It is said that effort is appreciated, but only victory counts. A person cannot feed themselves on intention or effort, but it is different with the realization of a work, the results of labor, or victory in battle (to live, to survive). Effort is valued only symbolically, but in the market economy, only victory counts and only the result is valued! How should schools in Slovakia today teach as many future winners as possible?

The Winner Is Always Alone

In a market economy, it is like in the jungle. The strongest survive and fare the best. Not by physical strength, but by a complex combination of qualities (wisdom, skill, cunning, courage, inner strength... etc.). The best-selling author of today (over 100 million books sold worldwide), Paulo Coelho, wrote a brilliant book on this topic titled THE WINNER STANDS ALONE. Because there are many good and above-average people. But the best winner is always only one! Our schools (in Europe) teach more collectively, but American (USA) schools churn out more individualists. Therefore, let us not be surprised that the life dream of a 16-year-old teenager in America is to be a successful private entrepreneur like billionaire Bill Gates, but the ambition of a similar teenager in Europe is mostly to be a well-paid state employee.

Inspirations from Nature for the Actions of Winners

Nature has given, gives, and will give answers, inspirations, impulses, and a helping hand for many previously unanswered and newly defined questions and problems of humanity. One just needs to know how to rule well over that nature from the human side. For example, wisely and responsibly seek and protect it, so that it does not cease to exist in its current form. Biodiversity applies not only in the ecological sense of the word, but also from the perspective of some amazing and remarkable dominant traits of animals (fauna) and plants (flora). For example, for humans, the well-thought-out flight of geese or the work organization of ants building an anthill or the creative playfulness of dolphins are certainly system-process models. When I teach my little son to understand the world, he often asks me what animal I would want to be if I had to be one. My answer is that my role model would be a four-part combination:

  1. dolphin (wise as a dolphin)
  2. dog (the faithful mute friend of man and brave as a guard dog protecting its owner's home)
  3. horse (strength)
  4. fox (cunning and sly enough to resist the traps and snares of today's brutal world)

Signs of Wisdom Through Today's Eyes

An experienced parent and pedagogue – teaches children, pupils, and students above all the strongest available weapon for a human being ever. It is wisdom. However, the perception of wisdom is extremely ambivalent and heterogeneous even in today's demanding world. Generally, people are considered to excel in wisdom whose potential and equipment (evidence of success) contain as much as possible from the following arsenal list:

  1. Natural authority
  2. Recognition of the surroundings
  3. Philanthropism and humanism
  4. Value compass: To be is more than to have
  5. Ethical compass: Live and let live.
  6. Above-standard material wealth
  7. Winner
  8. Ability to eliminate risks
  9. Knowing how to live well
  10. Reason, wit, intelligence, perspective, system-process thinking, etc.

One Can Become Wise

A person does not have to be born wise, but can become one if they truly want to and actively strive for it. The main wisdom is to know how to not only learn quickly, but especially to learn from the mistakes of others, not just one's own. It is cheaper and hurts less. The age-old rival, competitor, and opposite of wisdom is stupidity. If people want to be better off, it would be good to truly learn not only to love but also to revere wisdom as soon as possible. Wise people belong in a knowledge society. This is an opportunity for higher prosperity of business, entrepreneurship, and the nation everywhere in the world, not only in Slovakia.

Awakening

Awakening to wisdom through knowledge, learning, maturity, experience, and a combination of theory and practice is different for each person. Becoming wiser usually happens through education, reading books (better for sharpening imagination than film or television), watching and analyzing information from the media, comparing, playing chess, meditating, exercises, training, participating in knowledge competitions, learning from the messages of ancestors (poems, songs, sayings, proverbs, messages), and one's own creation and active approach to life. The charm of wisdom is a good cult and one of the few positive viruses that should be spread as much as possible throughout the world, so that the world lives a better and more beautiful life. Among the renowned manipulative techniques, there are about 30 different procedures. Although they are also collectively and secretively called forbidden rhetoric, one of them is manipulative charisma. Acquisition is part of business and dominates marketing. The ability to engage, inspire, convince, and positively manipulate people is the domain of the best. And thus also of the most successful advisors.

Dazzling Others

In life, we remember most the people who appear obviously non-standard and send sympathetic signals on our wavelength. We like something about them... Either their appearance, depth of voice, manner of speech, walk, clothing, wisdom, or a comprehensively exceptionally pleasant appearance and persuasiveness. They know how to dazzle you. What does that mean? I.e., fascinate, engage, address, ignite a passion for something. They are simply comprehensively sexy and can be exceptionally likable in some way. That something is always more inner (psychological beauty) than outer (physical beauty). Those who smell most of humanity make the greatest and strongest impression. We usually call such people practically charismatic.

Recognition of the Surroundings Belongs to Charisma and Humility

People love those people who are grandmasters of their own lives, live in humility, have the gift of charisma, and know how to radiate. On a wavelength that is pleasant and arouses sympathy. Charisma – according to the definition, is a set of qualities recognized by the surroundings, based on which a person with such qualities can become a leader influencing broad strata through their actions without being formally appointed as their representative. A charismatic personality usually has the following qualities: they feel strong emotions themselves, can evoke them in other people as well, and resist the influences of other people without difficulty. People love those – who arouse sympathy. They are not only unrepeatable and exceptionally good at something, but who have charisma /preachers, motivational speakers, communication skills trainers, top athletes, actors, singers and other show business stars, national figures, the wisest scientists, etc./. Charisma can be acquired in a minority of cases also genetically and thus innate, but in the majority of cases it can be cultivated and trained – through reading good valuable books, through developing communication skills and rhetorical exercises, through moderating practices and political speeches, through learning the basics of psychological techniques and technologies to captivate a listener, reader, or viewer.

