Four Pillars of Success

Growing as a poor kid, starting my career from the root level, struggling to master speaking, management and agile domains, I have learnt that there must be 4 things present in you — that is if you are eager to grow!

Pillar 01: First thing first, Your belief system!

Whether you will be happy with just an average life or, you want to grow, become a giant in your industry is guided by your belief system — Your view about the life, challenges and human potential is primarily the driving force for you. Get it right if you want to be great at what you do, if you want to be fulfilled.

If you want to be great, you have to be truly compassionate, be courageous and do the right thing —the light and the darkness wont exist at the same time — be clear on your attitude towards life, and your growth.

Pillar 02: You must have great desire to be successful

I don’t recommend you to be greedy, yet, you must have a great desire inside you to be great at what you are doing. Be it material success or spiritual success, your determination to grow is a key — You must have a bigger need than anything else that will occur around you. Your circumstances shall be secondary to your desire, your determination — everything else follow your “Great desire” to be successful.

Pillar 03: Find your niche — Being a generalist is a TRAP!

According to Warren Buffett, your growth happens within Circle of Competence.

• Imagine a small circle WITHIN a big circle.
• The bigger circle is what you THINK you know.
• The smaller circle (inside the bigger one) is what you REALLY know.
• This SMALL circle represents your area of expertise — this is your niche — it represents whatever you’re an expert, where you have your biggest potential, no-one can beat you there — this is your niche.

If you want to grow exponentially, stop being a generalist — As said before, being a generalist is a trap

Why did I say so?

When you are good at something that thousands of people are good at, you have to compete — Every time you compete against others, you loose!

“You have to figure out where you’ve got an edge. And you’ve got to play within your own circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; however, knowing its boundaries is vital — Charlie Munger

If you are keen to grow, win your game, make it a niche — you have got to know your circle of competence and focus more and more on the same, have bigger goals, work towards these big goals daily — day in day out — sooner, you will become a giant in the ‘niche’ that you have picked.

Pillar 04: Find the right circle

Your materiel success as a layman or spiritual success as a monk is fully dependent on one thing — that is “Kalyanamitta Sampatti” — True friendship.

In your life, you spend majority of your life at home, yet, that is with your parents and other family crew — It’s so crucial that you look at your family as your first “circle” — trust me, if that is not supportive of your growth, you have a tough journey ahead — Ensure, you take lead of the right attitude, right value system and ensure, you “do the right thing”.

Now, look around, ensure, you have picked up the right people in your circles — it’s inevitable that you are with the like-minded people, people that supports your truly — the moment you see that you are in the wrong circle, quit it —build relationship that matter — number doesn’t matter, quality of your circle is what matters.

If you cannot find a good companion to walk with, walk alone, like an elephant roaming the jungle. It is better to be alone than to be with those who will hinder your progress. — Buddha

All in all, if you are someone trying to grow, find your niche, I recommend these four must-adopt strategies for you — start right now!

• Ensure you have the right, supportive belief system to relay on, if it doesn;t help your growth, adjust it
• Second, you must have great desire to be successful — if you don’t you must do a deep dive into your life, reflect back and find out what you really want to be as a person
• Third, find your niche — being a generalist is a TRAP — It’s so hard to compete rather find your own expert area and invest your time and energy — be great at it.
• The last but not the least, find the right circle — I can’t emphasis enough how critical the right companionship or the association for your growth.

May the force be with you — May triple gem, Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha bless you!

Reference

• Hector Quitanilla ‘How can I be successful?” available at https://www.fastcompany.com/1844165/why-customer-pain-your-most-important-resource (Accessed on 07 July 2021)