Success: Respect and Acknowledgement, Wealth, and Power

Success always means respect and recognition, wealth, and power. A real successful person should have been respected and acknowledged for a long standing by society, should have known how to create and maintain the wealth, and should have known how to gain the power from people. The above three factors are essential to the success. In the following paragraphs, we will see some extensions for the mentioned statements. Meanwhile, we are fortunate that we can learn a lesson from Donald Sterling's stories for his unending legal battles and scandals. Donald Sterling is the Clippers former owner but lost ownership of the Clippers after he was caught on tape being racist. At last he was banned for life by the NBA commissioner. He was ever listed in Forbes' worldwide rankings for three times. He was so respected, wealthy, and influential until the media exposed a series of unknown astonishing details. That brought his brilliant career life to an awkward end.
When a person gets respects and acknowledgement from other people, that means, people have generally accepted his fundamental beliefs, values, ways of thinking, and worldviews. People would like to follow his steps. In contrast, when all Americans are against a racist, Donald Sterling subconsciously discloses himself from time to time as a racist. Decades of cover up for his real thought was broken out suddenly when V. Stiviano, the girlfriend of former Clippers owner Donald Sterling, recorded his racist comments on tape. Then other sordid details of his life were brought out to the surface as well. About ten years ago, a former employee named Christine Jaksy ever sued Donald Sterling for sexual harassment. Another case was from former associate Alexandra Castro, who underscored his aggressiveness with women. Almost overnight, he turned notorious. No people would like to show respect for such a hypocrite. It is said even a bug found in the hotel under Donald Sterling’s name would also arouse a fury from a black. What’s more, in the wake of his racist comments, his friends or relatives had to leave the Clippers or NBA. His team and his fans felt so disappointed about his behaviors.
In parallel, to accumulate and own great wealth is part of success likewise. When a person possesses a number of properties, it would be much easier for him to be more prominent in society hierarchy. In 2015 Forbes' worldwide rankings, Donald Sterling owns 2.9 billion dollars. His racist comments caused him stripped out of the Clippers and NBA. It was a big loss for his revenue when Steve Ballmer bought the Clippers for $2 billion. Besides that, the recording triggered widespread condemnation and a firestorm that led to Donald Sterling's a $2.5 million fine. Many famous companies terminated their sponsorship with the Clippers and that nearly made the economic loss up to hundreds of millions of dollars. From the year 2016, his name would potentially vanish from the Forbes' worldwide rankings. The shrinking of wealth would be very likely to cause the direct downgrade of social position.

The last but not the least, the more power a person has, the more successful he would be. The power in hand would help him to obtain more resources and more income. With power, he can set rules and let people obey the rules. Failed to balance the public opinions against him, Donald Sterling’s apology on TV was feeble and weak. People had lost their patience to see his insincere performance and alleged justification. Donald Sterling’s severe mistake of losing control of the Clippers is difficult to be corrected. This time he not only lost the control for the Clippers but also lost the power from the sports arena. Tom Ley found another very unusual report. Through a careful review, he came up to such a conclusion. “There's a lot to be gleaned from the report, but two things immediately stand out: Owning an NBA team is a lucrative racket, and Steve Ballmer really ［sic］, really ［sic］ wants the Clippers.” (Ley) Though this report is still controversial and in argument, that at least proves one thing, the NBA is booming in popularity and enormous profits would be coming. The person who owns the Clippers would theoretically master the 1/30 ownership of NBA brand because the Clippers relied on the value in the NBA, for instance, advertisements, television, tickets and other activities. The short-lived boss career for the Clippers for Donald Sterling ended in such a way that he turned out to be a horrible and vile person.

Based on what we can see from Donald Sterling, it is not so smooth on the way to success. He could make his millionaire dream come true within a short time by good luck. However, the dream could also collapse in one moment since he didn’t conduct himself step by step in society to grow to a billionaire. Additionally, the luckiness wouldn’t happen to everyone. In a word, he did teach us a good lesson.

To sum up, a real success is composed of respect and acknowledgement, wealth, and power. Sometimes these elements are related and indivisible. Among them, respect is the most important one. Respect and recognition from people can earn one good reputation and massive support. It is the foundation of success. Apparent success only lasts short if there is not a solid base. Wealth can bring one a lot of things, e.g. decent apartments, luxurious and high-configured cars, fashionable clothes, delicious food, classic wines and jewelry and other beautiful things. Moreover, to some degree, power is connected with wealth. People with power and wealth usually consist of the social upper class. They occupy most of the valuable resources. The upper-class social circle can also be a glorious platform for one’s further development. Power offers people the other means of resource utilization. In life, only the mighty ones have the voice right in decision makings and will decide who should be in the games and who should be out of the games. All in all, just look back in all ages, it is not complicated to find a fact. Namely, those people who are respected and acknowledged, at the same time, with considerable wealth at hand and certain influential power, are dominating roles in history and have significant contributions to our human being.

Works Cited

Ley, Tom. Court Documents Reveal Owning The Clippers Is A License To Print Money. Deadspin. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2015 <http://deadspin.com/court-documents-reveal-owning-the-clippers-is-a-license-1609>.