I was just talking to another person whom I feel after hearing his woes have led me to an unfortunate conclusion — no, life has not been unfair to him. No, it is not that life has not given him a break. It is sometimes difficult to say it, but yes, life has given him more than his share of opportunities — it was just that he did not the ability or focus to capitalize on it.

More, and more, I start to believe that success in the 21st century, is really about simply building a better mousetrap. I remember that over 20 years ago,in our marketing class, one of the most derided quotations was that of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ” build a better mousetrap and they will come“. It simply isn’t true, they say. You have to invest in the right marketing.

I think that is becoming more and more true in the internet age. Look at Google. Six years ago, it was a virtual unknown, and it had one thing - a better search engine. In these six years, it managed to overtook Yahoo and MSN on search on one simple idea - one by one, it just gave back a more relevant search, and thus, through simple word of mouth and minimal advertising, was able to garner a huge valuation and hundreds of millions in hits everyday.

Now, there are millions of blogs who can potentially link to you if you say something authoritative or significant that will do your mnarketing. Now, achieve something extraordinary, and you will instantly have your 15 minutes of fame.

Dr. Jeff Cornwall have several great posts on how to increase your chances of success as an entrepreneur.

On achieving success, he has some tips on which I particularly agree very strongly on two:

- The energy is not in the idea. Its about the execution! Ideas are a dime a dozen, until somebody can go forward to execute it better. Don’t think you have it made because you have some idea that nobody has ever thinked about. Most likely, it has been thought through a hundred times in different parts of the world. Your success is about whether you can execute on it well or not.

- You Must Create True Believers Before You Can Win New Converts. We all want others to tote our accomplishments, and the significance of our ideas. But they will note trumpet it unless you take your time to convince them and make them true believers. Less and less people can be bought nowadays. More and more, pure talent, and great ideas is what it takes to get these people.

On another post, he also came to the same conclusion I earlier mentioned. In fact, he also talked about the numerous miserable people who unfortunately won lotteries , but after a few weeks ended up broke. Again, this augments the thinking that it is not the absence of successful breaks, but the inability to prepare and handle the success that is really the important factor to consider in the success or ‘unsuccess’ of your life.

He shares a few pointers as well.

- Take the power of compound interest seriously. I have a post, the rule of 72 which can give a quick eyeview on how to evaluate investments quickly.

- get a good education.

- get married and stay married.

- take care of yourself.

- take prudent risks.

- strive for balance.

- keep reading this blog.

No, I made up the last one, but I hope again I was able to share something today!