It’s difficult to give generalized advice regarding success, as everyone has different genetics and cultural backgrounds, as well as individual goals and objectives they wish to fulfill. Not only does the word “success” mean something different to every person, the method by which they reach that success is highly variable. Thus, attempting to give advice about it is like trying to solve an equation with two unknown variables.
In order to reduce this complexity, we can try a thought experiment. Imagine that 1000 copies of you were born on the same day as you all over the world. They each had their own families, cultures, countries and circumstances. What common experiences and choices would the self-described successful ones have made? In other words, what advice remains applicable to yourself in spite of differences in your material conditions or culture?
Self-Education
Among the successful, I believe you would see a near universal theme of self-education: the ability for a person to seek out unknown information and find a way to teach themselves it. There’s many valid and effective forms of self education, such as mentorship, apprenticeship, instructional video, or books.
Books are probably a good place to start. They are relatively accessible, and once you have a book, you do not need anyone’s permission to begin reading it. They have proven themselves to be a robust method of transporting information across physical and temporal borders. Thus, seeking out and reading books immediately enables you the potential to transcend your own mental conditions: both the fading fashions that come with every generation, as well as the blind spots given to you by your family or country.
As opposed to a previous epoch, the language you were born into was probably a huge limiting factor. I don’t believe this to be the case anymore, as 1) translation tools exist, 2) language teaching and general bilingualism has been spread over the world, and 3) there’s probably not enough important books in your language for a missing translation to be a genuine roadblock in your self-education.
And, this is all imaginary. If you’re reading this, you can already read English, and you already have access to digital media. There’s nearly three times as many native speakers of Mandarin than there are English. Should you blame Mandarin for your education failures? No, the thing holding you back from self-education is yourself.
Meditation
The second routine habit would be the practice of meditation. Mindfulness meditation can be performed by any person, at any time, anywhere. Other than time and conscious attention, meditation does not require anything. Such attention may be more or less difficult to cultivate; I imagine a rural-born life would offer greater tranquility and opportunity for deep focus than a bustling, industrial one.
However, meditation is still free, accessible, and has potential to improve your life by
1) making you more mindful in your day to day, therefore allowing for greater clarity in both what you consider success, and the means to of achievement, and
2) reducing your anxiety and stress levels.
Thus, due to the barrierless entry to meditation, and the physical and mental health benefits, some form of it would likely routinely appear in the lives of the successful.
Labor with Growth
The third pattern would be the cultivation of assets. This refers to work that builds on itself, labor that gains in momentum as more of it is performed or completed. For work to become self-supporting, and therefore growth larger than yourself, it cannot require your individual attention forever.
Several forms of self-sustaining labor exist, the most ancient of which is farming. More modern forms might include:
Code. It may be nearly infinitely replicated for cheap, and function autonomously once written.
Digital or traditional media: Videos, movies, articles, blogs, podcasts, or musical records don’t require your physical presence after their creation to propagate and grow once created.
Financial investments. Stocks, real estate, landowning, factory management, or machine ownership.
Another example, and second oldest only to farming, would be the management of other people. If you can successfully train other people to do work on your behalf, that is a very valid form of labor with growth.
Human Connection
I named the human management separate from the other forms of labor with growth, as it becomes a slippery slope towards an abuse, greedy relationship. The same goes for certain financial investments, like choosing to become a landlord. This fourth section will speak of success. The fourth pattern you would find in the lives of the successful is an element of human connection.
That is: did you connect with other people? Did you help people become better versions of themselves? Did you alleviate their suffering? Did you more often repair or harm? Did you spread more warmth or frigidity? Did they feel safe with you? Did you help them, or only let them help you? Did you enable people to discover a new aspect of themselves? Did you enable others to growth in ways they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise? Or did you block them?
You could maximize your monetary success, or focus all your energy on your self-education, but if you are not utilizing your powers to connect with people or to improve their lives… your life was not successful. You caused harm.
Conclusion
Beyond this, I find it difficult to name anything specific. Can you think of anything else? What would you, for example, recommend to your North Korean counterpart? To clean his bedroom every morning?
While researching for this project, it became clear that the best thing you could do to raise your chances for success was… to not be born in sub-Saharan Africa. But, remember, there are no 1000 yous. No one who is reading this was born there. You are reading this on a digital device, you speak English, and, relative to the world’s poverty, you live as a king amongst kings.
Take this as a starting point, and analyze your present situation a little more closely. There is great abundance everywhere you look, if only you’d be so confident as you accept it.