8 Reflections to Understand Success

Success is a completely personal state of understanding and interpretation. There are no defined paths or simple recipes to classify it. A personal reflection on its nature is the greatest contribution that one can make and understanding the elements that make it achievable, is the most practical way to incorporate it into one’s personal history.

1. Understand that Life is not easy.

Life summons fighters or victims, there is no other category. Whoever underestimates his rigors ends up being a victim, whoever overestimates his capacity concludes the same. Life only respects those who fight at all times, with the greatest effort and commitment, like those who do not have bridges behind them.

The permanent fight for “living well” or “not living badly” is one of the few factors common to that portion of the human race that has not been included among the victims. This contentious action grants the first and only common profession: precisely that of “fighter in life”, all other skills and knowledge comply with it.

That ability to always fight, with skill and without fainting, differentiates some men from others, even among the group of those who fight. Some people embody the unavoidable need to always fight and become Warriors: professional fighters. Others just fight. For Warriors, Life not only brings more victories but also greater joy and rest.

The Fight for life does not end in the accumulation of goods, in the conquest of love, in victory over illness, or in the false feeling that dreams are ever achieved, the Fight only ends with the life of the Warrior, and it is in full awareness of this that the Warrior reaches joy and rest.

In the conception and formation of the Warrior, it is a fundamental mistake to affirm that Life is easy, also to assure that it is a territory of conquest, or to try to qualify success in the permissive language of poetry.

Life is none of this. Life is just a cry that summons the Warrior.

2. Understand that Life is made up of “little things”.

The concept of the Great, the illusion of the Majestic, or Imposing lack their essence, they are rather the product of the association of many small parts. The Big, in itself, does not exist, only the small exists. Minuscule things give life to the Great, however the latter does not give life to anything small.

The “road of construction” of all things goes from the small to the big. It never has a reverse meaning. Anything that you want to build must start with detail, with a small thing, and as long as others are added to it, the great body takes shape.

The life of people, the life of organizations, works, success (as well as failure), happiness, and bitterness, travel along this path. Everything moves from the small to the big, from the part to the whole.

At the end of life, when the human being sincerely feels incapable of imagining and desiring a remote future, he clearly understands that his entire existence is explained and justified only by “moments.” There he perceives that dramatic reality of having lived and enjoyed little. There he realizes that the race in pursuit of the great has consumed the “small time”, the valuable detail, like a voracious fire.

3. Understand that Success is made up of “small achievements”.

Each one defines the nature and measure of what Success is in their life, but in all cases, it is the product of an inductive process, one that starts from the small and eventually reaches the majesty.

And it is that success is written with a small “s”. If there is a great victory, the final triumph, or the Grand Success, this is nothing more than a delicate sum of successes with a small “s”: small achievements, concrete victories.

Success is a small detail. But let’s not forget that important things are made of Details! How the universe is made of atoms.

Once you have achieved a small success, you need to hold on tight to victory and then press on for another. When this process does not stop, the human being progressively reaches higher peaks.

There is no greater energy for the soul than the feeling of triumph and the taste of victory. Nothing is more stimulating. When the human being knows victory, he does not stop in his eagerness to replicate it.

Similarly, when victory is elusive because great is the struggle to achieve it, heavy is the burden on the soul.

It takes a lot of thinking and understanding the deep logic of the following: Is there any goal, however ambitious it may be, that is not made up of many elements? By working on these elements, is not the whole also reached? Isn’t the bigger the whole the more convenient to attack the components?

Well then, why deny the possibility of attacking the problems in their small but vital components? One by one, firmly. Consolidating one success after another.

4. Understand that the human being is called to be Great.

Many things are contemplated in Greatness, but the most important is the realization of the potential with which each person is born.

Dreams and imagination are not idle processes that distance the understanding of “reality”, they are in any case elements that allow us to build it progressively.

Dreaming is a fundamental requirement of Greatness. Everything is possible in dreams, and that possibility is what activates the dynamics that lead to achievements.

Limiting yourself is never the same as setting limits. In one case it is repressed and in the other it is limited. While the latter can be considered rational and practical, the former simply emasculate potentialities. For the human being who travels the path of Greatness, the limits constitute milestones that must be reached and then overcome. Whoever limits himself establishes narrow borders that he consciously intends not to violate.

Greatness is harvested when Faith and work in what is sought have been sown when this seed has been watered with self-love, love for the task, and the objective when the harvest is accompanied by humility and gratitude.

