Handling Success

In reflection of the London Olympic games, the most successful for Great Britain in history, and that too on home turf, it is timely to look at different ways of handling success and the effect they have on the longevity of this success. The extent to how well success is received and built upon is largely determined by what our success is attributed to. The steps one takes after receiving success determine the sustainability of our success. If one attributes success to their own inherent greatness, the reaction may be one of arrogance and potentially slackening of practise, and therefore less longevity. If one attributes their success to hard work and the help of others, it will likely result in gratitude and persistent and concentrated effort. Successful people are looked up to by others, and the example they set in handling success is often followed by others. It is a responsibility for leaders to set an ethical and noble example in handling success as this will be embodied in future generations, and therefore has the ability to create not only success that lasts a lifetime, but a legacy spanning generations. We shall see through a number of examples that the successful handling of success comes down to clarity of thought, and staying firmly grounded.

People try to emulate success

How the British athletes performed is to be commended. How these young idols for many young people who were engaged in violent crimes during the UK riots, can have a large scale and long term effect on the country. Many of the athletes have been very gracious in their victories, dedicating wins to their teams, coaches, children, and families. Time will tell how they maintain such an attitude. The gym in the apartment I stay in doesn’t have a large dedicated area where one can practise martial arts type of training. In absence of this, I often go near the children’s area to do such a warming up. As I was practising some punches and kicks, I failed to notice a small boy and girl were copying me standing behind me. They had very serious and aggressive looks on their little faces with their brows raised as they tried to copy my expression also. Seeing them doing this, with their pink and blue shorts and toys near them I smiled. They became totally confused seeing my reaction; they must have been thinking that I was so serious, in such a fixed position, moving fast and hard, to suddenly being completely loose, relaxing and smiling. Within a moment, they loosed up also and we all began to laugh together. It is our nature to emulate certain things we find attractive. In the world today, people try to emulate those who are successful. However, peoples’ minds sometimes fail to distinguish between what are the real causes of success verses what are not. Negative characterstics, habits, mannerisms, ethos, beliefs, etc are not the causes of success, however are easily emulated by weaker people. Whereas the real causes of success, which are often a hard working ethic, and inclination to learn good techniques, and strategies from others, are not so easy to take on for people who have a weak nature that easily succumbs to a temptation to give up and not be sincere in purpose.

Why So Serious?

 After the premiere of most recent Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, Tom Hardy, who played the villain ‘Bane’ was asked about his experience in working with Christian Bale, who starred as Bruce Wayne. Hardy commented that “We’re both very serious about what we do, but don’t take ourselves so seriously.” This was a very interesting attitude, and one that had interestingly been encouraged by spiritualist Bhakti Tirtha Maharaj also in his stating how remaining jovial at times helps in keeping grounded. Christian Bale was in a very strong position as he was in demand being requested by many in Hollywood to star in the next Batman. He commented in a gracious manner, that it had been a real honour for him to play the role. He could have adopted an attitude of arrogance if he wanted to, but chose to be gracious. This kind of attitude can help separate whatever may come from our efforts, from who we are in essence; it's eye-opening how easily sometimes the two are mixed; when people purchase very opulent things, become successful, they sometimes begin to think that they are those things, or are that success. But did they simply not exist before the success and things came along? We can take our work very seriously, but if we are detached at a deeper level, then we won’t be so affected either in success or failure. What a win-win situation that is; if we lose, we don’t mind and we take responsibility, and if we win, we just continue to work hard and attract more success.

Vishwamitra Muni goes back to the Mountains

In the days of Lord Rama, several millennia ago, on the extremely long awaited occasion of Lord Rama’s marriage, the great sage Vishwamitra Muni had been called to perform the ceremony as the priest. After a long celebration that lasted for weeks, Lord Rama’s Father, Dasarath, explained to Vishwamitra Muni that due to his holy presence, there was such positive energy and auspiciousness in the land of Ayodhya. The King politely requested that Vishwamitra Muni not leave, and extend his stay. Vishwamitra Muni however politely declined. He said that one must be vigilant, especially in success. In a humble manner, he cited a time where he had gathered great power through meditation, and had lost this all just in a few moments due to being distracted. The great sage replied that therefore, it is infact more important now than ever, in the midst of such success and opulence that he return to his simple Ashram in the mountains, and return to his meditational and devotional practices with great determination. He explained that actually these things are the foundations of any auspiciousness that may exist which King Dasarath spoke of. If we handle success with such a grounded, fixed, and determined manner, then surely we will create a mindset that is very favourable to endured success.

