Finding Success

Speaking only for myself, I think that God has a message for me to tell and certain people that He wants to hear it. Maybe they’ll hear it by overhearing my conversation at Longhorn Steakhouse Friday night. Maybe they’ll hear it by reading it on my blog. Or maybe God will move so that I have a book published and they’ll hear it that way. Or maybe my grandchildren will hear it by reading my journals, long after I’m dead. Or maybe God will do it another way that I’ve never even dreamed of. How it happens is up to Him. I’m just obedient to do what He wants until He gets me to where He wants me. That’s the theory I’m working from anyway.

Well, if you don’t read it, I’m not so sure we can be friends anymore. That book is FASCINATING!!!

And yes, there is much to be said about being at the right place at the right time. History proves that again and again. But there’s much more to it. Buy this book. Even if you hate what it says, it’s a VERY interesting read. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go finish reading it. Because it is FASCINATING!

I don’t believe in luck or chance for one moment. Those words are lies of Hell. If I didn’t believe in blessing I’d not only quit writing fiction in a heartbeat, I’d inwardly quit on life.

God has a perfect plan for each life. If we miss it, we do so only because we’re out of step with Him.

Praise the Lord, He’s forever pulling us to be in step with Him.

“Delight yourself also in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

PS:

“My definition of success is acheiving my full potential while fully surrendering to God.” ~ Bradley Moore, @ShrinkingCamel

Interesting thoughts, Billy.

Yes, there is some luck to it… and I’d like to believe most of the people that get a break put in lots of hard work, are talented, and have had a blessing or two thrown on top (like icing on the cake)!

I just wrote and deleted about 12 comments. All awkward.

This will seem so, but is the truest; are you afraid of being able to say, why me and why not me, no matter what?

You are not alone. We all have to get comfortable and be truthful with that, no matter the ‘name’ IT has.

I say, do what you love, and do it as well as you can. If you get a break, or a blessing, then great….it is more likely that you are blessing others by doing what you love and if so, isn’t that success?

I believe we receive blessings in life.

I define success as what other people have that I don’t.

I’ve been a freelance writer for about 35 years and my stuff has not sold worth diddle-squat.

Why do I keep on writing?

I think the main point of your discussion my be covered in I Samuel 2:

The LORD killeth, and maketh alive:
He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.
The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich:
He bringeth low, and lifteth up.
He raiseth up the poor out of the dust,
and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill,
to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory:
for the pillars of the earth are the LORD’S,

Yeah, that’s it. I’m not a success because God hates me. At least I know who to blame.

But why is it that He loves Bill Gates better than me?

depends on your definition of success.

When you are smack dab in the middle of God’s will for your life – who cares about luck or being known? What will either of them get you on the day you stand before your Creator who is using everything in your life for His glory and your good?

If we start worrying about success in any earthly terms then we are giving away the greatest gift – the love of God for us. God says if you love the world, you don’t love Me. You can’t have two masters. God doesn’t care about your success or happiness – like Anne said – the only thing He cares about is your level of surrenderedness to His will for your life. Published or not. Known or not. None of us will be remembered forever Billy. Not one person. Four generations – that is all we get and if the legacy we leave behind lives longer it is because God desires it to.

Are all the years worth it of worrying about being published – if the eyes of the soul are taken off of God and an idol is made of the very gift and talent He has given us?

Blessings,
Jill

I agree with Anne. I don’t believe in luck or chance. It’s a plan. . . we may have finally stumbled onto God’s path, but He’d known all along what was about to happen. . . so it’s not chance. Might feel like it to us, cuz we’re just humans and can’t wrap our brains around HIS plan for us, but it’s a God Thing . . .

Great post today, Billy.
Have a fantastic weekend.

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Speaking only for myself, I think that God has a message for me to tell and certain people that He wants to hear it. Maybe they’ll hear it by overhearing my conversation at Longhorn Steakhouse Friday night. Maybe they’ll hear it by reading it on my blog. Or maybe God will move so that I have a book published and they’ll hear it that way. Or maybe my grandchildren will hear it by reading my journals, long after I’m dead. Or maybe God will do it another way that I’ve never even dreamed of. How it happens is up to Him. I’m just obedient to do what He wants until He gets me to where He wants me. That’s the theory I’m working from anyway.

Oh wait. Sarah already said that. Dang.

Herein lies the next issue. Has everything that can be said or thought already been written – well? I sure hope not. And so I keep typing… (even though what she wrote is what I think and breathe each and every day).

Good post!
I love Gladwell’s books .. ready to start his newest one “What the Dog Saw”
And I agree with @Katdish – you need to read Outliers.

