Organizations and individuals have similarities despite all the differences that may be more apparent at times. Initiative and judgment form an integral part of organizational success. The same initiative and judgment, when organized in the right perspective, can propel individuals deeper and higher into the world of success. However, both initiative and judgment are abstractions that must be understood properly. The easiest way to understand them is through these five questions:

What forms your individuality?

What are your long-term goals and ambitions?

What values do you adopt and follow?

What are the ways you recognize success?

What lessons do you extract from your history?

The above five questions are the ones that most organizations ask themselves. Even in the financial world these questions create the basic structure for constructing long-term successes. Even successful enterprises do not stop asking these questions as the quest for success never ends. Let us take the leader and the pioneer in financial education as a case study here. BIFM conducts such an appraisal of itself periodically which is the prime reason of it being an undisputed leader in the financial education sector. To make their students market-ready for new age careers in finance, BIFM updates theory according to what the market needs, adopts the latest software being used by the industry to give extensive practical training, and follows it up with all the new-age personality-lifting sessions. Their individuality is in the content and its delivery. New age careers need new age delivery mechanisms and a set of faculty who are experts at giving all the finance-content a touch of class making their long-term goals and ambitions a credible profile! The BLB Institute of Financial Markets recognizes success by the quality of placements that they endeavor to make available for students. Thus BIFM gives all these and more to its students.

The illustrated case study in the previous paragraph gives an adequate understanding of how success can be made real through incisive questioning. The questions help us in formulating a plan. This is almost like successful cities are built. The care given to these systems simply means that we will not be creating the city of our personal dreams on the top of repeated ruins!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning remarked: “What is genius but the power of expressing a new individuality?” Your individuality is you and the day you discover it, you have found the greatest power on earth. In simpler terms, do you want to be a power #1 in the world? Then be yourself. It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. The great man or woman is the one who never steps outside his or her specialty or foolishly dissipates his or her individuality. Thus the first step to be taken is to discover what makes you different.

Long-term goals and ambitions are a matter of will power in judicious harmony with self-assessment. It is good to establish the tactical as well as the strategic perspective to this goal setting. Tactically, to will is to select a goal, determine a course of action that will bring one to that goal, and then hold to that action till the goal is reached. The key is action. From a strategic point of view, individuals must set priorities for the goals. A major part of successful living lies in the ability to put first things first. Indeed, the reason most major goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first. This is the way successful companies function and this is what individuals must learn from successful organizations like BIFM.

Successful organizations follow what Albert Einstein once said: “The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving.” For instance, BIFM gives the best financial education to its students in both theoretical as well as practical spheres. BIFM students thus become the darling of recruiters and get the best placements in the industry today. Even individuals must attempt to adopt the value system and give the profession the best quality time as well as inclination!

Recognizing success is vital as this is one aspect that sets the direction for understanding what has been done and what needs to be done. Past successes do create bench-marks for the future. And anyway, opportunity and hard-work do go hand-in-hand. As Thomas Alva Edison has aptly remarked: “Most people don’t recognize opportunity when it comes, because it’s usually dressed in overalls and looks a lot like work.” Remember, there are always opportunities through which businessmen can profit handsomely if they will only recognize and seize them. Thus, recognizing success is almost akin to begin to think with purpose. Obviously, even recognizing failure is an additional pathway to attainment!

The past is not a mere collection of fables… it is like a looking-glass helping you analyze the series of actions taken with the results that emerged! Browsing the past gives the most authentic feed-back provided you develop the ability to pick out the right moments without bias. They form the building-blocks of attitude or the way you look at the world. They also edit how you view your environment and your future. At BIFM, we keep going back into the past to identify all the ways that have succeeded and then add all contemporary wisdom to them to maximize their result-orientation for the present! Thus, your passion and dreams to make it big in the financial world are the focus we at BIFM (BLB Institute of Financial Markets) help you develop. Even as an individual you can follow this model of success and benefit from it.

The five questions given at the start of this article are vital and make it amply clear that it pays not to forget your history nor your destiny.

[Arvind Passey]
Corporate Communications – BIFM
[2008]

 

Featured image credit: StephenL