With Great Responsibility comes Great Power

The Concorde Club

After returning from a two day trip to India the primary topic of conversation amongst the team was work, with a close runner up being luxuries. It made for a very interesting set of observations. The discussions started with the quality of lounges in Hong Kong, then in India, then the rest of Asia, and then the Middle East, and then the rest of the world. We then moved onto airlines, and airline clubs, and then to the tiers of membership within those clubs. We then went to many of the additional benefits one gets as they progress, namely having a couple of square feet extra space, a personal member of staff to serve you and bring you what you want, and a number of prestigious credit cards. As one becomes more senior, they will tend to have better facility available should they choose; and most do, and it does not by default mean the people are bad people at all - values has nothing to do with whether a person is rich or poor, in first class or economy - in fact there are some very humble people in my experience in luxurious lounges, who are often far more considerate than some at the other end of the plane – it is all to do with how we view and use the things at our disposal. The problem arises when people with opulence and power misuse it and become absorbed in their own apparent greatness; this is a problem because it very likely an inaccurate view of reality in the bigger context, and secondly it will very likely bring disappointment as not everyone in the Universe will recognise such self-recognised greatness. Groundedness, and alignment with good values will help us to be in touch with reality, will help us be very strong; and this is not just a nice to have – in an environment where groundedness and values, whilst not non-existent, are often rare and easily compromised- we should be very bold, strong and determined so that these values can prevail. What follows are some related accounts in what the lack of values and self-centerdness can lead to, verses what values can lead to.

Excuse me???

The Vedic teachings tell of one of the original progenitors of human civilisation called Prajapati Daksha. Praja means the people, and Pati means Lord. He was therefore a very esteemed person, respected by even the demigods. His daughter had married Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva is a very unique personality, and increasingly even today photos of him are in yoga studios all over the world in deep meditation wearing very simple items of clothing and covered in ash, and he is seen as an embodiment of devotion, deep detachment and focus. The daughter of Prajapati Daksha, called Sati, married Lord Shiva. She was extremely beautiful and amongst her description it is described that she had eyes like those of a deer cub. Once there was a large sacrifice taking place, to which all of the demigods were invited. Lord Shiva and his wife were also present. When Prajapati Daksha entered the arena, he was offered complete respects by all of those in the arena except by Lord Brahma, and Lord Shiva. Lord Brahma was his father, and therefore etiquette had it that Prajapati Daksha offer his respects unto his father. Withstanding that, Lord Shiva did not pay his respects; this was completely unintentional as Lord Shiva offers respect to everyone being completely transcendentally situated, but was more by accident, and by higher arrangement. Prajapati Daksha became furious. Here were the most powerful personalities in the Universe, paying their respects, and his son-in-law, did not. Radhanath Swami explains in this connection that ‘For one who is accustomed to being honoured, dishonour is worst than death.’ In the infamous gang cultures today, in interviews, gang leaders and drug lords more often than any other answer, cite “respect” as the cause of murders. Prajapati Daksha, who was otherwise a highly evolved and cultured being, began to unload countless insults unto Lord Shiva in the presence of everyone. The story continues, and this ended up to be the cause of his eventual downfall to a very very humbling material position in which he returned to Lord Shiva with folded palms. The Srimad Bhagawatam concludes on this that “Although the six qualities of education, austerity, wealth, beauty, youth and heritage are for the highly elevated, one who is proud of possessing them becomes blind, and thus he loses his good sense and cannot appreciate the glories of great personalities.” It is therefore so important that no matter what our material circumstances and success may be, that we remain firmly grounded and keep reminding ourselves that each time any success comes.

With great responsibility comes great power

Here we argue that whilst Spiderman had the great saying that ‘With great power comes great responsibility’, and whilst this is certainly true, the converse is also often true. If we take responsibility, i.e. being able to respond positively and responsibly, we will actually attract great power. Arjuna was one such example, who at one time had everything at his disposal, he was highly esteemed loyalty, with great palaces, and even large chambers just for thinking. But there was a substantial difference between his possessing this, and President Mugabe for example, who today possesses a very luxurious residence. Some of the essential differences lie in values and mindset. Arjuna was noble, truthful, benevolent towards others, he did not think he owned these things, rather that he had been given them by the grace of God to be used in the service of God and others. It certainly may be questioned whether such values exist in many people with opulence today. Arjuna’s values bought him power. Lord Krishna even declares in this regard that wherever Arjuna is and wherever He is, there will certainly be opulence, victory, extraordinary power and morality. So these values and devotion in Arjuna actually attracted opulence, and power. We should therefore certainly aspire to i) be successful , ii) with a higher consciousness, and not give up in either regard. In fact, if we are inclined towards higher values, and decide to give up, what will this make for? Those with less regard for values will come to power. We are influenced by our leaders, and often times in the workplace we subconsciously take on the mood of our leaders to some extent, and sometimes even need to in order to progress. If therefore, as people aspiring towards values driven leadership, we are not successful, we are actually paving way for a landslide in the other direction in the years to come. Whilst we may not align in every way with the rock band, Manic Street Preachers, their lyrics "If you tolerate this, then your children will be next," may be very useful when remaining determined to uphold essential in our workplaces and communities.

