Background
Almost everyone around us communicates and acts for at least eight hours everyday. However, not everyone is able to extract outcomes in similar proportions. In other words, your neighbour may not be making as much as you do by working at your job or business.

Root Cause
Although you may relate the cause of such a phenomenon with the nature of work or profession but in reality it is due to our way of being rather then the application area. Any work in any application area has two fronts, the technical front which are the hard skills and the soft skills, which is your way of being.

Limitations of Hard Skills
Hard skills, or your ability to execute the particular task is important only as long as you are yourself executing the work and need to create the output. But once you graduate beyond this level in to an organisation, although important, the relevance of these skills are reduced. In other words the final outcome, or the result, is no longer in direct proportion to the extent of your hard skills.

Examples of limitations of Hard Skills
For instance, there are many dozens of architects but only few have been able to achieve the success of Ar. Zaha Hadid or Ar. BV Doshi. And would be naïve to conclude that just because the 99% are unable to achieve such heights, they do NOT possess technical skills at par with successful ones. Such is the case in all professions, there may be traders with better trading algorithms than Berkshire Hathaway or Mr. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala but yet fail to become successful.

Irrelevance of Application Area
Also success has nothing to do with the application area and there cannot be a better example than sales. Salesmanship is a soft skill and people who possess excellent sales skills can sell anything ranging from a car to intellectual items without any physical existence. It is their grip on the subject and ability to communicate which results in successful sales rather than the product or service. With a bad sales team even best product will fail to achieve the leading market share.

Real Culprit: Substance
Now this is so abstract, if you only read this but fail to absorb and relate, you might even take a lifetime but still fail to truly understand. But this is the only thing in common with all successful people. Everything that they speak and perform has substance. There is absolutely nothing in their lives that lack purpose and substance.

Pre-requisite: Purpose
Although substance is the real culprit, it cannot exist or even emerge in the lack of purpose. Without a clear why, anything said or done is an absolute waste of energy along with many other things including time and money.

Substance emerging from Purpose
While engaging in a conversation with anyone, if you are clueless about the underlying reason which necessitates the communication and also what is your desired outcome of the conversation, HOW will your create the substance to achieve your desired outcome. In absence of which it will be a meaningless conversation wasting each other’s time.

Domino Effect
If your lack of purpose and inability to create substance can waste a conversation, now imagine how many such conversations you have during a day and also how many such actions do you perform on daily basis that lack purpose and corresponding substance!
Now close your eyes, take a deep breath and think, if this trend continues will you ever be able to realise your true potential and cherish tangible outcomes!