(This article is one of twenty-five(25)
contained in Tayo Solagbade’s Ebook titled "25
Articles/True Stories On Self-Development, Entrepeneuring
& Web Marketing To Help You Succeed More Often")
Nigerians (Wrongly) Believe “Suffering”
Only Comes To Those Who Do “Wrong”
Too many people in our society wrongly
believe that difficulty should never come the way of a person
who strives honestly to achieve success - especially if s/he
proclaims faith in God. Yet the evidence all around us proves
irrevocably that it is often those who have passed through
difficulty successfully, that end up achieving the successes
they desire.
To drive home the point I’m trying
to make here, I will refer to the very illuminating insight
offered by a veteran entrepreneur - James R. Cook - in his
best selling book "The Startup
Entrepreneur". He said that based on elaborate
studies he had done of the lives of hundreds of entrepreneur,
he has come to the conclusion that there is a correlation
between the amount of suffering a person undergoes before
succeeding and the degree of success s/he eventually achieves.
Going further he explains that persons
who set big goals for themselves should look forward to enduring
long drawn periods of worry and painful adversity, adding
that as the amount of suffering endured increases, so does
the success ultimately recorded increase.
In my Ten Ways Self-Help manual, I
explained in the 3rd Way You Can
Use Self-Development To Create The Future You Want(i.e. "Become
An Ant”), the need for a person aspiring for
notable success to understand and appreciate the benefits
offered by visitations of adversity. In doing so, I offered
a personal example like the one reproduced in the box below:
“I
think I should give a personal example here. Not
too long ago, I placed an advertisement in The
Guardian newspaper for a seminar, only to have
a ZERO turnout of attendees on the scheduled date!
After discussing about it for a while with my
team, we were able to arrive at 4 major faults
with our plans/preparations that could have led
to the problem. But rather than leave it at that,
I decided to document the experience for use in
future seminars as an EXAMPLE of how things can
go wrong.
So, while still at the
venue, I got my video cameraman to do a 10 minute
recording of me, speaking about what had happened
and what we believed had led to it. We deliberately
added humour to the video clip by showing all
the EMPTY seats in the seminar hall, and finally
focusing on the wall clock, which showed it was
already 1.00pm(planned seminar start time was
11.00am!). I am now taking my time, to use all
the learnings from that “failure”
to plan and successfully run the next seminar.
It might be necessary to change my approach, but
I certainly have no intention of giving up!!"
- Excerpt from
the manual titled "Ten
Ways You Can Use Self-Development To Create The
Future You Want"
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What
Is The Purpose Of Suffering?
Any aspiring entrepreneur with a sound
understanding of the “purpose of adversity” at
the back of his/her mind, will be able to face squarely the
business of paying his/her dues, ultimately, earning the right
to enviable heights of success aimed for.
Jim Rohn advises that we should learn
to view life as requiring us to succeed in spite of adversity
and not in its absence. This is because, if there is no adversity,
there cannot be achievement! Sounds simple - yet it CAN be
so difficult to remember when one is going through adversity(I
KNOW this because I have been "there" many times!).
Which is why reading - as a habit - is essential. Reading
helps to maintain mental stamina through repeated contact
with words that communicate truths like those Jim Rohn shares,
to us, so we can stay strong in those times of true testing.
Jim Rohn also suggests that we should
be glad to undergo adversity - in fact smile at it! - because
it will force us to "grow" our "character",
which cannot be easily moulded when no difficulty is experienced.
He is not alone in thinking this way. Many other successful
people have said the same thing. Even the Psalmist in the
Bible says adversity is good for us!
If that is the case, why not start
from today, to be grateful for those times when things go
wrong with your plans - be they big or small. Why not stop
from today asking why your plans are not going as fast as
another person's? Begin to understand and appreciate the fact
that you will have to find YOUR own unique path to achieve
YOUR own success, which will require you to periodically deal
with the challenge of unpleasant situations, in form of diverse
visitations of adversity.
Can You Learn From Someone Who
Is Suffering(or Has Suffered) ?
Consider the following scenario in
order to see the obvious answer to the above question.
Assume someone you know and care for
started a business and entered a prolonged period of financial
hardship, which s/he is struggling to cope with. Let's say
you tried on a number of occasions to help out by giving some
money to your friend, but discover s/he surprisingly spends
it all (in a manner that suggests poor funds management) and
is back in trouble again. Then one day you hear that an entrepreneur,
fifteen years old in business who survived three different
periods of severe financial crunches - caused by her initially
poor money management skills - will be holding a seminar on
'How to run your business efficiently
using just the money you have", would you pay
for your friend to attend it or not?
I know I would - and I also know that
I would book a place for myself as well!
Most of the proverbs that African elders
use to educate youths were born out of lessons learnt from
the mistakes of others. Without mistakes, new learning(very
often) cannot be discovered. As Robert Kiyosaki said in his
International best selling book "If
You Want To Be Rich and Happy, Don't Go To School?",
our educational system is guilty of making many of us feel(very
wrongly) that making mistakes is something bad and to be avoided
at all costs. Yet, those who make mistakes often find that
they learn as a result of those mistakes, what others would
not have found out any other way. What a massive paradox!
Kiyosaki's mentor - R.
Buckminster Fuller(a man widely recognised for his
many contributions to "earth-friendly" science),
is reported to have said the reason why he knew a lot, was
because he had made many mistakes. A person who makes a mistake
will, in the thinking of those who lack true understanding
of the process, have "failed". Since most people
do not want to be regarded as "failures", they therefore
avoid making mistakes, and as such never know as much as those
who are brave enough to go ahead and fail.
Going by all that has been said above,
one thing becomes very obvious. Those
likely to have MORE useful knowledge to pass on to others
via teaching are those who allow themselves to record more
mistakes or failures, as frequently as possible - while learning
from each one to become better, till they achieve their intended
purpose.
While a person is busy failing in business,
s/he is likely to be perceived to be suffering, because during
this time, the lack of success might mean little money to
spend, and a consequent lack of many needed resources both
for personal or business use. But once the person successfully
uses the acquired learning from making mistakes and suffering
the consequences, s/he will easily resolve all the other problems
and soon become the envy of those who previously ridiculed
or pitied him/her.
This has happened times without number
- countless books authored by those who succeeded in this
way confirm what is being said here.
In effect, the answer is YES. You
can, and will often find that you can indeed learn from a
person who is suffering or who has suffered(if s/he is one
who actively analyses them and extracts useful learning for
the future). In the case of the former(i.e. a person
who is currently "suffering", you only need to be
ready to humble yourself and not act like you are superior
because of the person's present circumstances. More often
than not, a person currently in the throes of difficulty or
adversity is likely to be able to distill useful learning
from his/her experiences for you to use, better than someone
who had long passed through that phase.
So, when next you see a person who
is (perceived to be) suffering, remember that in him/her could
be a well of wisdom from which you can drink - if you will
only come down from your high horse! Silently watching what
such a person does or says under different situations can
even be greatly rewarding if you are able to find a way to
stay around him/her long enough - s/he need not even know.
Summary
Know today
that suffering is not bad - except you see it as bad.
The perspective you adopt is what determines whether a particular
experience is bad or good for you. If you choose to actively
search for, and utilise the (ever present - but often hidden
- potential equivalent) benefits of every experience of suffering
you undergo, you will be better off for it over time.
Read my article titled Practical
Guiding Philosophies For Entrepreneurial Success, in which
I explain (under the subheading "When
There's Nothing To Do, Work!™"), how holding
this perspective about suffering, and adversity, helped me
achieve tremendous levels of productivity during periods of
severe financial hardship.
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