Worldview Essay: The Success Journey

The Success Journey: The Road Less Traveled

Introduction

Success is overrated. Chasing success is like going after a mirage. It is not what it seems. The striving for success creates nothing but stress and anxiety. It doesn’t satisfy or bring fulfillment. Instead of filling the void, you feel empty and want more success. Success is not a destination, it is a journey. Focus on the journey and success will take care of itself. The nature of your success journey is shaped by the worldview of how you see yourself and the world around you. Bring along with you the spirit of adventure, self-discovery, and risk taking and you will have an exciting journey. Don’t follow the crowd. Go with the beat of a different drummer. It’s your unique journey that determines your true success

1. The road to success

The road to success has few travelers. You have to be very single-minded and focus on the journey. It is a lonely journey as even your family or closest friends may not be willing to accompany you. Yet it’s a rewarding journey filled with serendipity. An evolving journey over time, the road to success is not a straight path and you will encounter pleasant or unpleasant surprises. Don’t get overexcited about apparent success or depressed over temporary setbacks or failures. What looks like success to others is not necessarily your destiny. Enjoy your journey as you discover success unexpectedly, learn valuable lessons, and grow along the way. When I began my journey, I did not now know what success looked like. I wanted to be somebody and thought education would get me there. The start of your journey can be quite nebulous. Trust the journey and success will take care of itself.

2. Dare to be different

Don’t worry if you are different from others. Whether it’s ethnicity, gender, upbringing, personality, or personal background, dare to be different. Go where there is no road and blaze a trail. Leverage what is different about you and turn it into a unique, one of its kind success story. When you are different from others, you see things others don’t. Great discoveries and inventions in history came from people who were very different from others. Don’t let people around tell you’re ahead of the time or you’re not up to it. They don’t know your destiny and who you are meant to be. The journey of a trailblazer can only be traveled alone. If you see something others don’t see, you may have found your niche. If you persist on this success journey, you help create the future in your field. I was told that I was ahead of the time. But I kept at it and landed a dream job in the new field. What I learned in a less common journey propelled me further in the field.

3. Follow your passion

You might not know your specific passion early in the success journey. Not to worry as it will come in due time. In the meantime do your best in whatever you do. When you find your passion, follow it with all your heart. Don’t settle. Don’t compromise. Don’t chase after success trappings: money, power, or status. Follow your passion and success will take care of itself. It’s fascinating to see you attract success when you focus on your passion. It takes a lot of tinkering, practicing, learning, and growing in your passionate field. Some think you need to spend 10,000 hours honing on your passion. It’s not a number. It’s what keeps you awake consistently doing what you love. I was fortunate to stumble upon a passion that led to a profession. It took me several years of tinkering and practicing my new craft before getting a break.

4. Step out of your comfort zone

You never arrive on this success journey. It’s a repetitive cycle of stepping out of your comfort zone. If you hit a plateau, you know it’s time to go through the cycle again. Keep your options open or you’ll get stuck in your comfort zone. Don’t overstay in your current job. Nothing grows in the comfort zone. Go somewhere else where you are challenged, learn more, and gain more experience. Do something you have never done before. It will energize your success journey. Reinvent yourself every few years and you may discover a new twist that brings more fulfillment. Every three years I review my direction in life if I need to make a change. If I have reached a plateau, I either reinvent myself or go someplace where I can grow more. You need to keep an eye on other opportunities so that you don’t need to scramble when you need to make a change.

5. Success is not the destination

No matter how wonderful a job is, it’s still a job. The same goes for a great place. It’s not the job or the place. It’s the person you bring along on your success journey. A dream job or place could become a plateau if you stay stagnant. Where there’s no circulation, water stagnates and begins to stink. The same thing goes with success trappings like money, position, and status. Don’t let them trap you or define you. They are resources and tools to help you execute your roles and responsibilities. That’s why some great leaders succeed despite the lack of position or title. Success for them is not the destination. Their success journey continues indefinitely and their legacy reaches beyond them. However, if your destination becomes your focus, you lose sight of the difference a great journey makes. You get sucked into striving for more success and stop savoring the moments. I have learned to let go of attachments, let things be, and let things come. It’s amazing when your journey becomes the destination.

6. Take the road less traveled and make a bigger difference

Taking the road less traveled is refreshing and enlightening. You may rekindle a spirit of self-discovery and exploration. Besides benefits to yourself, the worldview of the road less traveled also includes the opportunities of contributing to others’ well being. Along the way, you may discover underserved or neglected areas that need someone just like you. While the crowded highways attract the usual strivers for success, you take the road less traveled for an amazing journey of making a bigger difference. Every road was once a road less traveled. You may have another road less traveled down the road than the one you are currently on. Don’t hesitate to take it as you continue your legacy of making a bigger difference. Sometimes you may not even see a road and yet you make a leap and blaze a trail. As you look back, you will find great satisfaction and fulfillment along your success journey. Success is not satisfying until it makes the world a better place. I have discovered the most gratifying moments come from the people you help transformed. No awards or rewards could come close.

Conclusion

Success is a journey that never arrives. Embrace the road less traveled, leverage your unique differences, follow your passion, step out of your comfort zone, and lose yourself in the service of others. Seek an amazing journey and success will follow you. Let the worldview of the road less traveled be your guide.