Knowing the Importance

We know focus is the key to success, but what is the cause of focus? What makes focus successful? In order to dissect these important equations, it is important we break down the dependencies and understand them. Keeping things simple usually works well; and it is refreshing how the cause of focus comes down some very simple messages, which can lead to very powerful results, not just immediately, but even more so in the longer run.

Knowing the importance

Action requires and impetus to act. At 16.30 on Tuesday we got a warning message to go home as soon as possible due to a typhoon in the area. People left their work like I had never seen before. Before we knew it, most people had left the floor. Within a couple of hours, I could see debris flying up in front of my apartment window; and I am on the 32^nd floor. This was serious matter. As I stood by the harbour, a tourist from New Zealand came and asked me, Are we going to be ok? Will the buildings be able to stay standing? Over 600 trees had been uprooted, over 100 people were admitted to hospital, as Cyclone Vicente, the worst in Hong Kong for 15 years bought Hong Kong to a halt. What prompted the action to leave work? It was knowing the importance of the event which was to come. We should also note that knowledge of the cyclone helped people realise the importance of the necessary action. On the journey back, I had to wait 9 trains before being able to get onto one. When the doors would open each time, within perhaps 10-15 seconds the train would be packed and would need to leave. There were small arguments, and people were really concentrating on getting on, they were positioning themselves well in advance of the train arriving; they were focused, they were determined. What prompted their determination and focus? They knew and felt the importance of getting home on time very very tangibly, and therefore their minds were fixed, and their actions were in line with their priority. Knowing the importance of what we are doing, is the single most determining factor in cultivating focus.

Choosing the right type of action

I sat down with some of my bosses last week to discuss what the key qualities for a particular role we wanted to bring in are. I specified the technical areas quite quickly, and then asked them about the non-technical factors that were most important. They said, the person needs to be able to flag things according to the “real” priority, and that “not everything should be urgent and important.” This would be the make or break of that persons success. This comes down to prioritisation and consciousness. More importantly, how do we know we’re doing the right things? There are certain tasks we conduct that are strategic, which will not yield immediate results, but results over time, and there are other tasks which are operational and will simply keep you out of trouble, with a plethora in the middle of tactical tasks. If we are not aware of this range of tasks, and cannot identify, or differentiate between them, then we effectively lose control of our success. We can learn what is strategic, what is tactical, and what is operational in a number of ways; we can find out what is strategic is by finding out what the organisations seniors want to do; what direction they want to go in, and align ourselves with this using our discrimination and intelligence sharply; not just blindly. To identify what we need to do tactically, we can often learn this from slightly more experienced peers who can offer such advice, and looking at their example, and to determine what we need to do operationally, we just need to follow the guidebook so to speak. We will notice, most of this relies on receiving knowledge from some source. Once we then break a balance between activities in those three areas, and cultivate focus through knowing their importance, we will be powerfully positioned.

Keep on-guard

If we do not keep our focus when we have more time, we will tend to waste our time, and then we will be forced to focus, which does not make for a good balance. This is very much in line with the teachings of the Vedic scriptures, where the five year old son of the King Hiranyakashipu, Sri Prahalad, was explaining to his friends that it is very important to learn the science of devotional service from a young age, and not when you are very old and dysfunctional. He had exactly that in mind; the benefits of becoming enlightened early, and not waiting until a later age. In a similar way, we can follow this principle in the workplace; not taking advantage of having less pressure and procrastinating, but rather using this time wisely to strategise, to learn from others, and to replenish our intellect in many ways. To keep focused, requires a chain of events; we need knowledge of the categories of activity; strategic, tactical and operation, we then need to prioritise and balance these intelligently, and finally we need to continually be aware of the importance of this in order to be able to maintain focused and be undisturbed by those events that may distract us. If we do this, we will be content in each of the tasks we are doing, because we will know their place in the broader scheme.