Three whales of success

Epigraph

I think it’s not necessary to remind once again that the teachings “how to live” should be heard from people who live as you wish, so I ask you to take this post not as an instruction, but as food for thought. I myself do not consider myself a successful person yet, and all conclusions are made based on the biographies I read.

Introduction

The main thing is to understand that success is not an “X” point, but a time-consuming process; attribute of your life, its characteristic. It is possible to achieve success, but remember that success is not finite in the same way, that failure is not fatal. To avoid confusion, suppose that success is the main characteristic of the correctness of your actions .

The first quality of a successful person

Originality . Most of the geniuses of mankind were unique people. What does it mean? The first and most important thing is that they were unique - their individuality was developed through the conscious or unconscious development of their strengths. By the way, many believe that it is this simple formula that is sufficient to achieve success.
The second is activity within a unique niche. By a unique niche I mean one that exists at the intersection of different areas of human activity. This stems from the fact that any human activity arises at the intersection of one or more existing ones and begins to develop. Most geniuses were at the root of unique niches; as, for example, Michelangelo gave rise to baroque, Jobs created several new markets. Ford gave rise to the automotive industry, Dali to surrealism, and Schopenhauer was at the very beginning of non-classical German philosophy. Look for your unique niche, try yourself in different areas and look for intersection points where you feel most free and confident, or create one yourself. I recommend to view the workshop " Word-class Self-education», Which partially reveals the topic of niches and their intersection.
The third is irreplaceability. It is very closely connected with the first two and obliges to become those whom, according to Lenin, do not exist. There are irreplaceable people, and history often confirms this. It is easy to replace a low-skilled worker, but it is very difficult to find a replacement for an individual who works inside a narrow niche.

The second quality of a successful person

Craving for creation . By this I mean a banal desire, will and desire for creation, contrary to the desire for consumption . The main thing in the life of Michelangelo was the presence of marble and all problems began when there was no marble. There is marble - Michelangelo can create. This is enough for almost Zen life. The same story happened with Jobs, who founded Apple, and then Next, to embody his own understanding of the world. Billions have arrived and a place in history is the result of a craving for creation, not a cause .
Another very important rule flows from this - the absence of long-term goals. I will give a simple analogy. Try to write your own biography, right up to your death. Now live your life behind this scenario. It is unlikely that you will succeed. The goal, one way or another, goes beyond our own experience. But in reality, the real goal can be unpredictable and achieving a goal like “Earn a Million” will make you successful, of course, but it will only mean that you have lived your life “by four”, because you could have achieved more - but how is it verify? Salvador Dali once said: “I noticed that all artists end their lives in poverty and imprisonment, so I still took care of my youth to sit out and become a multimillionaire.” By means of success he did which most people consider the highest goal of their lives. In “Fight Club” there was a phrase: “The trouble of people is that they turn problems that can be solved by the end of this week into the goal of a lifetime.” Our true goals are hidden deep within us and only open at the end. In addition, the goals that we imposed on ourselves can make us give up the chances that life gives us. We say, “No thanks, I have other plans.”
The craving for creation is closely related to the lack of goals because we live in the present and not in the future. Everything happens here and now and the only way a person can live. Victories are not as important as participation; and processes are more important than results. Focus on creation, and goals will open themselves. This became the main theme of Forrest Gump - does a person live according to his own plan, or is he led like a feather in the wind. By the way, Forrest achieved success and few would argue with that. Lebedev never had a goal to create a big business: a design studio, cafes, retail stores, more than two hundred people in submission. “It all inevitably grew, I never wanted it,” he said in an interview with Oleg Tinkov.

The third quality of a successful person

And finally, the third quality that is needed for success is sensuality. I understand her as the ability to feel beauty and see ugliness, the ability to distinguish them. Two human qualities follow from sensuality - taste and craving for protest. The more negative you strike, the more you will want to get rid of it. The more beauty strikes you, the more often and more deeply you will comprehend it. Voltaire said: “True pleasures are impossible without true needs,” and Italian designer Massimo Vignelli believes that “the life of a designer is a struggle, a struggle against ugliness.” The danger lies in the fact that a sensual person who is smitten with dirt, trash and injustice will feel more miserable than a rude person. Dali protested against realism, Lebedev against the post-Soviet design of the nineties, Henry Ford - against the irrational use of human resources, Schopenhauer - against Hegel (they were contemporaries, but the ideas of the first went much further), Steve Jobs - against the yellowish corps of "IBM". All their activities are based on the thesis "what is now is wrong." All these people suffered from the negative and this made them seek a replacement and enjoy it.
Another plus of sensuality is that a sensitive person is also relative to himself - his own imperfection, mistakes, and he can protest against himself, deny himself and become better.