Success Is An Inside Job: Masterminding A Plot For Victory

Darius Note:  This post comes from talented social entrepreneur Anthony Hylick.  Anthony is the founder of e-qubed (pronounced E – Cubed).  He has pioneered a movement centered on enlightenment empowerment and encouragement. Enjoy!

(Disclaimer: I do not condone illegal activity. I just like the analogy.) In our culture, the term “inside job” typically refers to criminal activities that are only effective because someone on the ‘inside’ of the entity being robbed has helped plan the robbery, providing specific knowledge to the criminals that only someone on the inside would know. The success of the robbery (the external victory) is contingent upon the inside job. Think of it this way, if the outside success is winning a sports championship, the inside job is off-season training and practice throughout the season.

Any and all successes are the result of planned action and timely execution. Before I go any further, let me first provide a definition of success because it is a tricky word to define and has a different meaning for each of us. In its simplest form, success is the achievement of a planned purpose or goal. Whether your intention is to take the trash out or be President, accomplishing the goal is success. Alright, now that that’s out of the way……let’s continue.

How many times have you asked someone what they wanted and their response was ‘I don’t know’? If you’ve had similar experiences to those that I have had, then the answer is ‘Too many times to remember.’ Granted, a lot of these encounters center around where to go eat or what to watch on television, but I think there is a more fundamental problem at hand. We’ve gotten too comfortable as a society with not making decisions. Great example, why are there college majors titled ‘Undecided’!?!?!? You mean to tell me that I can carry on without a clear direction of where I want to go!!! This seems dangerous and risky if not monitored very carefully.

Darius note:  Many students are listed as “undecided” because they are IN SEARCH of their purpose.  Like Anthony describes, the problem comes when “undecided” is used to put off the SEARCH for purpose or a desire to find direction.

Without a goal or purpose, action is useless and wasted. In order to be successful, the goals and purposes must be clearly defined at the outset and thoroughly understood. These two things are very personal to each of us and require time set aside to think and reflect on them. No one can do this for us. When’s the last time you sat in silence and thought about what your purpose in life was? When’s the last time you actually wrote your goals down on a piece of paper? These are both very important and very personal exercises. This is where the inside job begins!

Before others see anything external, the transformation must be made on the inside. This transformation is a mental exercise and begins with defining what YOU want. Slightly more important than defining what you want, you MUST be clear on WHY you want it (watch this EXCELLENT TED talk by Simon Sinek [@simonsinek] for more about the importance of why versus what, click here ). Without purpose, there is no hope for success. Once you know the why and what, then creating the goals and plans to get there is the next step. The last part of the internal transformation is believing you can achieve the desire and visualizing yourself doing so. This last step is where the external victory is solidified, but sadly, this is where most people fail before they even start. If you cannot see yourself successful, it will not happen. Success is all about confidence. PERIOD! Think about Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. They don’t see anything else but themselves winning. It’s impossible to defeat a confident determination that strong. Stephen Covey calls what I’ve described here “private victories” in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He stresses that we must have these private victories before we can have public victories—inside or personal successes before the outside or inter-personal successes. There is no external success without first having achieved these internal successes. Before anything external is created in the physical world, it is first created in the mind —that internal success. An unknown source has captured this same thought in the following words: “Everything was created twice; once in the mind, and then in the world.”

By the time others see us as being successful, we have been doing the things to make that so for a significant amount of time. Success is the product of discipline and perseverance—both are internal characteristics that drive us forward daily.

Be sure to check Anthony out at www.equbed.org and Twitter: @equbed

Click here to comment.  We would love to hear your thoughts!