I am presently reading a very intriguing book on how our early life experiences and the environment we grew up in or are presently living in impact our worldview. This largely explains why the choices of other people may seem crazy to you, while they make perfect sense to them.
What is emerging is that while our individual inner view is minutely insignificant to all that is happening in the rest of the world, it contributes to over 80% of how we view the world. Simply put, while our individual choices may not alter the world much, they determine our destiny in the long run.
The primacy of long-term success thus boils down to the consistency of our individual behaviour daily over a very long time. In other words, we create our future with everyday choices and habits. Morgan Housel points out that Warren Buffets’ wealth is less attributable to the smartness of his investment genius but to the longevity of his investing life.
He started investing at 10 years old and has remained consistent for over 79 years. Interestingly, while his net worth crossed the million-dollar mark by age 30, over 95% of his current wealth came after attaining the pensionable age of 65. This is amazing stuff to read or intriguing to comprehend.
What is emerging here though is that personal success in the long term can only be built from controlling the factors within your control and accepting those outside your control. This takes a lot of personal discipline and the ability to master your environment.
Here are my five take homes for anyone who seeks personal long-term success:
- Espouse humility and contentment as a virtue – we live in a first world where new things are emerging on a daily basis and in quick succession. Nothing can satisfy your ego or greed in such a fast-moving world. If you chose to satisfy your ego needs, it will only end up as a chase after the wind;
- Be comfortable in your own skin no matter what others think – the greatest freedom you can ever find today is finding inner peace in what you have. Seeking likes or acceptance from others can only set you on a wild goose chase. As have said here before, people will always talk no matter what you do –you can never satisfy or control what others think of you. Just keep to your lane and maintain your focus;
- Wealth and true success are what is not seen – while I have always known this, Morgan Housel has a special way of putting it. It has been such a powerful way to put it –that wealth is cars not bought, a home that is not mortgaging your entire future income, and clothes not bought on credit cards. In other words, wealth is the potential that saved money accords you to choose and live life on your own terms and freedom of your time;
- Many things are not as good as they look while your situation is not as bad as you may think – we live in a time when social media is dictating standards for most people. We hear of influencers or opinion shapers based on purely what they share on their social media accounts. Yet millions follow these folks or become impressionable to their view of the world without any iota of idea of their back-end live. We only get surprised when some of these folks get auctioned or commit outrageous things;
- Finally is that no one lives any other person’s life –at the end of it all, only you can determine what you eventually become and what legacy you shall leave behind. While you attempt to copy or compare with others –be warned your life story is only written by yourself with every daily choice that you make and habits that you set for yourself.