5. Understand that the human being is conceived to Transcend in Life.

The sense of Value of Life and the possibility of transcending beyond the narrow limits that physical existence poses depends on the ability to tie life to an Objective.

Albert Einstein said: “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to an objective, not to people or things . “

The antithesis of Transcendence is Mediocrity and it is widespread among those who do not tie their lives to an objective, because probably the best definition of mediocrity is not related to what one IS, but to what one does not want to BE. The universe of mediocrity is made up of an endless number of “conformist” individuals who begin and end each day of life always the same, without sorrows or joys, without victories or defeats, always in the tedious comfort of gray.

Whoever transcends goes beyond himself, the people that surround him, and the things he has or can accumulate, who transcends meets objectives anchored in the depth of time, thus manifesting his faith in the future, which is an ode to life.

6. Understand that only those who believe in the possibility make it possible.

A believer is a person who links all his energy to a determining idea or cause for his life.

Few individuals reach the level of consistency, will, and sacrifice to call themselves a “genuine” Believer, the vast majority are unbelievers or “part-time” believers: firm in their convictions as long as circumstances favor them.

It’s not just about believing, it’s about living based on what you believe. And living based on what is believed is not a simple thing, it requires character. The latter drastically reduces the number of “believers”.

Everything that the Believer professes is manifested in Positive, there is no margin for the opposite. The genuine Believer (because there are more false believers than can be supposed), think positive, act positive, and endure adversity, failure, and loss Positively. This is another factor that qualifies him because he is not easy to practice. If the Believer does not develop positively, he disempowers his own belief, since it is necessary to BELIEVE that things happen for the best because one acts well himself.

7. Understand that Gratitude is the only qualification that Life deserves.

For the Believer, gratitude is a weapon, not just an attitude, it constitutes the fuel that brings him closer to the goal, the energy that invigorates him in the process, and the soul that supports the sacrifice and effort. Gratitude is a wonderful remedy against adversity.

The Believer says a thousand times Thank you for every time you ask why is this happening to me? The Believer says Thank you when something went wrong because from it he must extract some teaching, some corrective. The Believer shouts Thanks in the face of failure and thus annuls it because in this way he deprives him of power. The Believer understands that he only wins who knows how to lose and for this, he gives thanks in both cases. The Believer knows that Victory is only reserved for those who knew defeat and for this reason, he gives Thanks in both cases. The Believer announces his gratitude to the four winds because he knows that by being able to do so he is alive… and if there is life there is an opportunity to fight again for what is believed.

The UNDERSTANDING of Life is summed up in beginning and concluding each day with a THANK YOU, the rest is an elementary ignorance of existence.

8. Understand what choice of partner is a fundamental decision to walk successfully in Life.

Each one defines in a personal and intimate way what Success means in their life, but no one can assume that Success is alien to the nature of the couple’s relationship.

The decision that human beings make regarding the partner with whom they will eventually share extensive periods of their existence, their work, and with whom they will form a family, is the most important decision of their life.

The first requirement for the formation of a couple that shares Love achieves success and has a healthy and productive relationship (which does not mean that it is free of problems), is that it be made up of people with solid Self-Love. Between two lacking people, a single one is not reached, and when there is a lacking part in the relationship, it will end up leading the whole to deficiency. The lack is not of a material or intellectual nature, it is the simple and dramatic failure of not loving oneself enough. Every other lack is overcome and modeled by Self-Love, and for a simple reason: because it wants to and because it is loved.

The second requirement is that these two people, who love themselves first, also share a basic vision of success in life. Otherwise, the yoke of the relationship becomes unequal for one of them, and finally, as a consequence, it becomes unfavorable for both.

Sharing a vision of success in life strictly means that! It does not mean that the vision of one prevails over the other, nor does it mean that each one is heading to conquer their own. It is a shared vision that guarantees a competitive advantage and the possibility of overcoming the obstacles that are placed in front. A shared vision is not owned by anyone in particular, it is a patrimony of both, regardless of the role that each one plays in the process.

It is not the routine, it is not the “good habits” or the “appropriate customs” that help lead a relationship along the right paths, it is a vision of life that is shared from deep intimacy. It is “that port” to which the ship is heading, “that route” that must be traveled. This is what unites, this is what creates synergy, and this is what ultimately provides meaning and success.