Worldview Essay: The Leadership Journey

The Leadership Journey: The Effortless Way

Introduction

Your worldview affects your leadership journey. How you see yourself, others around you, and society shapes your leadership journey. Since everything and everyone, including you, changes over time, your leadership journey will have twists and turns. Sometimes you will experience detours or feeling lost along the way. Be open to learning opportunities and guidance either through personal mentors or reading. Experiment whenever possible and see what works for you. Over time, you will become comfortable in your leadership path as you rub shoulders with the people you work with. Don’t force it. Let it come to you. The journey is the destination.

1. The Bulldozer Worldview. “You’ve just bulldozed everyone!” The faculty sponsor of the Student Association described appropriately my student leadership style. It was my worldview regarding leadership and there were many examples in the world of business, government, and nonprofit organizations. That’s how things get done. The top-down approach seems logical, effective, and efficient. The hierarchy in most organizations or institutions confirms it. The journey of leadership starts with a worldview that you are exposed to since young. Your parents, teachers, and mentors model for you a leadership worldview in how they act, say, and teach. You are a sum of their worldview and that’s where your journey begins.

2. The Silence Experiment. One of my mentors started a seismic shift in my leadership journey. A white American professor, he introduced and acquainted me, an Easterner, with the Chinese worldview. I was a product of the British-oriented educational system and totally unfamiliar with my Chinese roots. Fluent in both written and spoken Chinese, he impacted me significantly with his depth of understanding of Chinese philosophy and how it could be used to frame the Christian message. As I continued the quest, I stumbled upon the Chinese worldview of silence as presented in the ancient Taoist texts: “Act without doing anything… teach without saying anything”. That’s profound! I experimented with silence when I started my first job. For seven months I didn’t say a word at meetings. It worked! People around me often looked to me for a few words of wisdom. It became the foundation of the effortless leadership journey. The only caveat is that it’s difficult to practice consistently in the home environment.

3. One-On-One. In 1997, I landed a fascinating job in Minnesota and the primary responsibility was to implement faculty adoption of laptop teaching. Since it was the world’s first laptop university, I was freed to choose the most “innovative” approach: one-on-one. I met with each faculty and became acquainted with their struggles, challenges, and needs. Taking 5 years, it turned out to be the best “conversion” system as faculty came on board one at a time. You make people feel important when you are willing to invest time one-on-one with them. The trust relationships you build with them over time become the unexpected political capital of an effortless leader. As you flow with them and meet their individual needs, they in turn flow with you. They will work for you because they have learned to trust you and back you up voluntarily. It’s fascinating that you will not encounter open opposition due to the one-on-one trust relationships. It makes your leadership easy and more enjoyable.

4. Control. The effortless journey led me to the discovery that the ultimate control was not to control others. The best way to control others is to let them control themselves. Give them the freedom, authority, and time to make things happen. As a leader, your role is to provide the resources, training, and conducive environment toward the desirable outcomes. Have no agenda when you meet with them one-on-one. Listen to them and meet their needs. Over time it will arouse their inner push. It’s important you give them full latitude and time to move toward the desirable results. It’s best achieved when what they do aligns with their own best interests. It’s okay when they think they have done it all by themselves. It doesn’t matter who gets the credit for success. In my role, I never talked about technology whenever I met with them one-on-one unless they brought it up. It’s fascinating that they usually ended up with technology. So, there’s no need for me to set the agenda. Let them drive it and it has worked like a charm.

5. Quiet and Gentle. “He is a good Daoist administrator!” A religion faculty introduced me to visitors on campus. Known for his world religion class, he had a deep understanding of Daoist philosophy. “You often don’t see him but yet you know he is behind all these” he continued with the guests. Prominent in Daoism, the philosophy of water has plenty to teach us about leadership. The quiet and gentle flow is the force behind the natural wonders of the world. When you are quiet and get out of the way, you allow others to do their work and let them shine. It’s fascinating that most people like to follow such a leader. When you are gentle with others, they remember how you treat them even though they may not recall what happened. They are often glad to follow your lead because of how you handle them. You don’t need to be forceful to be strong. Gentleness is great strength and goes a long way in purposeful leadership. It doesn’t require much effort to be a quiet and gentle leader. I found it particularly effective in leading technology in higher education.

6. The Effortless Way and Letting Things Happen. Effortless action is action. It’s taking action at the right time and going with the flow rather than against it. It includes knowing when not to take action and letting nature take its course. Letting things happen is fascinating to watch. The best solutions often come when you don’t interfere with the natural order of things. I recently experimented with the philosophy of letting things happen rather than making things happen at a new remote job I picked up during the tail end of the pandemic. It’s been so fascinating to watch how more things got done than in my previous jobs. More importantly, they were done way better than I imagined. Even though I have to step in several times, it was quite effortless because of the timing and flowing with others who made it happen. The actions I took didn’t interfere with the process. Trust the process and the outcome will take care of itself. Be a team member in the Effortless Way and your leadership journey will become truly effortless.

Conclusion

The leadership journey from a top-down “bulldozing” worldview to a quiet, gentle, and effortless worldview took several decades. Although there were hiccups, second-guessing, and detours, it was an upward-growing experience like the rise of the stock market over a long period. The leadership worldview journey is the result of years of learning, experimenting, observing, trusting the process, and believing in people. It not only made my leadership role easier but also much more enjoyable and fulfilling.