WHY YOU MUST TAKE HUNDRED PERCENT RESPONSIBILITY FOR SUCCESS
- Bisi Adewale
Two young sons of a rich old man had to work in the factory of their father as factory workers instead of being heads of the company or at least departmental heads and they did not like this. They raised the issue with their father several times, but he would not listen to them. When they persisted, he told them that they would have to undergo several tests before they could hold vital positions in the company- a condition to which they agreed. They began to read several books about the company and the industry generally, getting ready for the day of the test which their father never told them specifically.
A few days later, it rained heavily in the morning causing the brothers to get late to work though other workers made it work early in spite of the rain. When their father queried them, they told him about the rain which made their driver come late, the traffic jam on the road and the accident that took place because of the slippery road, resulting in the closure of the motorway temporarily. Their father sympathized with them and asked them to go.
Some days later they asked their father when the test would take place. He told them that the test had already taken place and that they had failed woefully. They protested because they were not previously informed about the date nor did they know when they had undertaken the test, thereupon, their father asked them to go and prepare for another test. They doubled their efforts and began to prepare. Soon, their father heard a report that both of them were having issues in their marriage and he summoned both of them and their wives in order to know what had happened. They both blamed their wives for laziness, lack of respect, extravagance, and sexual denials and so on. Their father counseled them to live in peace with their wives and told them to go.
Three weeks later their father sent them a letter, showing the result of their test and they failed woefully again. They went to their father to fight him for being unfair and unloving, giving them the result of a test they never did. Their father insisted they did a test and failed and that they had only one more chance to retake the test after which he would write it in his will that they should never head the corporation.
The older brother left the meeting in anger while the younger one was sober. He decided to seek counsel from a wise man who listened to all his stories and told him what to do. Few weeks later the machine they were using in the factory totally broke down and that was very unusual. Their father asked all the staff using the machine to write their report, the two sons included. The older son wrote a lengthy report blaming the machine operators who used the machine before and after him and their supervisor for the breakdown.
The younger one wrote his own report, blaming everybody that used that machine in the last one week. According to him, they all failed to take action despite the fact that the machine gave some strange sounds for some days. Their only goal was to meet their target and move on. He added that the major culprit was himself, the child of the owner of the machine, who was supposed to have taken extra care with the equipment. He took total responsibility for what had happened and was ready to face any penalty that would come with it.
Two days later their father sent another letter to them, stating that they had done the third test and that the younger brother had passed excellently, therefore he was promoted to head the organization. The older brother, as expected, was livid with rage and he rushed to their father’s office spoiling for a fight. There he met his younger brother who had come to enquire about the test and when he wrote it. The father told them he had been giving them RESPONSIBILITY TESTS for some time. He said they did the first test the day they came late to the office and blamed other people for it. They did the second test the day they brought their wives to him to settle their differences, blaming their wives for everything that happened while exonerating themselves. They carried out their last test through the report they submitted about the damaged machine, where the older brother blamed everybody but himself while the younger brother took responsibility for the damage.
According to the father, none among the twenty people directly or indirectly handling the machine took responsibility except the younger brother. That was an indication that he was ready for the position of leadership because leaders always take responsibility. The elder brother by shifting blame for the machine failure showed he was not ready for leadership. Their father further stressed that people with follower and employee mentality always blame others but great leaders and people with ownership mentality always take responsibility and are the ones who can lead better and move any organization forward. Hence, he chose the younger son who allowed the buck to stop at his table as the next leader of the company.
In life EVERYBODY has SOMEBODY to blame while SOMEBODY too names EVERYBODY since NOBODY stands to take the blame, then NOBODY becomes SOMEBODY.
The greatest game of failure is the BLAME GAME. Having someone to blame is the best and easiest way to fail irrecoverably. If you will learn just one thing from this book, let it be that you know that only one person is responsible for the quality of your life and that person is you.
From our infancy, while still sucking our mothers’ breasts, we have been conditioned to blame somebody for the state of our life. We cry when our food does not get to us on time. We yell when our nappy is wet. We grow older in this state until it becomes a mindset from which we may never recover. This is what I call the “Blame Mentality”. We have been programmed to blame everybody but ourselves for happenings around us. We blame the government, God, our bosses, parents, children, our friends, spouses, teachers, the weather and just anybody that crosses our blame radar.
To help yourself overcome the “Blame Mentality”, you need to do a “MIRROR LOOK”. Stand before a mirror and look into it. There you will see the person responsible for the state and quality of your life. It is YOU.
Until you stop the blame game, you are not ready for success in life. Nobody can make you fail or succeed. And, no matter how anybody helps you, you cannot succeed unless you help yourself. In the same way, no matter how anybody tries to pull you down, it will amount to nothing if you refuse to be stopped or go down.
Proverbs 9:12 KJV
“If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it”
The scripture above counsels that taking responsibility is being wise. You will enjoy it yourself, but if you choose to be stupid, only you will also suffer for it.
So make up your mind to be wise. Make up your mind to move forward. Do not blame anybody when you fail since you will not praise anybody when you succeed but yourself. Take hundred percent responsibilities for your life.
Jack Canfield in his award-winning book, Success Principles counsels: “To achieve major success in life, to achieve those things that are most important to you, you must assume one hundred percent responsibility for your life. Nothing else will do.” He further states that “If you want to create the life of your dream, then you are going to take one hundred percent responsibility for your life as well.”
Culled from Success Catalyst
Why You Must Take Hundred Percent Responsibility For Success
Why You Must Take Hundred Percent Responsibility For Success