controlled privilege for
instance people who were born rich this is an external factor that can't be controlled
privilege means several things for instance it could be wealth influence access or connection
if two people are randomly born let's say one in the u.s and the other in djibouti chances
that the former person will succeed on average are far above the second considering that the
per capita gdp in the u.s is many folds that of djibouti and it's much more advanced in terms of
technology and infrastructure the person born in the us will certainly have access to good schools
a safer pre-adult life working health care system and exposure to many enabling things look this is
somewhat tied to privilege luck could come in the form of having the right idea at the right time
or having opportunities to showcase your talents it is an external factor that can't be controlled
of all the above factors only hard work and persistence are completely in someone's control
people are born with varying levels of intelligence and even people that are
highly gifted are usually gifted in one or two particular fields to further emphasize
privilege and hard work let's look at the early lives of one of the richest men in the world
bill gates was exposed to several great opportunities from a tender age at the age
of 13 in 1969 his private school in seattle had a computer room with a teletype machine attached
to a mainframe downtown peoples who played on the machine could carry out real-time programming for
comparison as at that same 1969 a whopping 99 of the universities didn't have a teletype machine
now that's a privilege fast forward to when he was around 15 years paul
allen his classmate learned that there was a mainframe at the university of washington
that was never in use between 2 am and 6 am daily as a result they woke at 1 30 every morning
walk a mile and programmed for hours as at the time bill gates was 20 he had garnered
the maximum amount experience as someone who spent his entire lives being programmers
it was an incredible head start given to him first by privilege and then hard work some
people make of for the lack of one of the factors by leveraging on others however success can never
be achieved based on just these four factors in other words you are unlikely to succeed if
you are intelligent and privileged but you can't put in the required hard work and persistence
you are extremely hard working but not intelligent enough you are fairly intelligent work around the
clock and have access to all or any resources but you're not at the right place at the right
time achieving success is a result of combining intelligence privilege hard work and perseverance
and luck even when people have all of those attributes they could still try to fail
sometimes because they made mistakes and sometimes for reasons that are out of their control
factor two definition of success and how it is measured first of all everyone has different
definitions of success success to you might not necessarily be success to another person people
decide their goals and hence the achievement of whatever their goal is success to them owning
a g-wagon may define success to you but that doesn't mean an individual who owns a toyota
camry isn't successful maybe his goal was to buy a toyota camry which he achieved when he bought it
hence we can say he is successful for someone being a millionaire may be considered a success
however another person might consider himself successful if he has a healthy life another
person may see himself as successful if by living his passion which could be acting singing etc
what i'm trying to say in essence is that success is subjective to a person's perspective
and aspirations so for einstein success was getting famous for his postulations which didn't
necessarily afford him material wealth while for mark zuckerberg success afforded him millions
alongside his facebook innovation for beyonce success is becoming a famous singer and multiple
grammy winner for jack heumann success is becoming of the biggest hollywood actors of all times
success to this might not be amassing the bill gates elon musk or jeff bezos kind of wealth
success has no universal measurement however regretfully many measure other
people's success in wealth and fame the primary thing people notice about successful people is
their big mansion their luxury car their fat checking account etc yes i did the same when i was
giving statistics of successful people earlier in the article however the word success implies that
there is a goal that you simply wish to realize whether it's wealth fame making a difference etc
everybody sets different goals in their lives hence depending on what your specific idea of
being successful is the sole person that can accurately judge whether or not you're successful
is you the following are the ways in which success is measured or grouped material perspective in
this instance successful life is measured by the accumulation of possessions and material wealth
ability to afford several luxuries such as exotic foods wine shopping cars yachts aircraft etc
are all considered part of the material perspective of wealth ego perspective this success
perspective is measured by power popularity control fame and winning contributive perspective
this is the consideration of success as the difference we make in the world for instance who
we are able to contribute positively to the lives of our family friends community work or church
the standard of relationships the depth of character and the sincerity of our commitments is
the measurement for success here perspective this is based on our set goals and our achievements
of these goals for instance a staff who gets promoted to the post of manager could consider
his career successful a footballer who starred in and won a world cup also has a successful career
another example is a student who wins regional competition and a student who wins
an international competition are successful at their own ends based on their set goals
despite the above four measurements for others the measure might be something else entirely
now consider the remarkable so-called success stories the type of success that people take
note of which makes some people stand out and become celebrities regardless of how intelligent
or lucky or resourceful anybody is at any given time in human history there's only room for only
a few of such phenomenal success stories you only cannot have a thousand bill gates and elon musk
the nature of events and human interactions are the conditions that made this type of success
far less common than the type of success that say average people might exemplify factor three
practicing what you read as you must have read in many of these success books being successful
requires building characteristics such as courage patience perseverance self-worth belief etc most
of the authors would tell you that you must be someone who doesn't get disheartened by failure
and must not be afraid to take on your fears they also tell you that you must go that extra mile
although it might be difficult to cross some hurdles despite the many things we've read in
these books how many of us have judiciously put them into practice how many have tried to put
them into practice failed and gave up just gave up because they felt it wasn't working
reading these books does not guarantee success neither does practicing what it says however
practicing what it says would definitely give you a good head start in your race to be successful
no matter your definition of success final words if indeed success means becoming the next musk
bezos or zuckerberg or becoming as famous as michael jackson then we are setting ourselves up
for frustration it is not that many people don't achieve success through these books it's just
that our yardstick for measuring success differs from theirs and most of the time that yardstick
is fame and money we forget to ignore the fact that success is not fame and money for everyone
a fisherman in a remote village could be successful he doesn't have to be a bill gates
success may be getting married getting a job or graduating from college or high school so when we
start defining success from people's individual perspectives we'd realize there are plenty of
successful people out there the intent of this article is not to downgrade or demean these books
instead this article is intended to point out our attention to other side of the coin and to
reiterate that the hard work and perseverance some of these books teach are key to success
regardless of what your definition of success is this is because working hard can leave us
in one of two different places one is success and the other is failure even if we encounter failure
in our quest for success it helps to guide others on what not to do while striving for success