Be A Maverick — Live by Your Own Success Scorecard

“What will four people think?” How many times in your childhood did you hear that phrase? And how often did it make you feel you were just not good enough?

The meaning and definition of success is defined for most of us from early childhood by what others might think – what I call the Others Score Card or OSC. From our youngest days, our parents, our teachers, our caretakers, elders and others figures of authority teach us to live by yardsticks set by others. Your success is often measured not by how good you are but by how much better you are than someone else. Whether it is how well you are doing at school or whether you should choose the science or arts stream or study in the USA or UK or some other country — we learn early that we need to measure up to other people’s standards.

The teacher berates you for work not well done: I’ve never seen a student as hopeless as you. You’re at the bottom of the class, everyone else is better than you. At this rate, you will also be at the bottom of life. In this case, ‘everyone else’ is your benchmark.

At home, there is more to come from parents who think you’re a disgrace to the family. How could you do so badly? You only got 62% in maths — and he got 92%. He is so brilliant, he must be making his parents so proud. And you — no good at anything. You’ll never be as good as him — but at least try for 80% next time. Your benchmark is that boy who does better than you.

In selecting the course of your career, it seems you must compete with your neighbour’s son. Look at our neighbor’s son — he’s taken science, with such high marks! He’ll get into MIT and win a Nobel prize. You must take science too or you’ll end up as an accountant. What would four people say if you end up as a — poet???

It always come down to the same phrase: What would four people say? Different cultures use different phrases, but they all mean the same thing: live by someone else’s scorecard. The “four people” represent “others” — or society at large, or neighbors or friends.

We never learn as children to create big vision and mission statements for ourselves. No one tells us that wealth is only 10% of the game, or that heath, relationship and inner fulfillment play a vital and significant role in life success.

For many, real life feels like the very opposite of what we were told to expect in school and college. We do not learn that in networking there is power or that the people you know and the things you are passionate about have more power to shape your life than mere academic report cards. A so-called genius may become a failure in life, while a student everyone considered merely average might prosper because he had the vision, mission, determination, and habits to make the most of changing opportunities in a changing world, and thus make his own dreams come true.

Parents do play a great and nurturing role but you should remember that they too were shaped — and often limited — by what they were taught in their own childhoods in a world dramatically different from yours. Their lessons, which might have been relevant to them in their times, perhaps would not serve you equally well. Perhaps you, as an individual in your own time and space, must find your own answers, set your own benchmarks and discover your own passions and ambitions.

The importance of your Success Score Card

It’s a simple rule, impossible to misinterpret — measure your successes from your point of view, not someone else’s. Become the person you want to be, not what someone else — whether parents, teachers, relatives or ‘four people’ — expects you to be. When you measure your success by your intuition and from your perspective, that is when you are the proud owner of your own Success Score Card.

It is worth spending a few moments to understand why others even bother to judge you. When you life is guided by your Vision and Mission and a step-by-step action plan driven by your chosen Values you will doubtless draw the love, admiration and appreciation of many. Equally, you will draw the criticism, envy and jealousy of others. One will show up as praise but the other will come to you as criticism.

Let us say your life is looking good — you have optimized your health; your professional career is galloping along or your business is expanding; you have a lovely house, your dream car, a library of books and you are deeply involved in social activities that help others.

Now you may see a strange thing happen — people you thought of as friends, colleagues, partners, neighbours, relatives and so on, start getting jealous of you, perhaps to the point of openly disliking you. Some spread rumours about you, ignore you or try to take advantage of you by exploring your success.

I vividly remember a valuable life lesson from my grandmother —”The tree that bears fruit will be stoned.” She referred to the fact that children throw stones up at trees to bring down the ripe fruits and enjoy them.

The more successful you become, the more you will find yourself at the receiving end of criticism, some well-intended and justified but others plain malicious. Success brings rewards but it also makes you a target.

