Lead an Ethical and Successful Life!

Well most of us want to be successful and there is a general misconception that to be successful you have to be ruthless and walk over other people, but this does not have to be the case and indeed this can be counterproductive. Firstly even the most greedy money making type of individual, has to learn to delay gratification, in order to be a success. So say you don’t give a damn about being a good person you just want success, well even if this is the case you have to at the very least work on developing diligence and patience in order to make a success of anything.

If we take this up a gear, what about the really successful person say a billionaire? What delineates a billionaire from a regular millionaire?

The difference is again in delayed gratification. Billionaires invest multi-generationally. They invest for their grandkids and not themselves. For example if a billionaire invests $50 million dollars into a cruise liner, how long do you think it is before the ship pays for it? Probably 25 years or more. If said billionaire is 60 years of age he is looking at a return in his investment maturing when he is in his 80’s, his kids are in their 50’s and his grand kids are in their 20’s and 30’s! So the billionaire has to have a fair degree of character development, in order to do this!

Looking back at everyday success, why should the everyday ambitious person want to be a person of good character?

Well purely from a point of view of early success some character development is needed as listed above. But also is wealth enough, what about other aspects of success. Aspects such as being at peace with yourself; maintaining meaningful and fulfilling relationships; having self-appreciation and gratitude for life in general; finding meaning in life other than simple acquisition; being a “deep person” and so on!

To achieve these types of intrapersonal and interpersonal success does require character development. The wealthiest man in the world might indeed have great diligence and patience but is he satisfied? Does he feel connected to other members of the human race, as if every person on the planet was their brother or their sister? Are they comfortable in their skin? Are they at peace with their life and their impending death?

In my opinion unless he or she can tick each of these boxes, in some way their life is lacking and impoverished.

So this is where ethics really come into play. Yes some degree of character development is needed in order to make money but to be a fulfilled and fully rounded human being we have to be an ethical person, because each of these 7 virtues (chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility) noted above are stepping stones towards becoming a mature and contented human being!