Life & Careers: What Does Success Mean To You?

What Do These Success Quotes All Have in Common?

"I don't know the key to success but the key to failure is to try to please everyone." Bill Cosby

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do." Bob Dylan

"Try not to become a man of success, but rather to become a man of value. He is considered successful in our day who gets more out of life than he puts in. But a man of value will give more than he receives." Albert Einstein

"The secret of success is constancy to purpose." Benjamin Disraeli

"Success is the progressive realization of predetermined, worthwhile, personal goals." Paul J. Meyer

I think the commonality is this:

1. Each person thought about what success meant personally.

2. None defined it in terms of others' expectations.

Have You Defined Your Own "Success" Expectations?

If you haven't, then maybe today is the day to start. Otherwise, you are at risk.

Think about it.

Without a clear sense of what a successful life means to you, everyone else controls your time, your choices, and your career. You have no firm basis on which to make decisions. And no way to tell yourself "I'm doing just fine!"

It also means that others can tell you how they think you are doing as well as what they think you should be doing. Wouldn't it be nice to be clear about why they are so wrong?!

I believe you already know what success means to you. The moment you acknowledge it and start doing something aligned with that definition, you will experience the focus and momentum needed to move forward.

What do you need to acknowledge to make this happen?

Do it. If it's closely work-related, talk with your boss about it. Most of all, put it in motion. Now.

Comments

[Karin H.]

Hi Steve

Are you sure you're not talking about a business plan, goal, aim ;-)

"If you don't know where you're going: any road will do" - that's one of my favourite quotes and is both applicable in personal success as in business success.

Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)

[Lance]

This is powerful, Steve. And a great reminder that we are in control of our lives, unless we're not. I've started down this road of what "success" means to me. But I still have a ways to go, too. Thanks for the reminder to keep at it.

[David Zinger]

Success is being engaged and connected fully in whatever I am doing in the moment, especially when it contributes to others.

[peter vajda]

What all these quotes have in common is that they're someone's else's quotes, ssomeone else's notion of success. What I often find in my work are the many who walk around with someone else's neat, cool, pithy definition swimming around in their mind, but have never personalized it...so it's a "nice idea" but at 9:00 Monday morning they're mired in their own mis-alignment, confusion, self-doubt and mis-direction as they're making feeble attempts to live another's dream, another's (idea of) success.

For me, the most important tool for success is reflection, deep reflection which many cannot or will not undertake. Thus, a life (success?) of dis-harmony as there's little to no alignment between what one says, feels, thinks and does.

Too, many of these are the folks who define success as "results". But getting results without learning something about one's self are incomplete and often "un-success-ful" in the larger picture. Perhaps the "successful" Bernie Ebbers of Enron Fame of the world are testaments to this.

Many of these folks accomplish results but without personal growth-and often wonder why they don't feel better, alive, fulfilled...and admit they don't experience good health, energy and enthusiasm for life, fulfilling relationships, creative freedom, emotional and psychological stability, a sense of well-being, and peace of mind, albeit they say they are "successful". Maybe so.

For me, the notion many have of success, as I infer from your graphic is ephemeral - can be wiped out in a moment by a wave (of uncertainly, a hurricane, health issue, job loss, divorce, accident, old age, etc.)...or....can it? It depends. For some it can; for others, never. True success is perhaps knowing the difference.

So, I guess there's "success" and there's "success". Are the rich successful? The starving artist? Me? The person in the corner office on the 52nd floor...the person in the mail room in the basement? Hmmm.

Perhaps one needs to consciously and self-responsiby reflect on one's own quote....as you suggest.

This has been another terrific series, Steve. Thanks for taking the time and piquing my interest.

[Karin H.]

Peter, your words ring a bell (a whole church tower of bells really - if that's the correct expression).

This is what my good friend Richard C wrote two years ago:

".......And is it not the journey, the search for that elusive goal, that provides us with the adrenalin and energy to keep us driving forward. And why? Sometimes it is the need to develop an immediate income, underpinned perhaps by the suggestion of a capital contribution to our retirement on the disposal of business.
But more often it is the challenge, the fun and delight of achievement, that keeps us going, ‘fun’ being the essential word because, without the fun, how else could we survive those long hours in our respective businesses......."
Richard Calderwood FCA (extract from foreword in "The Kiss Business")

Not the result, but the exciting journey should be called 'success'.

Karin H.

[Steve Roesler]

Karin, Lance, David, and Peter,

Am in a series of meetings through tomorrow and want to thank you all for expanding the thinking and discussion. The topic of success and the comments remind me just how important it is to define it for one's self. Some comments reflect a desire for achievement, others look at the "process of life" as an indicator of their success.

One more testimony to just how personal success really is.

[Wally Bock]

Rowan Manahan had a related post on this a while back. It was titled "Epitaphs and Footprints."
http://fortifyservices.blogspot.com/2008/08/epitaphs-and-footprints.html

When I spoke at my father's memorial services I asked "How many of you ever heard my father laugh?" Hands went up all over the church. Some people raised both hands. I remember thinking that with all his awards and honors and achievements, that show of hands would have been something my father would take as a measure of success.

[Steve Roesler]

Thanks for the personal story as well as the link to Rowan's post; it's quite a powerful exercise. I wonder how many of us are living the lives that would earn the desired epitaph?