ONCE upon a time, someone coined the phrase, “Behind every successful man, there is a woman”.
Probably that was all fitting and well for that individual during their time, but things are totally different nowadays with a whole lot of things accounting for the success of many a man.
I mean no harm to the ladies, but surely this old adage is a tired line with no hope of it resurrecting in today’s world. It is unfair to credit the success of a man behind a single individual.
It just isn’t fair!
For starters, most successful men are where they are today in life out of sheer hard work. The years of working tirelessly with the faith that they could be achievers in their fields of endeavour eventually pay off, with the man rising to the executive level of the company or starting his own corporation.
Prior to his rise, it goes without saying, he is a write-off and people do not take notice of him at all. However, in one fell swoop he changes from obscurity to notoriety.
The woman, in most cases, appears later on when the man has become established in his labour and is already the top dog among his peers. The lady then builds her own success on the back of her man’s success starting a boutique, a beauty spa or a clothing shop. It can be anything, so long as it enables her to dig deeper into his wallet.
Just take a look at the likes of Kelly Khumalo and Khanyisile Mbau and one can see that those ladies are in it because of the men they had to step on so as to get to the top.
Furthermore, having talent is a score for most successful men and it does carry them all the way up. Let’s face it, one has to be good at something in order to turn heads and make people notice you. The jack of all trades kind of guy is sure to find the walk to success a very long one indeed, if ever at all he arrives at the destination called success.
One should look no further than talented men such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Tiger Woods to see how these men have become champions in life and a force to reckon with, being successful in their various fields of life.
Quite honestly, where would computers be today had Gates not developed his computing acumen?
Do we hear of any woman being involved in the picture? No sir! It is talent, simple talent that is a life changer and accounts for the improved lives of billions of people worldwide.
However, the cr├¿me de la cr├¿me of it all and constitutes as the gourmet of success in any man’s life is his ‘boys’. Yes, each man must have his select group of male companions to whom he cries to, confides in, gets his manly confidence from and basically are his father, mother, aunt and sister all wrapped in one.
In most cases, the ‘boys’ are the ones that one grew up with, lived in the same neighbourhood with and went to the same school with and basically shared their lives together talking about girls, sex, cars and travelling around the world.
With these ‘boys’, the man is at ease and can express his ‘other’ nature without fear or foreboding. It is a great feeling for any guy to have friends who can challenge you to improve yourself and become better in life.
The flip side of the coin is that one’s male companions and his woman are the source of constant animosity, with the two never seeing eye to eye. Women have developed this sixth-sense that tells them that whenever one hangs out with his guys, they are up to no good.
It is not uncommon to hear women making statements such as, “When Tom and all those guys are around, something about Jim changes, I have never seen him like that at all”.
Having guys in one’s life is the equivalent of Carey Bradshaw’s girls in the TV hit-series Sex and the City, allowing men in this case a chance at expression and the time to have fun before being pigeonholed by their partners. A liberating experience one might even add!
So give it a break ladies, if you are all allowed to have your girly thing going on why can’t guys be given the chance to do the same?
Clearly, women’s roles and influence in men’s lives have just been exaggerated. While we don’t deny the impact from the female species surely it is just getting a bit far-fetched. Far from the illusory traditional tale that behind every successful man there is a woman, the new truth is: behind every successful man there is hard work, talent and the boys.
Of these three, the ‘boys’ is the greatest!