Charisma – Ten Tips for Training

  1. Unusualness and Smile: Act unusually and practice a sincere smile
  2. Solo Performance: Demonstratively disregard the opinions of others
  3. Message: Proclaim, demand, issue new commandments

  4. Originality: Excel with unconventional thinking

  5. Attractiveness and acting: Perfect your personal magnetism. Claim that you reject all bureaucracy and learn to be likeable.

  6. Principle: Always act out of conviction, not for petty success.
  7. Character: Do not let yourself be bribed. Accept only money to realize your ideas.
  8. Role models: Learn from models of charismatic personalities.
  9. Humanity: Cultivate the scent of humanity and develop humaneness.
  10. Human, not machine: You are a living organism, not a lifeless mechanism.

THE ACTION OF WINNERS = 9 (letters of victory) + 10 (winning points)

The Ninefold Victory

V-ision, will, faith: a winner must have a vision, faith in himself, and the will to overcome obstacles. Í-nnovativeness, informedness, intelligence, innovativeness: a winner is different from others. He is a winner because he is distinctive. Ť-akes pleasure in work, activity, action: He likes and literally loves his work, creations, and results. A-lternative, ambition, assertiveness, self-motivation: He alternates ambitiously and assertively. He offers more alternatives, selects from them, and refines the best one. Z-ielding, earnings, profit, meaning, principle: He can yield everything he has learned. He uses profit positively. As the meaning of every earning – in the form of effect, contribution, income, benefit, and utility (profit and benefit). S-leep, freedom, improvement, originality, strength, stimulation, self-management: The power of a dream in freedom and originality is the most powerful personal driving engine of a winner. Self-management based on stimuli improves goals and increases performance. T-ambition, pressure, training, top: Ambition drives training, because it is about a difficult goal – TOP (peak). K-nowledge, testing, variants: Theoretical knowledge must be tested in practice. More variants with awareness of strengths and weaknesses always offer a better choice and a wiser final decision and more correct conclusions. O-ourage, sacrifice, prudence, personality: Without the courage and sacrifices of prudent personalities, there are no great deeds, nor would the best works have been created.

The Ten Fundamental Impulses

The action of winners has its specific know-how also in their own thought patterns – where faith in one's own strengths dominates and especially the following are favored: perseverance, will, modesty, and diligence. Society, your immediate surroundings, and even some scientists daily emphasize and present that the basic principles of a market economy include, besides competition and rivalry, the ability to win over problems, challenges, partners, and rivals. A person must constantly develop knowledge, willpower, and purposefulness if they want to become successful in life and in their profession. Winning in self-realization means knowing how to do business well with one's own resources – with intellect, strengths, abilities, and potential.

The Ten Commandments in the Action of a Winner

As an inspiring example of know-how for victories, selected tried-and-tested advice (THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF A WINNER) presented in the following text can also be used:

  1. A winner does not know failures, because according to him, they do not exist. There is only the knowledge that the given path was not correct. There are no problems, only chances: chances to learn, to improve, to understand. There are no problems – there are only opportunities: an opportunity to prove something new.
  2. A winner thinks in a maximally creative-inventive-prudent way and therefore always has several alternatives prepared for solving a problem. Even in nature, the individual who can behave differently in a given situation prevails. The one who can only perform a single reaction is at a disadvantage. A single reaction to a given stimulus is a dangerous limitation that puts us at a disadvantage compared to other individuals who can react in multiple ways.
  3. A winner is not afraid of mistakes – because he learns from each one.
  4. A winner has his dream – but he is not a dreamer: he knows that achieving the goal is not easy, but it is realistic.
  5. A winner looks for new variants.
  6. A winner puts pressure on himself. He acts according to the principle: I always want, I can, I will do it!
  7. A winner is fascinated by his goal. His desire is the driving engine of his effort.
  8. A winner knows his worth (he does not know rejection and always looks for ways to solve a matter according to the motto "he who wants to solve looks for ways, and he who does not looks for reasons").
  9. A winner likes his actions (he appreciates his own work and can enjoy it more than a financial reward).
  10. A winner plans. He plans activities and prepares arguments (because luck favors only the prepared).

Conclusions - Summary

Every normal person would like to be the winner of their own life. Victory in the sense of finding contentment in life (joy, happiness, well-being, prosperity, peace). People are interested in a contented and relaxed, joyful and happy, simply amazing, fascinating, and beautiful life. Winners are always followed as models and patterns of success. They often see only the final effects, but they do not want to see the renunciation, calluses, sacrifices, drudgery, sweat, and thousands of hours of training that winners had to undergo first to become winners. Getting closer to victory (over oneself) is certainly also contributed to by the ability to give more than to take, the ability to forgive, to stop envying, hating, and being angry, annoyed, and critical for no reason. Above all, however, the ability to help others contributes to peace and inner tranquility of the soul. To share with them the winner's time (know-how, abilities, experiences... etc.) and not keep everything only for oneself. Every crisis is an exclamation mark! It means change. But also a chance, a challenge, and an opportunity to eliminate or reduce liabilities and negatives, or to grow or improve assets, for recapitulation, balancing, or inventory. Also for reflection and reassessment of one's own modus vivendi (way of life)😊. Today's unpleasant crisis is certainly also a pleasant challenge for a person to set out for new victories.

About the author:

Ing. Emil Burák, PhD., 46 years old, educator and economist with various experiences (e.g., 10 years as a top manager – in the private and public sectors, tax expert, former banker, analyst, project manager, consultant) and author (financial-tax expert, lecturer of managerial courses for entrepreneurs, university teacher) of 10 monographs and over 1000 professional articles on economic and consulting topics at home and abroad. If you are interested in this contribution and want to know more, visit the page Osobnosti.sk where you will find information about the author and his work.