Lyman MacInnis - How to Succeed in Anything by Really Trying

A number of years ago, a fellow by the name of Shepherd Mead wrote a best-selling book titled How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. The book was actually satire disguised as a self-help guide. A couple of Broad way producers, Abe Burrows and Frank Loesser, turned it into a long-running musical on Broadway. It not only was a stage hit in London, but also had a popular Broad way revival a few years after its original run. Altogether the show had a total of 2,485 performances. It was even made into a hit movie. So its not surprising that the books title has endured to this day as an ironic catch-phrase for undeserved achievement.

However, Meads book was satire. This book is the real thing. It will show you that anyone can achieve success provided they define it in reasonable terms and strive for it with the right mental attitude. This book will also provide you with a framework for reaching your potential. But, as the title implies, its premise is that youre not likely to succeed without really trying. As a matter of fact, youre not likely to succeed without trying really hard.

Any success achieved without really trying is better characterized as luck, but even at that, luck is usually some sort of opportunity meeting some sort of preparation. To win the lottery you have to buy a ticket.

Its not surprising that people want to be successful in the things they do. What is surprising is the number of people who dont fully understand what constitutes success. Equally surprising is the number of people who dont know the steps to take in order to achieve it. This book will clarify both for you.

Look up the word success in the dictionary and youll find a definition such as a favourable result. But, in any particular endeavour, success usually means more than that; its either a specific favourable result or the culmination of a series of favourable results.

Success can be described in many ways. Someone once wrote that success isnt where you are, but rather the distance you travelled to get there. Thats certainly one measure of success, but to thoroughly measure the degree of success achieved in the distance travelled, you also have to factor in the obstacles overcome along the way.

Someone else said that success is doing what you like to do and getting paid for it. Thats a cute definition, but even though you may love your work as a middle manager, if you have the capability of being a vice-president and would like to be, youre still a work-in-process on the road to success.

Many people consider any major achievement to be a success. Although that is true as far as it goes, a major achievement is usually a long-term success that is the result of achieving over time a series of short-term successes. Consider, for example, an aspiring young athlete for whom playing professionally equals success. Along the way to this long-term success he will have to achieve many shorter-term successes that contribute to the ultimate goal, such as scoring a championship-winning home run, touchdown, or goal; moving up through the minor leagues; playing injury-free seasons; and being drafted by a professional team. Even if he reaches his goal of becoming a professional athlete, his definitions of success will have to be reset to include achievements such as winning a scoring title or playing on a championship team.

If youre a busy executive assistant, a short-term success might simply be having fewer items on your to-do list when you leave for home in the evening than were on it when you arrived at the office that morning. A successful day could also be one in which you managed to eliminate a particularly onerous and vexing item from the list. But your long-term success target might well be moving into your bosss job.

As a parent, success today might be convincing your teenagers to do their homework, but a few years from now success would be seeing them graduate with honours. After that, their successes could include finding good jobs, marrying compatible spouses, having children, and so on.

Success has many definitions because it usually means different things to different people; it can even mean different things to the same person at different times. A thousand-dollar sale might qualify as a great success to a sales trainee, but two years later, the same sale made by the same person, now a seasoned veteran, would probably be just a routine event and not considered a success at all.

Still another reason why the definition of success can be elusive is that its not a static condition. It may exist in various forms for a very long time, such as a long and steady climb up the corporate ladder to the top job in your organization, or it may last for only a fleeting instant, such as a hole-in-one.

Some pertinent examples of success that have always impressed me are

• adequately dealing with a problem. Any time you adequately deal with a problem you have enjoyed a short-term (and sometimes long-term) success;

• being able to tolerate insecurity, like any coach in professional sports;

• pushing on after a setback, another example of a short-term success necessary to achieving your long-term success;

• accomplishing something you were determined to do rather than something that you were destined to do, such as starting your own successful business rather than inheriting the family firm;

• knowing that you did the very best that you could, which should always be considered a success;

• doing today what someone else is planning to do tomorrow, yet another short-term success on the road to greater achievements.

Although success can have many meanings, one constant is that success is always personal. Whatever youre doing, and wherever youre doing it, the opportunity for success is always there. It can be found at home, at work, at play, at school, and in all your relationships. Success is the reward you get for doing your absolute best, which is usually completely within your control. Although you can sometimes fool other people, you cant really fool yourself. No matter how things look to others, you will always know whether youre truly succeeding because you will always know whether youre doing your best to reach your potential. Its worth noting here that, in the context of this book, reaching your potential is not just about winning in a competitive sense; it also includes achieving a satisfactory level of performance within the reasonable bounds of possibility.

Its important to never measure success by comparing yourself with someone else. Unless that other persons personal circumstances are identical to yours (and its not likely that they are), youre comparing apples and oranges. Another reason you shouldnt measure your success by comparing yourself with others is that, even though you may not realize it because you dont know their true potential, they, by not doing their very best, may be failing.

In addition to the elements of achieving success described in each chapter of this book, there are four overriding considerations to keep in mind:

• You cant sit back and wait for things to happen; you have to make them happen.

• Having the will to succeed is important, but having the will to prepare is essential.