Attributes of Success – 1: Creator
Few posts earlier I have written a piece on - contribution being a virtue and a cornerstone in the edifice of success. Being creator is an attitude. See within yourself, ask a question and introspect and find out, if you are just a consumer or a creator. Creator of any resource that you consume, it could be material like wealth and job or could be intangible like thoughts and ideas. I said it’s an attitude; attitude is like a seed that just needs fertile ground to germinate and grow. You may not be a creator at this very moment, but if you have an attitude of being a creator you shall certainly be part of the elite club of creators. If you believe in scarcity and a fixed number of resources, you will focus on distributing the limited wealth among society fairly. You will not focus on creation because what currently exists is all there will ever be. Instead of trying to develop a way to divide the current pie, we should focus on creating a new pie big enough for all to share. People who consume more than they create are the only cause of depleting resources and diminishing economics. God has given humans the unique ability to create resources rather than simply use resources. As a student you use resources, you use financial resources of your parents or of your own, you use academic resources of your faculties, you use infrastructural resources of your college. Using all these resources you are creating a professional you, a more competent you; who shall go out to the society and create resources for others. You will utilize the knowledge that you acquired from your college, for any business or a corporation, which will use your knowledge and competencies to create some product or service, and contribute to the economy. This is the simple contributor model; you are contributing to a bigger machine to create resource. You are like a very significant component of that machine, that’s very good, but now if you have creator attitude seed sown inside you, you would like to evolve further from just being a component of the machine to become a machine yourself which will use other significant components like yourself. You will create jobs for others, you will become an entrepreneur. You will become a wealth creator. There are two kinds of people in the world, the one with poverty consciousness and the other with rich consciousness. The poverty conscious believe that resources are limited and one has to grab, usurp, snatch and steal, and if someone is having more, it must be from someone else’s share. On the contrary, rich conscious people believe there are enough resources for everyone, particularly because resources can be created at will with effort and right application of body and mind. They see life and opportunity in scarcity, whereas the other lot sees death and calamity in scarcity. The rich conscious people understand that they can create wealth; they also understand that as they create wealth, they are improving the lives of people; they are giving back to the society – not just taking from it. They consider it as payback time, they build institutions, colleges, factories, open shops, provide services. It has got nothing to do with the size of business or quantum of money generated. Any positive number bigger than zero is good, any something is better than nothing, they have moved from just being consumers to being creators. They have joined the elite club. The poor consciousness gave us the concept of reservation, the concept of limited jobs; need to be reserved for people, irrespective of their abilities, competencies or proficiencies. This short sighted concept of the poor conscious political class has only created irresponsible consumers who believe that they are not obliged to produce; they are not obliged to create. They believed in redistribution rather than creation. This short sighted thought created a race backwards, because being backward entitled you to freebies and doles, it entitled you to benefits without being deserving or competent. It was a system created by incompetent politicians to create an incompetent nation. India must be the only country, where certain sections of people are fighting to be called backward, and have an adjective “backward” attached to them, which any self-respecting human being would hate being attached to. Empowering people to create resource and job for themselves and the economy is rich consciousness or abundance mentality. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mudra Yojna is an attempt to find the people having seeds of creativity in them. Give them fertile land by providing them enough financial resources and the seeds of creativity will germinate, bloom and grow and also help the society and its people. They will become the creators. Rich conscious poor and less educated person would create business; which could be a tea stall or now famous pakoda stall and generate resources and give employment, where as poor conscious IIT graduates catapulted to IITs would ultimately go back to their position of being parasites and create political parties to infect others with their parasitic virus. The more we develop an abundance mentality, the more we love to share power and profit and recognition, and the more we are genuinely happy for the successes, well-being, achievements, recognition, and good fortune of other people. Think about any big factory, for example a car manufacturing factory, which is using the products and services from many ancillary units to create its product, it would certainly want its ancillary units to operate in profit and prosper, because their prosperity is interrelated and mutually inclusive. Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart said – “The more you share profits with your associates – whether it’s in salaries or incentives or bonuses or stock discounts – the more profit will accrue to the company” Further, I would quote Abraham Lincoln, in honor of diligence and creation – “…Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself” It is interesting to note how rich consciousness forms your attitude, Abraham Lincoln and Narendra Modi they lived a century apart but both had rich consciousness or abundance mentality, which kept them positive, inclusive and creative despite being poor in their earlier days. They also prove another point that richness and abundance stays in mind and you can create what you really wish at will, provided you have enough grit, determination and will to work diligently unless you achieve your objective. Stay active, stay creative, have great future and fortune.