What it Means When Someone Tells You ‘There is No Secret to Success’
When you ask a successful person the secret to success, more often than not the response will be “there is no secret.” Talk about a frustrating answer…
Parents, teachers, preachers, and leaders constantly tell us that God creates all men and women to be equal. Yet, success does not treat all men and women equal. So, there must be some secret to why we all can be equal but not all get equal access to success right? Yes and no.
All men and women are created equal, but all men and women are not the same. As such, successful people don’t become successful following the same path as someone else. There are always similarities among the paths such as passion, consistency, diligence, and resilience. However, these similarities are requirements for success not secrets for success.
A requirement is necessary but not sufficient. This means that being passionate, consistent, diligent, and resilient doesn’t guarantee you will find the success you are seeking. But if you aren’t passionate, consistent, diligent, and resilient you guarantee you won’t find success.
So, the truth is that there really is no ONE secret to success. There are millions of secrets. Moreover, each secret is unique to the person who is seeking success. My secret to success is different than your secret, and unfortunately once you discover your secret it won’t mean much to anyone else.
Therefore, most of what you learn from asking a successful person what their secret to success is won’t be groundbreaking. It will be those same things you always here. Passion, consistency, diligence, and resilience…
With that said, when a successful person tells you there is no secret to success, they’re really telling you there is no shortcut to finding that secret.