“ The Dangers and Balance of Success”

For this section, I would now like to talk about the dangers of having too many positive relationships or mastering personal growth to a point in which they are now seen as someone powerful. We all hope to gain power, preserve it and defend ourselves against powerful people who make our life miserable; but too much power can do very odd things to your head and can result in one being unhappy when self-growth’s ultimate goal is happiness.  

An example of this is the true story of Henry Hill portrayed by Ray Liotta in the iconic film “Goodfellas”. Growing up, Henry always wanted to be a gangster. He worked very hard to advance himself through the ranks and with his friends: Jimmy and Tommy, he began to climb from being a petty criminal to a gangster on the mean streets of New York. He enjoyed a life of money and luxury but a drug addiction and a few mistakes caused his downfall.

This film de-glamorizes gangsters as they are always seen as cool and calculated characters when they are human as well. It also plays around numerous themes such as power, violence and probably the most important one,  loyalty. From the first time that Henry gets “pinched” by the cops, he keeps his mouth shut and doesn't rat anyone out. However at the end of the movie, he breaks this very rule as he rats out on his buddies by taking a deal with the FBI as an informant which makes the “Goodfella” moniker quite ironic. 

Henry Hill’s story taught me so much about gaining too much power and learning to balance it. It also goes back to the lessons I was discussing prior, Henry would reach his highest form of personal growth as he has already achieved his dream of becoming a gangster, he would also gain numerous relationships in the process. The problem, however, was that he was unhappy: he got addicted to the lifestyle, he would move from girlfriend to girlfriend and smuggle all the drugs he wanted, we saw his transformation from an innocent and promising teenager to a complete mad man.  Up to this day, Henry Hill regrets most of his actions which teaches us that it’s really up to us if we want to make our dreams just dreams or we can turn it into a complete nightmare. 

Another example would be another true story, it is the rise and fall of the cell phone company Nokia. In 1998, Nokia became the best selling mobile phone brand in the world but by 2013, it was acquired by Microsoft and eventually went bankrupt. So how did this happen? well it was actually pretty simple as once Nokia reached the top, their arrogant top-level managers thought their goal was now completed. They no longer had any vision in place for the future, they failed to adapt once other companies started releasing new cell phones like when Apple first introduced the iPhone in 2007. It was a toxic work environment as Nokia suffered from “organizational fear” a culture of temperamental leaders and frightened middle managers. The middle management was scared of telling the truth because they feared being fired while top executives were afraid of losing investors, suppliers and customers if they acknowledged their technological inferiority to Apple, and instead of allocating resources to the achievement of long-term goals such as developing a new operating system, Nokia management decided to develop new phone devices for short-term market demands.

The story of “Nokia” taught me that no matter how powerful you become, you will still need to adapt to your environment: change is necessary and if you are stubborn, you will be destroyed. When it was just about the phones, Nokia was king of the hill. They had been at the cutting edge of cell phone designs since they first appeared on the market. Nokia was leading innovation in terms of the look and design of the product. They were the ones who introduced a wide variety of colours and styles. Beyond that, they pioneered 3G and LTE technology. With smartphones, the game changed where it was no longer about the phone but rather what could you do on the phone. The lesson here is that if you operate believing what made you successful yesterday will keep you on top tomorrow, you are in for a rude awakening. Nokia was offered to come on board as part of the Android group of phones. They passed, believing the move was beneath them. Had they not passed it’s very likely that they, and not Samsung, would have merged as the leader of the Android group. This connects to our personal and professional lives as we cannot think the same way our whole life, Diversify yourself. Don't have a single personality and instead, adjust with all kinds of people. Nobody needs the old you, keep on improving and redesign yourself from time to time. Thinking the same way for a long period of time will make us predictable, imagine playing against someone in chess and they do the same moves all the time, they may win at the start but once you start to understand what they’re doing, you will be able to counter it which gives them a weakness. You need to have new ideas and a vision as time goes on, as the world is forever changing. It goes back to my point earlier that “change is inevitable”, we need to remain open minded as life can hit us hard anytime, nothing is permanent. Our power, wealth, and capabilities could be destroyed any day so we must always be prepared. 

If you are too successful, you may have the feeling that nothing can go wrong. There’s nothing more dangerous than that feeling. The truth is: if you’re successful, it’s great. It means you have the means to invest, to change, to adapt. If you’re willing to start the transformation while you’re successful, it’s the perfect moment to do so. Google is probably the best example of a company that is really successful with search, but which has been re-inventing itself for years. It’s the paradox of success: success can make you a bit blind, but if it doesn’t, and if you’re open to change while being successful, you are ideally placed to initiate the transformation. People often prepare for failure, but rarely prepare for what they will do when they succeed. Even when we consciously want to be successful, enjoying that success can be a challenge. By following the suggestions above, you can create a framework for managing success so that you can more reliably sustain your success when it occurs. The point of this article is to remind everyone to never put our foot on the pedal, whoever you are that’s reading this, whether you’re a student, a worker or whoever: never stop the process of personal growth. Don’t stop once you’re happy or successful: as seen in these stories, our life can come crumbling down if we don’t make the right decisions and if we don’t surround ourselves with the right people.