As for luck/blessing/chance/plan … that’s one of the mysteries humans have lived with since the beginning of time and will continue to live with. And each ’side’ can find verses to use as grenades to throw out and support their viewpoint.

I can’t talk about success in writing … I’m in the middle of working my “10,000 hours.”

I’ve had success in recovering well from life-threatening injuries – was that luck/blessing/chance/plan? I thank God for my healing and the way our bodies are created that they can heal. But God didn’t force me off the couch to do my therapy above and beyond what the docs/therapists recommended – I chose to do that. If I would have chosen to sit on the couch instead of doing “What I can with what I have where I am” (Jefferson) my doctors say (and I agree) that I wouldn’t have the physical health I do today.

So maybe it’s a combo of all?

I agree with you in that I wish so much of what happens to people wasn’t just by chance. But I’m sure God designed it to be that way intentionally. I know for me, the best jobs I’ve had were ones I got because I knew someone who got me an interview. (Perhaps another way God created us to need each other? To not be so self-sufficient?)

But I also believe that there are somethings that do not happen by chance. They are a result of hard work and very specific, good, and sometimes difficult choices. Including sacrificing time to write a book and get yourself out there so people will be interested in publishing and buying your book. Being in the right place, at the right time, and knowing the right people.

Each of us has a path. Sometimes we understand, sometimes we don’t. We are not all meant to be successful at all of our dreams. God has bigger plans. His dreams, should be ours.

All I can go back to is “The LORD was with Joseph, so he became a successful man.” (Genesis 39:2)

God permits it for some, not for others, by His sovereign will and guidance.

King Solomon praised the benefits of hard work: “In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.” (Ecclesiastes 11:6)

But it is still God’s call as to whether the morning product, the evening product, both, or neither prosper. And in our finite minds, it might seem unfair. Who are we to say His withholding something we deem successful, after much hard work, isn’t for our greater well-being? Especially if it draws us closer to him? That is the greater good. (Albeit our nature makes it hard to swallow at times.)

I have listened to parts of that book on audio. Yet, I still stand by the fact, God placed Bill Gates at that point in time, in that house, next to the university, by His choosing and perfect will. Off my soapbox.

We are absolutely not on an even playing field. The Bible is packed full of examples.

King David. Joseph. Moses. Esther.

We have a cultural belief in “equality” that simply does not exist. That’s not to say that all men are loved by God and deserve our love and respect as bearer’s of His image. But the belief that we are–or even should–be “equal” is simply not a reality, and–I’m pretty sure–never will be.

While the rain falls on the just as well as the unjust, God calls certain people to do certain things… some a little “bigger” than others.

I’m no superstar, but I have seen God’s goodness getting me into things just because I “happened” to be in the right place at the right time. Sure, it’s not fair… but life isn’t fair. And often, that is very, very good for us.

~Luke

I think success is a matter of what we value. A stay-at-home mother may consider herself successful if her children are raised to adulthood and lead productive lives. Why so much emphasis on financial success, power-driven success? Considering how many times we could all have not been created in the grand scheme of things, perhaps we should consider breathing a success?

I just wonder: If Bill Gates’s chosen career had been writing, and he’d grown up next to a publishing company instead of a computer giant, would he have been published? I’m sure luck is involved to a certain extent for writers–who else could explain the success of *The Shack*–but I’ll place my faith in God, great writing, a good story and strong characters. Besides, I’ve never been particularly lucky.

I am with Michelle…

Sometimes it’s about being in the right place at the right time.

Billy, I am calling to mind a section of the book “Fearless” by Max Lucado, in which he basically says that some people live a life that is pretty easy and nice and others are plagued with suffering, and there’s really no rhyme or reason to it. I think the only way to make sense of this is to know that God is a just God and that it won’t be until the afterlife that it will all make sense. We’ll also see how suffering brought us closer to God, and we’ll be grateful that we suffered as much as we did so that we would know God. God doesn’t impose suffering on us, but He is always there to help offer grace to bring us through to the other side. Some people just have more of this than others. My dad told me as a little girl, “Nobody said life was going to be fair.” I hated that! But, alas, he was right, darn it anyway. So…we’re stuck…with the question marks that someday will become periods. The most we can do is enjoy the true blessings as they come and try to learn from the suffering.

I think our dreams are important to God. My children’s dreams are very important to me. Attaining those dreams would be success to them as they look forward to achievement. But I can see things in their dreams that they can’t (do I say anything? No–dream on my child–I look at how I can help them discover ‘learning’ and character, and if they get there, great. If not, hopefully they’ll set their eyes heavenward in their disappointment, or on their way to another dream, again I say, dream on child, but take action toward it). Because of my experiences in life I may see what they yet cannot, but if they could, would they still go for that dream? Sometimes success is in the journey, not always completely in the destination.

