Success

I have written about "success" in the past. What is it, how do you define it, how should we view it, etc. In this blog I want to look at another aspect of success. What determines whether or not a specific person will attain financial success?

It's interesting to listen to people talk about the success of others. I think these conversations offer a direct window into the talker's personality and general disposition on success. It is also really interesting to hear someone discuss the success of someone they only know about through the media. How can they possibly know all the events that led to someone's success?

This is one of those "age old questions." If we can determine what makes someone financially successful, theoretically, we can mimic the actions and thus repeat the outcome. The problem arises in cooking one's success down to a list of actions, providence, connections, etc. that is repeatable. Here are some things I have seen people "blame" other people's success on.

• they were born into it--i.e. it was nothing they accomplished
• God blessed them randomly
• they are of a certain race/religion/sex/creed/ethnicity
• they cheated others to get there
• they were "just lucky" (many variations--right place, right time, pure luck, happenstance that something caught on, etc.)
• they worked their butt off
• they made the right connections
• they kissed the right rear ends
• they earned it (though I don't hear this one enough)

So which of these is "typically" responsible for success? I tend to think that it is never one or two things that lead to a person's success. Take Bill Gates. What did he do to become financially successful? He invented/created/devoloped something. Did he do it alone? Was he just walking along and "WHAMMO" he has this computer and operating system and whatever else? How did he get the knowledge necessary to develop his ticket to success? Once he had it, how did he know what to do with it in order to actually turn the product into $$$? How did he know how to sustain growth at his upstart company?  How did he finance his upstart company? What made him more successful than the Commodore people and the Tandy people? There is always more to it than just having a great idea.

My point is this, we tend to look back at the long, long road some successful person has traveled and pick a few "milestones" in that person's life that we think are the only important episodes in their success. We do that because it gives us hope. If we could just have that golden idea...If I could just meet that angel investor...If the right person would notice me...If, if, if. The truth is, in order to attain that success we want, we have to take thousands and thousands of baby steps toward the goal. Hopefully we never actually reach it. Successful people never stop developing. That's why they are successful. Notice I didn't say "never stop working." Working and developing are not the same. The cool thing about developing is that you don't have to pick one single, narrow path to focus on. You CAN do that but you don't HAVE to. Some of the best ideas are offshoots of offshoots of other ideas. You just have to be open to receiving those ideas when they come. In the meantime, connect to people, be curious, develop yourself. You are the most valuable resource you own.

Success

How do you measure success? The question can be answered in so many ways and often it depends on the context of the question. For example, I wrote a short blog last week that 34 people read. The whole point of the blog was to inspire some dialogue and hopefully explore the crippling lethargy that I sometimes experience. 34 read it, 0 commented on it. Based on context, the blog was an epic failure. It did not achieve its intended purpose. It was not successful. I earned two awards in the past 2 weeks for hitting arbitrary sales goals and helping a specific number of people. I sold 22 homes last year. In order to "qualify" for these awards, I needed to sell at least 15. Who set that number? What is significant about that number? If I sold 14 homes, am I less successful? What if those 14 homes were $1 million dollars each, I would have made WAY more money than selling the 22 homes I did sell. Then who is successful? One person has the award, the other has a lot more money.
"Society" worships success. There are thousands of books, blogs, videos and other media out there centered on "success." There are movies made about "successful people." Everyone has an idea of what success looks like when they see it but very few can explain what success actually is. This is an important distinction as we strive to be successful people. It is very hard to strive for a goal when your definition is "I'll know it when I see it."

Let's start with the flawed description above. Who do you see as successful? Frequently we see celebrities as successful. They started down a path to be a star and they made it. Now they have gobs of money, live in big houses and are household names. Does that define success? We look at business owners and entrepreneurs that have achieved an independently wealthy status, i.e. they can survive the rest of their lives very comfortably without working. Does that define success? How about the president? There is not a higher elected official in our country. Is that success?

I would suggest that "being successful as a person" is not the same as "having success." Having success is very simple to define--the intended outcome has occurred. In other words, a goal was set, an activity was set in motion (or multiple activities) and the intended consequence was met--I woke up hungry, my goal was to not be hungry, I decided eating would solve the issue, I ate and I was no longer hungry--SUCCESS.

Being successful is not as simple. The real hard part is that you and only you can set the meter that measures success--and many, MANY of us don't know (A) what we truly view as success in life and (B) how to get there. I challenge you to figure out what needs to be in place when you get old in order for you to look back at your life and say, "wow, I was successful." It may involve your children, it may involve your work. It may involve strangers you help. It may involve money and material things. It may involve your giving. Regardless, YOU need to define that goal and ignore what society says is success. You will be much happier that way.