It is customary as the year begins to wish everyone a “prosperous” New Year. Why so? Why is being “prosperous” more important than being just “happy”; and why will “wishing” it make it happen?
So I thought I would kick off 2013 with something more tangible: a guide to what might make genuine riches come your way this year.
My first exhortation: come alive! Most of us are not truly alive at all; we are merely sleepwalking through life. We are going through the motions, putting up appearances, parroting all the right stuff. But are we alive? No. We are in a dream. So before you do anything else, wake up and ignite yourself. Without zest, no true success can come for you. Get to the place where you’ll be awake and fully engaged.
Second: Now that you’re awake, give everything your best shot. Not your not-bad shot, or your pretty-good shot; your best shot. Don’t save your energy; expend it fully in what you’re doing. Go for it, don’t hold back. Plunge in. Half-interested is fully wasted. If you think it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing at full-tilt. Make a mistake, start over. But don’t stand dithering on the starting line.
My third entreaty: don’t be alone. Results only come through others. You need people. Even if you’re highly individualistic by nature or occupation, you will only matter through the collective. Connect and engage with the people around you. Infect them with your passion. Understand them as humans. Get them to do their best work, and your own best work will also emerge.
Fourth clarion call: focus the beam. It is very tempting to flash the torch everywhere and to start chasing after every interesting shadow out there. This is the single most effective way not to be successful. Find your spot. Find the place where you can combine great enthusiasm with genuine distinctive capability. Stay on that spot. Make your performance on that spot the best you can possibly make it. Don’t keep flashing and flitting. You can be the best at something, but only mediocre at everything.
And lastly: create value for others. The thing to remember is this: success for you is generally a direct function of value for others. Create something that gives something. Sell something worth buying. Shout a message worth following. Give unrivalled utility to your customers; incomparable careers to your employees; inimitable responsibility to your employer; secure returns to your investors. What pays off for the world, pays off for you. You don’t generate prosperity in a vacuum; you do it in an ecosystem. So extract yourself from yourself, and dedicate yourself to giving value out. Then watch it come back to you, multiplied.
These five exhortations are not a nice bit of theory; a meaningless seasonal greeting; a vibrant-but-vapid message. I live by them, and they guided the writing of this very column you are reading. So test them out for yourself. The proof will come if a pudding is created – and enjoyed by many.
A word before you go: if your ambition is merely to make money, you may ignore my five messages entirely. If personal gain is all you want, you’ve just wasted precious minutes reading this article. Become a drug dealer; a pimp; a peddler of patronage; a parasite. Those ways are way quicker, and will help you build the fat bank account you crave.
If, however, you are here to make an altogether bigger deal of your life; if you want meaning more than you want mammon; if you want to leave a mark on this planet – then please do try out my five guides to prosperity. Make a start in 2013, and create something bigger than yourself. It may become your life’s signature achievement.
Now go. The bell is ringing.
Related posts:
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Sunny, I have been reading your column on and off for quite a while and have attended a couple of your corporate strategy sessions(and even recommended you here and there at my own risk).
I am writing today to commend you for a singularly rewarding piece in today’s Nation. I wish you could find a way of sending it through your social and other(for non
-tweeters and non-facebookers) networks to 5,000 younger(30-45) people whom I daily see floundering around in Kenya’s murky waters. Our leaders, preachers and psychologists have failed to do it so can we find alternative routes to market so to speak.
On my part, I had arrived at pretty much the same conclusions for 2013 but through a different route. I particularly like your No. 4: ‘Focus the Beam’. I am notoriously weak in this regard and I have promised myself to fix it.
Ending, I would only add these two non-original words of advice: 1. Enjoy the ride; life is not a death sentence. 2. Do not sweat small stuff – and most of it is small stuff.
Have yourself a prosperity-filled 2013 and let us compare notes on 31st December. Be blessed.
Joe Kimura
[Reply]
Sunny Bindra Reply:
January 6th, 2013 at 11:04 pm
Thank you, Joe.
[Reply]
Thank you, Sunny!
I will present it for my team during a company meeting tomorrow. Personnally I will definitely plunge in.
Let me wish you a Happy New Year. I look forward to continue being inspired by you. Thanks.
Best regards
Ole Vestergaard Johansen, MD, Vega Software Ltd.
[Reply]
Sunny Bindra Reply:
January 6th, 2013 at 11:04 pm
Happy to hear it. Good wishes.
[Reply]
Thank you for sharing,will definitely share & work on the messages…have a truly prosperous year.
[Reply]
This is what everyone needs. I am encouraged too. No.5 says it all. Thank you Sunny for bringing some sun to my 2013.
[Reply]
Sunny!
You have said it loudly and clearly. Over a number of years, I have conducted a small test on trainers, senior management teams and so on, all in the name of trying to distract people from the money headache. The findings have been very interesting. When they get the crux of the test, they all agree in unison as you have put it. Indeed it is easy to “become a drug dealer; a pimp; a peddler of patronage; a parasite,” etc .
Adding value to others should actually be the main focus as you have rightly said. In any case, “everyone can get whatever desired in life in the event of helping as many people as possible, to get what they want.” I have not met anybody who disagrees with this view. By deduction, I have no doubts that you also support the same. Don’t you?
[Reply]
Sunny Bindra Reply:
January 6th, 2013 at 11:06 pm
Mwangi:
Everyone agrees, but not everyone acts on it…true value is shared value, not hoarded value.
[Reply]
Happy belated New Year Sunny!! Thank you for starting us off in 2013 with an insightful piece. And reminding us that real prosperity has an air of permanence and longevity that makes it sustainable, not the fleeting and superficial kind that most of us pursue.
Thank you Sir.
[Reply]
Sunny Bindra Reply:
January 11th, 2013 at 3:21 pm
Adam:
Thank you for your wise comments throughout 2012.
[Reply]
Sunny
My very best wishes for 2013. Atleast you know how to make it Great and rewarding. Fantastic masterpiece.
Munene
[Reply]
Sunny,
I read this piece, repeated immediately, and recommended it to a friend. I will look at it again until I am sure DOING, not “parroting all the right stuff.”
[Reply]
Sunny Bindra Reply:
January 11th, 2013 at 3:22 pm
Ochieng’:
I have no doubt you will do it. Good wishes.
[Reply]