Secrets behind the success of great people

It is a message for young people who are coming to real life and which will abridge a long way of searching for the way of success and the secrets of the successful who have become prominent and to benefit their societies and nations during their lifetimes.

They have achieved a real success with their hands without begging for it, but they dug for it with their own hands and suffered its hardship.

They suffered a lot to reach success unlike many famous people whom are being presented to youth as successful, whereas if you examine their successes, you will find them similar to transparent clothes that do not protect against heat or cold.

These common elements are gained from the experiences of their lives.

It was part of my happiness that since I have grown up, I liked to read the stories of the successful, and the most fascinating thing since my young age was sitting with old people and listening to their stories and experiences, especially my father (may Allah bestow mercy on his soul) who was self-made man and exceeded his mates although he had died as a young man.

When I grew up and attached with reading, I used to read biographies, autobiographies, books of narrators and history. During my tours in book fairs whenever I find a biography for one of the great people, I would buy it without leafing through or verifying its content unlike other objects which I am keen to check before buying.

Many times I used to read the biography of Ibn Khallikan and enjoyed reading the comments of Adh-Dhahaby, enjoyed touring with At-Tantawy in his nice memories, flew with the high determination of An-Nadawy, and admired the notes of Malik ibn Naby and many other people who wrote about themselves or their close students wrote about such as the jurist Ibn `Uthaymain, Al Albany the scholar of Hadith, Mahmoud Shakir the writer, and sheikh Ibn Baz (may Allah bestow mercy and blessings over them all as well as our parents).

I have been noting with all those great Arabs, Muslims, and non-Muslims similarity in some general guidelines that outlined their lives.

After long meditation and research, I have reached four secrets for their success which are the great common rules in the lives of all great people according to my conclusions; they are as follows:

1- Having a clear goal for life which a person seeks to achieve. A person may have more than one objective but they should be harmonious and not contradicted.

This does not exclude other objectives, which may come up throughout life, to include in his original goal and to harmonize between these new objectives and his original objective unlike non-great people who do not have a clear objective in life but they live their moments and days.

They may forsake their previous objectives easily if the new objectives are better and easier. As for great people, they, in most cases, keep their objectives but they become mature with them and will be inseparate part of their personalities.

You find them twist their life course to serve their high objectives by all determination and spiritual energy they have got. They also may modify some of their goals to cope with the new events.

2- Persistence and observing patience: We find at those great people an amazing patience and persistence in order to achieve their objectives no matter how difficulty they are even if they are alone.

Moreover, they do not pay attention to others' abstention from them, where you pass by them after many years to find them having the same principles and observing patience, busy with their work which their colleagues refrained from.

However, they cope with the variables around them where these variables do not bend them to achieve their goals. Observing patience is the quality of all great people which you could see crystal-clear in their biographies.

3- Perfection: Great people perfect their work patiently which means improving and reviewing what they are doing and promote their plans along with firmness on their original work, but they benefit from the new inventions and the emergence of other objectives to include in their work which they are keen to perfect and beautify one after another.

In order to perfect their work, they show it to the people they trust even if they are from their students and act according to the principle of consultation. They do not spread or publish anything until they are sure it will be beneficial, in addition they do not rush results.

4- The secret ingredient which is taking care of one's parents, good manners, helping people with money and effort, loving people, and showing humbleness to them.

This is a gift for our young people who want to succeed, and I say to them: Stick to these elements which I implore Allah to benefit you with: (clarity of purpose - observing patience - perfecting work).

Do not forget to take care of the invisible side of the causes of success; which is clear self and loving others.

You have to start with your parents and family then the closest and the closer. Whenever a person prepared himself to be sincere to Allah and disseminate benefits to the people, Allah helps him and his success shall be achieved.

The greatest success is when others need and miss you if you are away and they feel something is missing when you are away; where no one can compensate for you.

A young man may feel weakness if he looks at big ends because he may forget that all great people started smaller than he could imagine but they could develop their starts until they became bigger than they could imagine even after their death.

Therefore, I advise young men not to look at ends except when they want to motivate themselves and renew the hope in themselves when they are looking forward to seeing the new dawn by the will of their Lord.

Let it be known that every great work was one day smaller than you think and I was giving an example of the most beautiful palaces which we see, have they been built suddenly or they began as small blocks?

However, what have made them big and beautiful as we see them is the continuation of building, decorating, and improving them and likewise all our actions shall be beautiful after completing them; and only ends are the most important.

The most beautiful book I have read about the successes of great people is: "How did they become great" by Dr. Sa`d Su`ud Al Kiribany which contains motivation to the reader to join great people. So, these are the secrets of success of great people and something of their tries and efforts.