Have you ever received something you really wanted really easy?

Felt good didn’t it? What about when you finally got something after some serious graft, or even some scars? Was the feeling as good, bette because it was harder to come by?

Speaking to my good friend Aftab Malhotra (https://www.linkedin.com/in/aftabmalhotra) we were talking about getting success easy, and hitting the stars without the scars.

The age we live in, there is a generation that EXPECT things to come easy. The X- Factor generation, added with the power of social media has resulted in an expectation, of WHY should i have to out the graft in, or even why do I have to go through sorrow or gain some scars before i can taste the true fruits of success.

The old school though process can be…no pain no gain, or you get nothing without hard work, or if it’s easy it is not worth having.

We all want the stars, no one wants the scars. Is it possible to get the real success you want without the scars to show for them.
There are numerous examples of history of people having to experience scars that made them even more determined to go on to success.

• Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first television job for being too emotionally involved in the stories
• Sir Issac Newton’s mother pulled him out of school to run the family farm. He failed.
• Sir James Dyson had 5,126 failed prototypes over 15yrs.
• Jay-z couldn’t get a record deal, so sold his first singles out of the back of his car.
• Steve Jobswas fired from Apple Computers, the company he founded. He said later on, that he didn’t see it then, but it was the best thing that ever happened to him.
• Tim Ferris was turned down by 25 publishers before ‘The 4 Hour Work Week’ was finally picked up.
• Colonel ‘KFC’ Saunders was rejected over 1000 times before a restaurant picked it up when he was 56yrs old.
• Henry Ford founded tow failed automotive companies before gaining success with Ford Motor Company.
• Jim Carey worked as a janitor, booed of his first comic gig in Toronto, and failed to in his audition for Saturday Night Live in 1981.
• Katy Perry started as a gospel singer, and her first album failed, selling only 200 copies, dropped by her recored company. Then switched to pop music, signed by three different labels and being dropped by all of the them. She didn’t give up, working odd jobs, before being signed by Capitol Music Group in 2006, and released her first hit single Kissed a Girl.
• J K Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers, suffered depression, divorced, was on benefits, single mother before Bloomsbury extended her a £1500 advance, and in 1997 published 1000 copies with 500 to libraries. 1998 won British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, the rest is history.

Does this tell you that you have to have suffered some serious scars to be seriously successful?

No what it does tell us if that if you don’t give up, you will succeed. It also shows us that the scars actually make us.

I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have ‘scars’. The scars can be personal, or from business.

So do you go looking for scars? No, but its might be useful to know what a ‘scar’ is especially when you are going through it, to appreciate it.

5 scars that could make you...

1. A Lost Love - Losing someone that you thought was part of your life is a scar many of us have experienced. You learn a lot about yourself, about what love really is and how resilient you really are. Any lose in the business world or your work life can be put into perspective.
2. Losing a Client - There are some clients that you feel, they will never go anywhere else. Whatever their reason, better service, better product, cheaper (or more expensive), location, whatever to is, its a great time to reassess whether your business is being innovative or stagnant.
3. Being Sacked or Redundant - The realisation that you are no longer wanted can knock you confidence. Rejection can hit like a thunderbolt. All the people mentioned were rejected at some point. Take rejection as an opportunity to find out what you really want and deserve.
4. Bankruptcy or Liquidation - losing a business for whatever reason is traumatic. This is probably the ultimate business scar.
5. Life Imbalance - There will be many times where life is no fair. There is an imbalance in what you do or want and what you get. You look at others and think, why is it easy for them, they seem to have it all. Remember we don’t know what anybody else’s life is like. It may seen greener but we don’t know what happens behind closed doors.

Success always comes at a cost, but that cost may not be obvious.

History suggests that most things won’t come easy.

What we can all take from this is that, the only thing that is permanent is change. Nothing stays forever, so if you are in pain now, it won’t last, if you are experience success, it will become relative to your life’s expectations.

Scars come in all shapes and sizes, just remember one persons scars is another person’s success.