Business Success for everyone?

I just finished reading an article in which someone listed the four personality types that are out there when it comes to success.

Four, not 25! Just four and if you don’t find yourself in this bracket of 15% belonging to the red type (self-driven, strong willed, self motivated and very sure of yourself), you can practically give up hope to succeed in anything, you supposedly just don’t have what it takes.

Really?

I noticed that it made me feel uneasy to read that, maybe because there is some uncomfortable truth in it (after all, I would think that I’m belonging more in the green analytical section, which, according to this classification, comprises 35% of the populace and practically only makes you a more or less decent team player, same as the spiritual person, who might adhere to a inner conviction that money is somehow bad and rather to avoid). The only bracket left was the blue fun-seekers (another 15 % group), who don’t really care about anything and just want to have fun and seek the next party.

I think what made me stumble most about this was the very coarse and rough classification, practically on all fronts. First, what is success in this regard? Lots and lots of money?

The funny thing is that the title of this article was something along the lines that “everybody” could be successful, if they only had this one thing… And what was that? A red personality?

In order to evaluate a life as successful, it is first important to define what success really means. There are many levels, and many of them have not so much to do with lots and lots of money, like having a great life, a wonderful and happy family, much time for play, fun with what you’re doing, no matter what it is, the feeling of having a purpose in life and working towards that. Making lots of money's often means the opposite of that, it often comes on the expense of all these things, and yet, they belong to a successful life as well.

In my opinion, categorizing all people in 4 groups and then evaluating their aspirations in life under this perspective flies into the face of being free to pursue every dream and succeed in every endeavour, and I still believe that everybody can do it, eventually. Sure, some might have more inhibitions than others, some may need more internal work to overcome what keeps them back, but I have a hard time accepting that there are those “who just have it”, and those who don’t.

I’m glad that there are more and more people out there who know that everything is possible and that very often, what's holding us back is not unsurmountable. It may just be a programming that we received way back and that doesn’t serve us anymore. And there are many techniques how we can overcome these old programmings, and install new one’s that serve us better, no matter what we aspire to.

I assume that there are very spiritual people out there who finally overcame their inhibitions about money. I bet many successful people actually are analytical, and assess the pro’s and con’s of business ventures very carefully before they jump on them and move ahead.

If you feel like some inner power is holding you back from succeeding, it might be time to contact someone who’s specialized in unlocking the inner power you hold, like a trainer or a coach.

As we know from NLP, our conscious mind only seemingly runs the ship, if it is out of alignment with your vast subconscious mind, it's power is miniscule. But the wonderful news is that we actually can access the subconscious mind, we can correct the course it’s on and steer it into a direction that is more in line with our conscious mind.

But if we change the direction of our subconscious mind and get this enormous power to back our conscious resolutions, I think nothing can hold us back. And I guess, the 15% of red-coded people have a subconscious mind that is just programmed on doing what needs to be done in order to succeed.

The wonderful thing about these days is that we are not dependent on the programming we received when we were children. We can re-program ourselves, we can use new tools, that haven’t been available for the generations before us, to overwrite whatever holds us back.

And who knows, we might even be able to create new categories, like analytical, self-driven, self worthy and successful entrepeneurs (and that even though red and green don’t really mix so very well), or even better, spiritual leaders, people who not only do what needs to be done because that’s how you make money, but people who do so because they have a purpose in life and they are driven to excel because of that.

And even the fun seekers could be amongst this list, after all, having fun and taking life not so extremely serious is sometimes one of the biggest advantages for success. Many very successful people say in hindsight that they just did what was fun for them and what they liked to do best.

And yes, I’m convinced everybody can be successful, we all have “what it takes”, the question is just if we are committed enough to our vision about ourselves that we recognize what holds us back and take the necessary steps to remove these blockages.

To your success!

© 2011, Dorothee Geray