Foreword

What are the secrets to success? This is a popular question and one which all successful people will have the answer to, and they will be happy to share their wisdom. The trouble is, every successful person will have a different answer, although there will be many common themes. How is it that they are all successful yet see different secrets to success? It’s because they are all different. They have had different beginnings. The conditions they strived in and those which shaped them are probably very different indeed. So in good faith they give their varying answers, which may or may not work for the listener.

Consequently, the secrets to success are contextual. It depends on your personality, your family background, the situation you find yourself in, and many other factors. It also depends on—and this is a big one—what success means to you. Some seek happiness while others seek material wealth. The secrets of success for these two sometimes incompatible goals are likely to be very different indeed. The approach you need to follow to be successful in one vocation as compared to another will also vary.

Now let me add another troublesome factor—life has a habit of changing as we travel through it. We learn, we change and so does our environment. And as this change occurs, the secrets of success change too! What worked yesterday may not work today, and will probably not work tomorrow. And here I think we start to discover a way through the maze of life and discover more about secrets to successful lives. It is all about change.

Professor M. S. Rao along with his two sons—M. Ganesh Sai and M. Ramakrishna Sayee has assembled here a fine array of sutras for a successful life. I would wager that every successful person you meet would agree with what is written here. They would all be able to point to each of them in turn and give an example from their life of when it helped them to be more successful. I know I can!

But what will work for you right now? I really don’t know how to answer that question. The only person who can find the answer is you. That is why coaching is of growing importance today. A consultant will try to give you a recommendation, an answer. But how can they possibly know your situation well enough to say the secret of success for you is … They can’t. What is different with coaching is that the good coach will help you to find your own answer. Sure, they could probably make a shrewd guess as to what will work for you, but they don’t know for sure. Instead, they stimulate you and encourage you to take responsibility for finding an answer to live with. They will help you to learn.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a coach, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you engage in the mystery of life with curiosity and keep asking yourself the question—what can you do better to achieve the success you desire? Back in the nineteeenth century the French apothecary, Émile Coué, made his patients recite the affirmation ‘every day in every way I’m getting better and better’. It resulted in some fantastic recoveries which defied medical science. Today we understand more about why this worked. For us here, interested in successful lives, it works because it challenges the mind to move you forward. It challenges the subconscious to find a way of becoming better than yesterday. It doesn’t prescribe what you should do; it leaves that open to the person who perhaps knows best—you!

For me, this is the overarching secret to success—striving to be more today than you were yesterday—even if that means giving more services to your friends, or growing stronger relationships, or making more money. You decide what works best for you. Continue to build your resources drawing from this book and I dare say, in years to come, you will also be able to look back at the Success Sutras of Professor M. S. Rao, M. Ganesh Sai and M. Ramakrishna Sayee and point to each in turn and give an example of when it helped you to lead a more successful life.

Colin Gautrey

Author of Advocates & Enemies:
How to Build Practical Strategies to Influence Your Stakeholders
www.advocatesandenemies.com