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire and founder of Amazon says, knows all about this. Recently, the owner of a gossip tabloid tried to blackmail him for millions by threatening to publish ‘personal’ photographs that had passed between him and his soon-to-be second wife. Bezos refused to be intimidated; he made details of the blackmail attempt public and took the tabloid publisher to court.

“If you absolutely can’t tolerate critics, then don’t do anything new or interesting,” says Bezos. “But If you are doing anything interesting in the world, you’re going to have critics. You are going to be misunderstood. The best defence to speech that you don’t like about yourself as a public figure is to develop a thick skin”

Look around and verify this for yourself. From presidents, billionaires and reformers to scientists, celebrity writers and orators – each has found his way to handle both praise and criticism.

How did they do it?

By building their own Success Score Card.

“Your own Success Score Card helps you to develop a thick skin, and that brings emotional stability and fulfillment to your life,” says motivational speaker Dibyasingh Ray.

Insights on your own Success Score Card

When your perception of your own success is in perfect alignment with your Vision, Mission and Values, your thinking cannot be influenced by others. Although you listen carefully to praise and criticism alike, you will evaluate each against known facts as well as your own Vision, Mission and Values, and finally mark yourself using your own Success Score Card. If some call you a maverick, take it as a compliment — a maverick is a wild horse that is very hard to subjugate or bring under control because it is independent and in a sense ‘wild’.

When I say that having your own Success Score Card will help you develop a thick skin, it is a measure of becoming emotionally stronger, more grounded and secure. It also points to calmness of mind. These traits in themselves are strong magnets for success.

Updating your Success Score Card

Your Success Score Card is a living and evolving concept. You will update it throughout your life in complete lock-step with your own growth and success. Let us understand this through some examples.

Example 1

You have always been passionate about literature, history and political science but weak in maths, physics and chemistry. Your parents want you to become a charted accountant while some others want you to become a doctor. You went along with your parents’ wishes and pursued commerce. Now let’s analyse this first using the OSC and then your own Success Score Card.

Others Score Card

Your Success Score Card

You can see that when you look at it from both sides, without letting external influences and emotional pressures cloud your thinking, your Success Score Card wins over Others Score Card — by a wide margin. Following Others’ Score Card will eventually give you a negative 5 score; following your own will give you a positive 26. And yet, because we are not all creatures of just logic, we get manipulated into acting against our own best interests through following someone else’s benchmarks. The tables show you what your intuition already knows — journalism would be a better choice for you.

Let’s look at a second example.

Example 2

Others Score Card

You want to be a Member of Parliament one day, serve society and work towards empowering individuals. But the authority figures around you want you to become a doctor and build a hospital for serving poor people who can’t afford high fees.

Your Success Score Card

Becoming an MP sounds great but how good am I at withstanding strong criticism? I am a people-pleaser, and need lots of praise and respect but not much tension. I am also an introvert and with low networking skills. Would I be able to change by personality to survive as an MP?

It does look like going by Others Score Card gives you a better score here than going by your own Success Score Card. Did we miss anything? It seems we did. In your heart or hearts you want to be an MP — when you think of that life, you know it is where your passion is, where your energies will be at their greatest, where you will blossom. You know that you will be empowered as an MP and that no challenge will be too big.

So let’s try that Success Score Card again.

The above example shows us the value of a perspective that takes feelings and instinct into account and not just facts. Let your intuition challenge your own Success Score Card — and go join politics. Trust that with time, you will become inured to critics and start being more of a maverick.

Be a maverick

Some criticism is good and improves you, while others are there to distract you and take you down. Develop a thick skin and be a maverick, and fend off and ignore criticism from ill-wishers — but do not ever, ever switch off listening to critical remarks, for you can never tell when a nugget will come along. Welcome criticism from well-wishers, and learn to ignore and discard all other distractions.

This is how you will transform yourself into a maverick. The day you handle criticism without feeling the urge to strike back or take revenge, the day you effortlessly ignore the naysayers —that is the day you will feel more fulfilled and happy — because then you will be living by your own Success Score Card.