Additional Success Theories
Success has been and will remain an intriguing phenomenon. That's the reason why a good number of scholars time and again have studied and researched it. Particularly the researchers have probed into the reasons that make a person a successful person.
Various theories have been put forth for success. The scholars and researchers make their own hypotheses and scoop out the data and information to prove their points fairly convincingly though the inferences and conclusions may or may not be statistically valid or scientific. However they do guide the people who read them provided the people being guided by them do not use them as gospel truths and use them just as some good indicators.
Success has been attributed to many factors, some of them being sheer personal talent and determination, extremely long hours of practice (practice make a man and woman perfect), support of a favorable period of technological or economical or other types of opportunities during which one's career took off, born with a silver spoon in mouth etc. I wish to add three more reasons of my own understanding here. Again these reasons may or may not be statistically correct or scientific. These are purely based on my studied observations of a good number of successful people.
First I offer the reason for the rags to riches stories. It is often the fact that the persons who rose from the ashes had nothing to lose. They were already at the bottom of the pit. If at all, their any action, at worst, would keep them at the same low level. But some of these people had determination, hunger (for success, money, recognition, name and fame), ambition, willpower, grit, readiness to do hard work, no fear of losing any prestige or suffering the identity crisis (they had no identity to talk about). So they could try their hand at several things. Failures did not bother them. They could start very small things, they could toil day and night, they wouldn't lose face if made to wait long hours by their business associates, egos had no place in their daily routines. But all these small actions they took made way to additional actions that kept them going to taste early successes. Then they went on building on those small bouts of successes to one day achieve the large scale successes. On the other hand the people who are educated and start off pretty decently have a lot to lose if they fail. So they go ahead cautiously. They dare not take even the calculated risks. So their progression is pretty luke warm over their entire life span- they remain 'also ran'.
My second theory about the success is that the people who have no alternative options in life and but have to make their living on just one option can make it big. The people with options may have tendency to put less of their heart and soul in their existing career because they know that if they do not do well there they can continue with their lives fairly squarely with the other options in which also they are so good. However, the person who has just about one option or one skill-set is aware that if he has to do well in life he has to put himself lock, stock and barrel on that one option or he will get nothing. He will be out of job since he is no good with other options of life. This compelling and driving force motivates him to excel in his only option available to him and he is likely to be more successful than the persons with more options.
Persons with outright unscrupulous behavior, cunningness, scheming, no qualms for ethical values and exploiting others may land up amassing tremendous wealth and power and therefore perceived as highly successful by almost everyone. Such people have an uncanny grasp over even the media and the media paints them in that light for their own selfish reasons. Large numbers of such people don't even get caught for their misdeeds as they have the ways and means of silencing those who try to expose them. However in rare cases when few of these people get exposed for their misdeeds and brought to justice, they land up behind the bars or executed by the masses- they then turn from heroes to zeroes.