I’ve been asking myself lately how my dreams and God’s plans line up. Maybe my dream slides right by what God has planned, what He wants to accomplish, but thankfully He has His way, and that’s success–to me anyway (even though I may NOT like how it played out). The accomplishment of God’s dream and will–may not be what I wanted, and sometimes has actually gotten me mad at Him, but maybe the success in my dream comes somewhere in the journey to that dream.

Man, Billy, you’re always making me think, LOL.

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I belong in the camp with those still waiting for a break. I just keep asking God to keep me going … even if it means I’ll have to going until I get to see it come alive in heaven. Because for me to stop believing in that dream is to stop living. I’ve tried killing that dream once and I started dying inside. So, now, I keep roaring with excitement for people God’s chosen to gift them their breaks — especially those so deserving — like you. It keeps my heart alive to remind myself He is good.

I guess, for me, I believe that success is 95% perspiration. I also happen to believe that God takes a hand in our lives for the things we can’t do on our own. I refuse to believe that dreams and goals are matters of luck. If I want it badly enough, I’ll find a way. Some things aren’t meant to be, sure, but most of the time, I think it’s a matter of my own determination and God’s will.

This is a tough one for me too, Billy. We all say that success should not be measured by sales or “notice,” or whatever – but in our minds (mine, anyway) it’s hard NOT to think about it that way.

Perhaps I haven’t been “discovered” because the message God has given me isn’t for the sheer number of people yours is. It doesn’t make my lesson less crucial, or less important to God. Just makes it different–for a different, and perhaps more limited, audience.

Or, perhaps the world isn’t ready for my message (LOL or my message isn’t ready for the world!).

Or…perhaps it would help if I would actually QUERY AN AGENT. Ya think?

Seriously – thank you for writing this. I had never really thought about it from this perspective, and just in writing this response, I’ve gotten some new insights.

I think this little poem answers your questions quite nicely:

Birds Don’t Brag About Flying

Birds
don’t brag about flying
the way we
do.

They don’t write books about it and then give
workshops,

they don’t take on disciples and spoil
their own air
time.

Who could dance and achieve
liftoff with a bunch of
whackos tugging
on you?

~ Tukaram in Love Poems from God by Daniel Ladinsky

I think you just need a good marketing strategy.

I have a real hard time with “HIs plan” and ” His blessing” too. I don’t think God plans for this human to be successful and have a brilliant life, and plans to bless someone else with cancer/victims of natural disaster/deformity/and other unfair facts of living on this earth.

There is, on this fallen earth ruled by the prince of lies, an act of randomness, just like the rain. It rains upon both the good and the evil.

I don’t know why Bill Gates had some luck, and the old woman in Haiti got smothered in an earthquake, but I do know both were responsible for their lives and I am not sure success is what they were responsible for. . .I think they were given a life and are to Love Their Neighbor as They do themselves. . .

When God gave out the “talents” in the parable of the talents. He distributes his wealth among three servants. How did he decide which one got which amount?

I think that leaves me back where you started, Billy. Is success luck? Random? Planned by God to give this person but withhold from another? I will disagree all day with the last one )

I think God’s definition of a successful life is vastly different than ours. Just look at Jesus, for example. By this world’s success standards, Jesus lived a life of complete failure.

I also think the pursuit of success is like the pursuit of happiness — it will always elude us. If I seek to find my identity in anything apart from God’s relationship with me, I will be left empty and unsatisfied no matter how “successful” I may appear on the outside.

I’m discovering that God is more concerned with our hearts and what we love. When God wins our hearts to the point that we love Him enough to surrender to Him our dearest treasures and desires, then I think that’s what He considers success.

Everyone starts out hoping for a big break or that one idea which will put us on the map of success. But after a while, it dawned on me: who am I trying to please? My wife. My parents. My kids. A stranger down the street. This would be nice, but it pales next to pleasing the Lord. So, my goal in writing is to please Him.

If He’s the only one who reads my work, it doesn’t bother me because after all, I live to bless Him. If somehow, I happen to get published, okay; and if I don’t, that’s okay, too.

So, why did the Lord bless Billy Coffey? He just did it because He wanted to. Period. That’s good enough for me. Anything more than that is between Billy and the Lord.

First of all, I can’t believe you just quoted Outliers. I was thinking of using it for an upcoming article. Great minds…uh…stumble into the same books?

If you don’t put in the 10,000 hours, or any hours, and just hope for an opportunity without developing the skills, then you won’t be prepared if you are indeed presented with an opportunity.

So it’s critical to put in the time regardless.

Practice those scales, dribble that ball, sing those songs, write and rewrite those words.

