INTRODUCTION

What makes a man great? Have you ever pondered this question. Greatness can be viewed from many aspects. Throughout the history of humankind, great people have come and go. In the field of physics, we have Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton. In the field of invention, we have Thomas A. Edison. In the field of IT, we have Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs (the co-founder of Apple computers), Jerry Yang (the founder of Yahoo!) and Larry Page and Sergey Brin (the founder of google). In the field of business, we have Roy Kroc (founder of McDonald’s) and Henry Ford. In the field of investment, we have Warren Buffett. In the field of Islam, apart from the prophet Muhammad SAW, we also have the 4 caliphs Khalifah Abu Bakar, Khalifah Umar, Khalifah Uthman and Khalifah Ali. There were also great leaders from the Umayyah Caliph such as Khalifah Umar bin Abdul Aziz and from the Abbasid Caliph such as Khalifah Harun Ar-Rashid. These are just some names of great people that pop-up on my mind while writing this book. There are many more great people throughout the human history. These great people have not only brought changes to their own surrounding but also to the thousands of people in the generations to come. Sometimes I asked myself, what make these people so great? Could they somehow follow some set of rules that magically changed their life? Could such formula for greatness exist? If they exist, what is the formula?

I personally don’t have the opportunity to interview these great people. But, there are some characteristic that are common for these great people. The characteristic I am talking about is that they are highly motivated people, they love their jobs and they performed their jobs to the best of their ability. So I asked myself the next questions. What motivates people? What makes them so eager to perform their job well? Could the motivation to do their job well be related to their happiness? Thus, the journey for the search of the answers to all those questions begins. I started to read books, many books on motivation. In my quest for the answers, I also searched the answers for the remaining related questions: What makes people rich? What makes them healthy? This is because the majority of the great people that I listed above are extraordinarily rich. If they are not rich in material possession, then they are rich in characters. Being rich in material possession might be due to the fact that they are rewarded handsomely for the specialist skills that they offer to the world. The health question comes from the fact that what is the use of abundant wealth when you don’t have the health to accompany it?

So to summarize, I tried to answer these 3 simple questions: how to be happy, how to be healthy and how to be wealthy. By trying to find the answers to those 3 questions, I am hoping to learn the secret of being great. It was a wonderful journey. There have been so many books to read, so many ideas to try, so many rules to follow. I believe that I still have a long way to go before I find that magic formula of being great. I hope that by publishing this book, I can share some clues with all of you on greatness by learning how to be happy, healthy and wealthy. Perhaps at the end of my journey, I will find the answer I am looking for. Hopefully by the time I found the answer, I myself have been transformed by my own formula from an ordinary person to a great person. And I pray to God that you as the reader will also become a great person. The world will be a much better place to live in if there are more great people around.

            Please take note that I am not a specialist in happiness, health and wealth. So whatever I presented in this book is the facts from my research and my point of view. It is in no way conclusive and 100% accurate. You as the reader should judge the points I raise in this book and should be free to follow whatever you think is correct and to avoid whatever you think is wrong.

Syuaib bin Saleh