In case you didn’t know this Sunday is Father’s Day and although the event isn’t celebrated as largely as it should be, here at One Life Success we think it’s important to think about the role that Father’s play in our society and the importance of a work life balance.

Being motivated to achieve is a great thing, but it doesn’t guarantee success. To be a successful person you have to be in for the dream for all the right reasons. And that’s what this post is all about.

The Actor, Rapper, Writer & Activist: One Life Success’ Top Four Inspirational Dads

The Fathers that I’ve chose to write about today have nothing in common about their field of work, but what they do have in common is a value for work life balance and family.

One of the greatest lessons you can learn as a potential world changer is that you do not have to sacrifice your career to have a family or to enjoy the more simple things in life. And, more often than not, these simple things can act as a great inspiration source for your work.

The Actor: Will Smith

Despite his busy schedule and impressive successes in the movie industry, Will Smith has never forgotten the importance of family. His wife Jada and their children are present at every awards ceremony, and continue to live happily together with in California.

It is significant that in his earlier years Will Smith divorced his first wife. Although this was a hiccup in the lifetime of the actor, he learnt from the negative effects it had on his son. Jada and Will have now been married for sixteen years.

Will Smith has inspired the world with his skills on the big screen, but he has also inspired his children to.

Alike his father, Jaden Smith has also delved into the world of movie magic; working alongside his Father in multiple thriller movies. In this sense the children not only attend all of his awards ceremonies. He also attends theirs.

The lesson we can learn from this is that changes to the world around you are just as significant as changes to the world as a whole.

Success isn’t being well known or being rich. Success is all about making a difference. And Will’s motivating personality and achievements have surely had an effect on the people in his household.

Having your family behind you makes the mistakes much easier to overcome. So never forget the role that your children, or your father, have played in your success.

The Rapper: Eminem

Eminem is probably not a person you’d expect to see on this list considering his hard music persona… but I bet you didn’t know that his daughter was the reason he didn’t collect his Oscar for the ‘Best Original Song’ in 2003.

Although Emenem’s music means a lot to him – he is known as the face behind modern rap music – he spent the night of the Oscars watching cartoons with his daughter in their home.

In this way his children have become the main motivation behind his work. Not only does he write about them, but he also writes for them; using a high percentage of his earnings to fund their college educations.

The lesson we can learn from this is that having good reason to do the work you do, can help us stay focused on the task at hand. It’s quite probable that without his daughters Eminem might have given up on his music at a much early time in his life, when the going got tough. This fact alone demonstrates the power of family and work ethic.

The Writer: J.R.R Tolkien

Every December parents send their children a letter from Santa Claus. But what J.R.R Tolkien did, at Christmas time, was a little different to the average father because he would send not only a letter, but a story from Santa Claus.

These stories often took Tolkien days to create and were always laced with funny anecdotes, art and all things creative. This tradition of storytelling was passed throughout the childhoods of each of his children – John, Michael, Christopher and Priscilla – for over twenty years and was later published in a collection by his eldest.

In this way Tolkien not only gave his children a piece of the world, but shared his world, using what he was good at to make their quality of life just that little bit richer.

What we can learn from this is, quite simply, love what you do and share what you do. Much like Emenem, Tolkien didn’t write because he wanted fame or fortune, Tolkien wrote because he loved to write and he wanted to write stories that made people’s lives happier.

It’s the reason why, for a long time, his stories were only heard by the children and it’s also the reason why his stories continue to be held so prestigiously today.

The Activist: Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King’s son was just five when his father spoke out about his ‘Dream’ in 1963 but in a recent interview he stated that the words still inspire him to this day; almost sixty years later.

Although King was a busy man and his time with his son was cut short by his assassination, the time that the father and son did spend together was of a high quality and long lasting – eventually encouraging his son to become an activist himself.

King was always on the move in his campaigns and on the way to the airport the family often passed by ‘Fun town’ a park where only white children were allowed entry.

As a child, Martin Luther King’s son often asked his father why he couldn’t go – to which his father replied ‘I’m working on it’ and working on it, he did because it was King’s work that allowed for his son to be amongst the first black children to ender the gates of ‘Fun town’ and join an integrated school.

In this way King’s dreams were shaped by his dreams for the next world – the world in which his son was raised. He wanted America to be a better place for when his children grew up and that’s why his son was so keen to follow in the footsteps the father of equality himself.

The morale to the story is, always find time to consider the generation that follows you. Whether that’s the next generation of activist, the next generation of your family – or both in this case!

Life isn’t just about making a dent in the physical surface of the world. It’s about putting one in it metaphorically and changing it… permanently.

So remember to take time out off from work this weekend and think about what all these amazing fathers did for their sons, and how you can change the world around you today.

Wrote by Aimee Hall  -  Follow us  -  Comment Below!