The Start

Starting a blog is quite a step and certainly with a title as the Formula 4 Success.

The goal of this blog is to share experiences as to what people have identified as success and its basic building blocks. According to Aristotle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle)  “We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act but a habit” and Deepak Chopra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepak_Chopra) rephrases as  “Success is a journey, not a destination”. This repetition should allow us to recognize the patterns of success over time and to dig deeper in those elements that emerge on the surface.

Also, we should try to make it tangible. Too many success gurus are vague and surf the wave of self-fulfilling prophecy, even Julius Caesar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_caesar) knew it “What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.” Therefore this blog and comments shall be filled with examples and cases to support the input therein.

The core of the formula is based on the fact that Success is a continuous function of Preparation, Vision, Action and Luck. Indeed, all the successful people I have talked to have admitted that luck played a part; but it is my assessment that the more prepared, visionary and action-oriented these people are, the less luck they needed. However, without these three, I found that people can still be successful on luck alone, but is less likely and uncontrolled. The fact that we consider success to be a continuous effort the formula reads:

Success = Sum {(Preparation x Vision x Action) + Luck}

Preparation includes education, upbringing, experience, attitude, character, motivation, etc… Vision is related to the eagerness to learn and a keen awareness as to what is going on around you. And finally, Action is needed to turn an idea into a tangible success, otherwise it remains just a visionary idea. The key to the formula is multiplication. IF any of the three factors is missing, the formula equates to zero. If you lack preparation, whatever you see and dare will be limited by your own capabilities. If you are well-trained, but not paying attention nor actively looking for opportunities, your internal potential may never be exposed as you will never see what to do with it. Opportunities occur every day. We just need to look and be open to them. Finally, if you are well-prepared and also looking, you will still need to act. A lot of people have great ideas, see opportunities but hesitate to act. James C. Collins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Collins) refers in “Good to Great” to the inertion of companies that are afraid to act, for fear of losing their GOOD status and therefore, never reaching their success potential- GREAT. I believe the same is true for individuals.

The goal is to find cases and/or successful entrepreneurs and test this formula on them. We hope to gain deeper insight into the primary drivers of success to understand how we can be successful ourselves.