It is said that it is easy to forgive, but hard to keep on forgiving others in the long run. I have learnt that forgiveness is the key to success for many reasons. If I had not learned how to forgive, I would have not progressed in my career or in my life.

As it so happens with those that become successful, there are those who praise you for your efforts and those who do not. I have come across instances where I felt that with the success that I had, it was creating resentment from others, especially those who did not know me so well.

Years ago, during one of the initial publications that came out about me, the publication chose to use someone else’s photo for my career story. The reply I was given was that my “followers” would understand and that such “mistakes” happen. Basically, I was told that I had no right to tell them that they were wrong or that I was even worthy of an apology. They eventually fixed this mistake, and soon everything was fine. It was hard for me to forgive them for what had happened, but I did move on. Something similar happened to me when I went for an event. Someone told me that I was confused with another person and was apologizing to me profusely about this. I chose to remain calm. Forgiving others puts yourself first regardless of the situation.

A while ago, I was asked to do an interview for someone. My sources had provided the interview, so I was not directly in touch with this interviewer. I was soon told by my sources that this interviewer was really upset with the answers I had written. This interviewer was clearly upset about something else and was telling the other person to tell me that everything mentioned in my interview was absolutely wrong. Not only that, but this interviewer went so far as to drastically alter the whole interview, writing false statements about me.

The other person who was in charge of the interview had to stop the interviewer from getting in touch with me. I will never know the real reason why this person was lashing out and am grateful that someone else was wise enough to say no on my behalf, but the point is, I learned to forgive. Something similar happened to me soon after on social media, where a person immediately cut all online ties with me for no reason at all. I eventually saw this person at an event that I went to a few months later, but chose to be diplomatic. Forgiveness builds inner strength.

In the age of social media, bullying does happen. In one instance, I was contacted by a friend of a friend who had heard about my book. This person immediately started ranting off about all the reasons why I did NOT deserve being published. I simply told this person off, kept in touch with this person on mutual terms, but eventually cut all ties. Through this act of forgiveness, I learned to choose what opinions should matter in my life.

Just because people say something does not make it true. This did happen a few more times, but I chose to ignore such people. I was even impersonated on social media multiple times, but chose to forgive. Forgiveness is powerful.

Forgiveness is such a wonderful feeling. It puts yourself first in any situation, builds up your inner strength, and helps you see what opinions really matter in your life. That is the secret to success.