Alice

Every success should be totally visible in its entirity. It should scream out how wonderful it is and why everybody should notice it, be totally easy to understand how it operates and what it can do, be the envy of all who see it and have people clamouring to have one themselves.

But behind every silver lining there is a cloud. There probably was (and should have been) problems encountered along the way. But the success achieved shows that these problems have been overcome, solved and eradicated. All the hard work that goes into solving these problems is not visible, because the very nature of success overshadows all of this.

So a success will become more successful because of the solved problems behind the scenes. If they hadn’t been solved, the success will be short lived, the problems will start to show through, and eventually the success will collapse. Solving the problems builds a strong, sturdy framework that success can hang off, and look good, knowing that everything will stay up safely regardless of what happens.

So bear a thought about those that solve the problems that make the successes so successful. All the activities behind the scenes that are invisible, necessary and totally required, but never noticed, and sometimes not even acknowledged. All the knowledge that has gone into achieving that success, all the expertise put to the test to ensure success achieves what it wants, or sets out to do.

So how opaque are your successes? And what has happened to make them so?