It doesn’t guarantee you’ll get the opportunity; but it increases the likelihood you’ll be prepared, should the opportunity arise.

Hi, Billy. I don’t believe God chose to bless you with your dreams “rather than someone else who worked just as hard and wrote just as well.” I think you’re selling yourself really short. I think you worked a lot harder than you think you did. That 10,000 hours? That includes all the hours you spent as a kid, writing away, pounding out essays for English classes, honing your craft, coming up with your voice, whether you meant to do it or not. You probably had 10,000 hours logged by the time you were eleven. And all those “breaks”? You showed up; you made sure you were on time; you returned a phone call; you acted professionally. It might seem like a “break,” but really “luck” is just an opportunity. We still have to do the work to make the opportunity pan out properly. Bill Gates may have had the “luck” to live next to the computer complex, but he still had to have the guts and wherewithall to walk in the door, learn the systems, be polite to the night watchman or whatever, and make that opportunity work out for him.

I think your original belief stands — we get out of life what we work hard for.

Well this post just gets right into the center of my heart today, as I’m all crunched up inside with anxiety and insecurity and just plain exhaustion. I’ve been asking the question all day, Is this what you really what me to do, God? Speak up, please! I need a roar of thunder! I don’t know. Blessings, hard work, chance, miracles, breaks — none of it makes sense to me right now. Maybe I’m not supposed to have it all figured out. Maybe I’m not supposed to know all the answers. I sure would love a break though!

Mother Teresa says “We are called upon not to be successful but to be faithful” . This quote makes me think of what Angela said about Jesus, by the standards of this quote He was a complete success because he was utterly faithful, though by the standards of the world as Angela said He would be seen as a “failure”. Also this quote reminds me of a post you did Billy on a guy called “Buster” , I think it was. The guy who picked up garbage.

I say just be faithful. Success is relative and sometimes becomes more of a burden than a blessing. Thanks for sharing your gift dude.

Hey Billy,

I’m not sure I can add to what has already been said. These people are thinkers. But I relate to your thinking and wondering. I may peek at that book. Why not?

Writing is a lonely life. I think that’s why I took 2009 off. I needed time to redefine my words. Yet a year later, my dreams of writing remain. Even after I thought I gave them up!

So again, now in 2010, I pick up my pen(so to speak) and do the hard work. My plan: Write with all my might and trust God for what He has out there on the playing field. Hopefully I won’t strike out.

I’m excited for your big break.

I love Malcom’s books, though I haven’t read this one. He finds such mundane things to be so very interesting. (Read ‘What the Dog Saw’ for a primer on mustard.)

It is frustrating that I will likely put in equal or greater effort at my plans, only to see my success outdone by someone who is likely very undeserving.

But hey, didn’t someone say that at the end of the age, the last will be first?

I’ve found success…but not in a definition the world would use. The “success” found when being in the center of God’s will doesn’t always line up with the personal “dreams” I have. But it’s the only place I find true peace. Sometimes I think He puts some dreams in my heart so I have something to “give up” to serve Him. And others are there so that I can achieve them on the way. But comparing myself to others’ success is futile because God judges me by His ruler, not the world’s.

I hate it that chance plays a big part in success, but it does. I’ve seen people work extremely hard, deserve so much more in return, and never experience what would be viewed as success. At the same time, I’ve seen people experience great success in this world while contributing very little. Chance is the deciding factor. It is what it is. I don’t claim to understand why.

Okay, I often spend part of my getting-read time in the morning catching up on old blog posts (since I only started reading this blog a month or so ago) so obviously this is really late, and I didn’t actually read all the other comments so I don’t know if I’ll repeat anybody else, but:

You’re operating on two assumptions with this. The first is that there is even such a thing as luck. I know what you said about blessings sounding weird too, but really, what is luck? Technically, it’s a concept that was invented by pagan cultures to explain things because they didn’t believe in God. He is still in control and He knows the precise reason to allow fame to some and not to others. And there’s a big difference between what He allows to the Christians and what He allows to the unsaved who aren’t at all trying to follow His will.

Second, and I think this is even more to the point (if not actually more important), you’re operating on the assumption that success is equivalent to fame or fortune or something like that. Well, in a sense, yes, success is meeting your goals. But in that case, you could largely say that Hitler was successful for a while. I could deal without people having that kind of success. Me, I count my life successful for each minute that I am in God’s will. And if He never wants me published – and I don’t know His will in that yet, I haven’t even finished a book yet – then He knows the best reason. It’s not only going to affect me, it’ll affect everyone who ever does or does not have the opportunity of reading what I’ve written.

Some people say that’s a bad answer, a way of trying to avoid the possibility of not reaching the goals that I might set for myself. But if I’m not in God’s plan for my life, where am I? No where I want to be.