Hey reader,

It’s been a while since the last blog, and I hope for all the physical, mental, social, financial and emotional well being of everyone.  The time has been really grateful, allowing me to take deeper insights to understand life. Though it appeared to be digital silence, the mind always remained in the quest to find the deeper and clear understandings. No, I’m not gonna say that I have found it, but I would love to share what I have learned through all this time about the most beautiful journey called Life.

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: 
It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. 
Voltaire

First, and foremost, a big THANK-YOU to the people who despite the digital silence, kept coming back to check for the new post and also, please accept my apologies for keeping you waiting. To all those messages, “I was just looking over your blog, it’s been a while you haven’t written anything.” , “Please write something brother, a smaller one will also work.” , and some sweet taunts on this delay too “I knew it, I told you that you won’t write”, and to all these messages, I am so thankful that I have been able to get this sweet little audience. Thank you so much! I have never expected that this series will ever be this much success.

Success is a very powerful positive word. But what is it? Let’s look into some more deeper insights.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without 
loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill

In these 25 years of Life Experience, what I have understood about Success is, it is not a destination or an end result, but a process through the highs and lows, battling and conquering each challenges coming throughout the journey one at a time and reaching to somewhere that you can feel that exhilaration of victory with a big smile on your face and fully-fulfilled satisfaction in your heart.

It’s like that feeling of hiking up to the mountain very first time. It’s like gifting your parents from your first pay-cheque. It’s like watching people inspired by your life. That is what, to me, means SUCCESS.

I tried to figure out my Mantras for Success. It can be too early to say that this is it, though, by this time, these mantras have always helped me and I would love to share with this sweet little audience I have got.

Mantra 1: Push-off negativity

To all these times, I have seen few things very common in every other person I have met, every help books I have read and every interview I have seen, Negativity eats up all.

Self Doubt, Anxiety, Overthinking, Negative thinking, Negative Environments, Anger, Ego, Jealousy, Depression, Demoralising talks, Demoralising people, and the list goes on. These are nothing but the biggest enemies we have got and more interestingly, these are within us. More we have them or more we allow them to control our emotions and actions, weaker we become.

The best we can do for them? Nothing, yes nothing. Period. No need to react, because over-reacting is also one of them. These emotions will always be there and might get active for some time, but more you give attention to them, stronger they become. So the best way to push off negativity is, don’t do anything, just let it be. This shall too pass.

Mantra 2: Learn from a Tree

Of all the gifts we have got from the almighty God and Nature, I find Trees to be the most interesting and fascinating. Let’s for some time, focus on a tree and see what we can learn from it:

Grounded – Always knows where it’s roots are so always stays grounded.

Holds the soil – It holds the soil which helped him grow. Hold your family and friends, that always supported you and helped you to become what you are today.

Patient – Becoming a tree from a seed is a long journey. No tree is grown in a single day but grows patiently with the surrounding environment.

Fruits/Help – A tree gives fruits to everyone, despite their caste, color, gender or any rationals. It helps everyone who needs help. Though everything is finite, and a tree can provide only the fruits it has. So helping is also a finite thing and up to some extent or limit.

Shadow/Useful – Not all trees give fruits or flowers, but some provide the dense shadow as well. So it’s not necessary someone can always help, though there could be some way that they can be useful like supporting or letting someone know that you’re there.

Regulator – A tree, in my view, should be a universal regulator. It holds the soil, purifies the air, serve as natural sponges, collecting and filtering rainfall and releasing it slowly into streams and rivers, and are the most effective land cover for maintenance of water quality, and also maintains the temperature. What else could be the other best regulator? When a tree can manage so many things at the same time, then why can’t we manage our mere lives?

Faces darks and roughs and still dances – Days are not always great for trees too. They too face the anger of Nature sometimes in the face of Storms or Extorting Heats, though it stands tall in all those rough weathers, and when the days of joy comes, it dances (I hope you all know Groot)

Mantra 3: Vision

A positive mind and a perfect human is not enough to be successful. The core of success lies in a very important thing called, Vision. A vision, or a goal, is something that creates the belief and an impression in our mind of how the success would look like. Martin Luther King said in his famous speech, I have a dream of America where kids of Blacks and Whites will play together. A vision is so powerful that it influenced the Americans to unite. Think of your any Goal, and it will somewhere create an impression in your mind of how that Goal will look like once achieved. Getting the dream job, going on a dream location, driving your dream car, imagine these. They will imprint the impression in your mind that will motivate you to work for it.

Recently, saw an amazing interview of one of my favorite Motivator, Jay Shetty. One thing that really caught my attention is the Head, Hand and Heart Coordination. Head is where your Goal, your objective is. Say, to become a CEO. The Heart is where you accept all the efforts you have to make and all the sacrifices you have to make to achieve that very goal of becoming a CEO. The Hand is where you serve others, where you become the CEO and help others to enable them.

These rules, might not be the enough to reach the heights, but somehow will help you in your journey of success. I would love to hear your views down here in comments or one-on-one.

Success is a journey, not a destination.
Ben Sweetland