I believe that a lot of our striving after the symbols and levers of success is due to a basic insecurity, a need to prove ourselves. That done, grown up at last, we are free to stop pretending.
Interpretation
The pursuit of success often stems from insecurity and the desire for validation, but true freedom comes from embracing our authentic selves.
In this quote, Charles Handy suggests that many people chase after success and external symbols due to an underlying insecurity or need for validation. He argues that once we acknowledge and accept ourselves, free from the need to prove our worth, we can find true freedom and authenticity, rather than continuing to pretend to be someone we are not in the pursuit of societal success.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth and true success.
The companies that survive longest are the one's that work out what they uniquely can give to the world not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul.
The first step is to measure whatever can easily be measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.
Why don't we teach our children in school what they are? We should say to them, 'You are unique... you have the capacity for anything. You are a marvel'.
To learn anything other than the stuff you find in books, you need to be able to experiment, to make mistakes, to accept feedback, and to try again. It doesn't matter whether you are learning to ride a bike or starting a new career, the cycle of experiment, feedback, and new experiment is always there.
We cannot wait for great visions from great people, for they are in short supply. It is up to us to light our own small fires in the darkness.
Creativity needs a bit of untidiness. Make everything too neat and there is no room for experiment.
There's a whole generation of young people who are faced with the so-called 'jobless recovery.' Necessity is the mother of invention. They are out there, all around the world, creating new companies.
In the real world, those of us who are most productive, successful, and satisfied focus not on fixing feelings or manipulating thoughts, but on what needs to be done-and then doing it-no matter what thoughts or feelings arise.
I always knew I was a star And now, the rest of the world seems to agree with me.
Most entrepreneurial ideas will sound crazy, stupid and uneconomic, and then they’ll turn out to be right.
When you achieve your Dreams It's not so much what you get, It's who you become.
I don't believe there is such a thing as a 'born' soccer player. Perhaps you are born with certain skills and talents, but quite frankly it seems impossible to me that one is actually born to be an ace soccer player
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