II. Finding Success in Young Adulthood

WE: SUCCESS FACTORS FOR US: RISK-FIRE BRIGADE

Written by Umberto Tunesi, edited by Dr. Trudy Hu 2/18/2015

"Ninety-nine percent of who you are is invisible and untouchable." R. Buckminster Fuller

In essence, successful career men or career women – demonstrate at least the following quality:

1. Self-Esteem

2. Physical and intellectual calibers

3. Intuitive trust in their leader

I. The Importance of Self-Esteem:

Self-esteem, or self-pride, is a mental product of a person’s overall self evaluation which originates from both nature and nurture. According to the modern neuroscientists, self-esteem comes from genetic inheritance and earliest experiences with his/her family members or care providers. In terms of the ratio of the nature and nurture, it may be fifty-fifty but who knows.

In order to elaborate the importance of self-esteem, every one of us can be a David against a Goliath or vice versa physically or intellectually as the Bible story described. David was a young child and Goliath was an enormous giant and obviously David had no chance in defeating Goliath if simply judged by their physical sizes. Nevertheless, young David must have ginormous intellectual capacity in order to have success against the physically over-sized giant.

How to establish, develop and maintain successful human properties like David’s self-esteem?

Latin’s saying, fortuna audaces juvat (luck helps the daring ones) still holds true even in everyday’s experience.

It may not always hold true though in the following two cases. In a recent issue of Find The Best magazine, it reports that the best paid US basket ball players lose their money fortunes and go broken much more quickly than their lower level colleagues, because, according to the article's author, the former are – genetically or by education – used to take higher risks. The author reaches this conclusion by charting the number of players' three-points strikes – therefore the riskiest – against the endurance of their monetary resources; the higher the former, the lower the latter. I also read a study indicating that the average life span of successful companies lasts between fifteen and forty years, not longer.

II. Physical and Intellectual Calibers:

Peter's Principle, Parkinson's Law and many other publications clearly declare the crucial role that an individual’s motivation plays; that is, mental and intellectual capabilities of people working in companies or organizations.

In the next paragraphs, more details will be elaborated regarding the leader’s personal characteristics and consequent capabilities, are instrumental to motivate or de-motivate the company’s or organization’s performance.

So far, there is nothing new under the sun: we all are flooded with books and training leaflets on managers' training but – please raise your hand – who has ever met one (or more) manager whom could be truly classified as such.

Leonardo Sciascia is one of the best Sicilian writers and in his book Il Giorno della Civetta (The day of the Owl), he classifies people as:

1. uommini (true, real men); those who are what we would call true leaders, that is intelligent, active, daring but not to the point of putting their people at stake; intelligent leaders with integrity

2. mezz'uommini (half-men or mid-men): are those who obey the “uommini” and often do the “dirty work”, though still being respectable; we would say they are the leader's assistants; intelligent managers/followers with loyalty

3. omminicchi (half-half-men): less respectable people, often “candles in the wind”, mercenaries who sell themselves for a fistful money and are not faithful neither to the leader nor to his / her assistants(s); resourceful opportunist

4. and quaquaraquà (the lowest level of men's ethics): are usually the lowest level of spies, despised both by the leader and by his / her own enemies; these have no moral strength, they cannot be trusted. Immoral person without integrity, loyalty, or ethics.

Sciascia’s classification can be well represented by a typical pyramid, where the true real men are the very few at the top and the latter three types form the very large basis.

Although the latter would arrogantly not sustain the former, I would say; on the contrary, the former depends on the latter, and must have his / her mid-men to control the basis.

In Menenius Agrippa’s famous speech to discourage the Roman plebeians to stop their strike, he compared them to the hands of a human body; if they would not feed the stomach, they would soon lose their own strength. However, both depend on the decision making of the head. Ironically, the head also relies on the hands to feed the stomach, which feeds the head. (Note 1)

III. Intuitive Trust in Their Leader:

Once upon the time there were giants on the Earth. Is it true or not? TV and newspapers especially make us discover that the so-called giants nowadays are not very different from us; that is, they have our same weaknesses.

But, again, media do not encourage us to recognize them as our leaders, whether we share their own personal views, or not.

It might well be that the West's fear of the Muslims is connected to the Muslims' intuitive and unwavering trust - or faith - in their leaders.

It might well be that we – grown up to the excessively rational motto cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) - have lost intuitive trust and belief in Faith, so that we have to look for any possibly reasonable explanation to any event.

Therefore we disregard the event when we cannot find its reasonable explanation. In ancient times, mystery meant a revealed truth, nowadays it is just the opposite.

The Charge of the Light Brigade (Alfred, Lord Tennyson):

If charge implies lighting the illumination, brigade means a very motivated community and metaphorically ready to die for its ideals. It is very clear, to me, at least, that we have to go on improving our mental, intellectual and moral skills. We must dig the human (you, your inner man, or dehumanized parts of yourself) out of his widgets' sepulcher (rigid mechanically limited grave/box), too. Maybe he's still alive hopefully, maybe not; in any case, we'll learn from him (your inner man, inner vision, and intuitive trust).

Therefore we need to be ready and pro-actively look for challenges that are require far more calibers from us than the daily routines. Daily routine is a challenge itself already, and we tend to take it for granted or become complacent in doldrums. We should not limit ourselves to successful routine only.

From the above-mentioned 3 traits, we all have been esteemed a positive self-image, as well as sufficient physical and intellectual capacities to confront the disguised Goliath. Before undertaking the charge of the light brigade, we need to restore the dust-covered self-esteem, recharge the wobbling physical and intellectual calibers, and resurrect the sleeping giant inside us.

We can be either a David or a Goliath or vice versa physically or intellectually and the decision lies within us (or empowered US). (Note 2)

Note 1: Menenius Agrippa was a Roman politician who died about 500 B.C. He believed that people can reach their ultimate potential by working together through cooperation and collaboration, joint agreement between commanders and common people, supervisors and supervisees, in pursuing common objectives. His basic teaching can be translated into “WE: SUCCESS FACTORS FOR US: RISK-FIRE BRIGADE.”

Note 2: David (大偉) in Chinese means grand (大) and magnificence (偉). 偉大, in a reverse order of the name, David (大偉), means Giant (偉大). Giant is how we described people like Dr. Sun Yat Sun or Dr. Benjamin Franklin that type of the giants, not the giant monsters portrayed in Jack and the Bean Stalk or any movie.