The 3Rs: Strange Secret of Success Part 3

Make your brain work. It will sweat, but make it work. It will improve. It will develop until you become a wonder to those around you.
E. W Kenyon

The secret of success that we’ll discuss in this article is widely known but often ignored. Actually, they are three secrets: READING, RESEARCH, REFERENCE.

READING

God told Joshua that the road to success is reading, meditating and acting on the knowledge acquired from the Book of the law – Joshua 1:8. So, reading is essential if you aspire to get to the peak.

A good thing about reading is that the more you read, the more you understand that there’s still so much to know; it instils some form of humility in you.

You are the same person you were 5 years ago except for the books you read and the company you keep. My best friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.
Abraham Lincoln.

There is a good chance that the solution to that problem is in one of the books you haven’t read. That book might even be on your bookshelf, in a library close to you, with a friend or in a bookshop close to you. Or it’s an article on this blog that you haven’t read. It could be teaching lying waste on your DVD rack. There is no mountain, every man’s ignorance is his mountain.

Money and time spent on books and reading are some of the greatest investments you can ever make on yourself and your generation. That’s why I’d rather buy books than the latest wears and unimportant devices. Leaders are readers and the readers of today will become the leaders of tomorrow.

What you don’t know you can’t enjoy and what you don’t see you can’t become. Knowledge is a form of power because the more you know a thing, the more authority you command in that field. You can’t claim to be an authority on a thing you know little or nothing about.

Just as an apple a day keeps the doctor away, so does a book a day keep ignorance away.
cabiojinia

So, be thirsty for knowledge. Read the Bible, autobiographies, books on money management, personal development/growth books, articles on the economy, history etc. I purposely added books on money management because that’s one of the most important books to read if you intend to build wealth. You don’t grow rich to manage money, you manage money to grow rich.

Let me close this section with the following scriptural verses:

Till I come, give yourself to reading, exhortation and doctrine. (1Tim. 4:13)
My people have gone into captivity because they do not know. (Isaiah 5:13)
Daniel knew that the time was up through books, by reading. (Daniel 9:2)
Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times (Isaiah 33:6)
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. (Hosea 4: 6)
By wisdom a house is built and by understanding it is established; through knowledge, its rooms are filled with every precious and beautiful treasure. (Proverbs 24: 3- 4)

RESEARCH

By research, I mean narrowing your reading to a specific subject matter; digging deep to understand everything surrounding a field of learning. Researching your area of specialization is very essential if you want to attain success.

The more enlightened you are on a given field of endeavour, the more authority you’ll command there. It’s no surprise then that some people are called experts because they know enough of that material.

To be informed is to be transformed. To be uninformed is to be deformed.
Pastor Oyedepo

While it’s good to try your hands on several things, it’s best to focus your attention on a few and be good at them. When you’ve mastered an area, you can shoot out your tentacles to other areas. If you spread yourself so thin, you’ll hardly make an impact on any field.

You must purchase materials, take courses, attend conferences to make up for your deficiencies in areas of interest. Constantly update yourself on the new methods available; you can’t come up with a new solution if you don’t know the old solutions that are out there.

REFERENCE (MENTOR)

Mentorship is one of the most ignored secrets to success. Learning from someone who has done what you intend to do is fundamental.

The Bible says that wisdom is the principal thing; therefore, get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. (Proverbs 4:7).
One easy source of getting wisdom is through a mentor. You can indeed get wisdom by learning from your mistakes, but it’s a lot quicker if you can learn from the mistakes of others and avoid them.

A mentor downloads his several years of experience on you. It’s really your short path to success.

Mentors can also keep you in check, encouraging you during the windy and rainy days.

While it’s advisable to have a mentor in your field, you can also find mentors outside your field that inspire you.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a mentor within your reach, contact them and see a way of working with them. If not, endeavour to get their books, listen to their tapes, watch their videos to build yourself. You’ll learn decades of experience in a very short amount of time.

One mistake some people make is to only ask for handouts from their mentors. Instead, you should desire to know how they started, their failures, what they did wrong and what they’d have done differently. A lot of successful people are very willing to talk when you’re really close to them. So, ask the right questions.