Who Is A Successful Man?

Everywhere you look, you see the emergence of one celebrity or another. It’s either a movie superstar, music mega icon, sports great, or whatever. These celebrities command instant followership and become role models. Many spend lots of times reading and researching them and wanting to know the secret to their emergence. Many want to be like them and therefore dress, walk or talk like them. Many advertising companies pay heavily to have them on their adverts and pictures. They attain instant success. And just as President J.F Kennedy once said, “Failure is an orphan and success has a thousand fathers”, so do we see in the lives of these great ones. Everyone suddenly wants to identify with them.

But is becoming a megastar and instant rich all about success? Do we say because someone has made huge amount of money that he or she is successful? I realize that in most sectors today, there is a redefinition of success. People are realizing that success is not all about a fat bank account and string of women around one. Many are coming to the realization that success is not about public image.

What is success then? Success is a total package. It affects with all the areas of life. You couldn’t call a man who earns a six-figure salary but cannot keep a relationship a success. You couldn’t call a woman who is a big time C.E.O but lives a highly immoral life a success. This invariably means that success is relative and if it is so no one is completely a success yet. Success therefore is a progressive attainment of balance in all areas of life.

There are basically four areas of life: physical/economic, emotional/social, mental and spiritual. These four symbolize the four parts of our human nature- body, heart, mind and spirit. To truly be successful we must progressively work on these four areas and ensure none is neglected. Negligence of any will undermine and even destroy whatever success we have attained in other areas.

Take for instance a man who takes great time to study (mental) but neglects to do regular exercise and practices good dieting (physical). He may achieve great results but his problem with obesity can rise up and destroy him. Supposing he succeeds as a tech wiz but neglects his family, the problems at home and inability to keep his family can set up an imbalance for him and thereby destroy him. Then also if he has a good physical discipline, manages his mental pursuits and social life considerably well but lack healthy spiritual renewal. He will be drained of the vital energy that rejuvenates and intrinsically empowers for success. Therefore whatever success he has attended will be temporal and ephemeral.

There is therefore the need to seek to attain balance in all these areas of life. That is what success is all about. This requires constant work and discipline because it is very easy to neglect one area and thereby imbalance sets in. Success therefore is progressive.