What is "Success"?

On Think Daily we talk about “success”.  On Think Daily for Businesspeople we talk about “success”.

So what is “success”?

Many people think that the word means money – you have a lot of it – you’re wealthy.

But that is only the definition if that was your goal – to make a lot of money.

Let me say it this way – could you be a successful mountain climber?  A successful parent?  A successful hobbyist?  A successful athlete?  A successful church leader?  A successful human in any endeavor? 

These goals have nothing to do with making money.  When I want to write a post I think “Is this more appropriate for Businesspeople, or is this for everyone?”  Often times it is applicable to both.

Businesspeople lead teams and their goal is to produce a quality product or service that customers want and to spend less money producing it than they take in so they can make a profit.  If they do not make a profit, the whole group goes home – so yes, making money is imperative in business.

Most subscribers get both Think Daily AND Think Daily for Businesspeople each day.  Pay attention to which Think Daily you are reading for a bit more context.

Success is not about chasing money and sacrificing your life to do so.  If what you are interested in or doing each day involves making money, then being successful at it will yield a higher income and over time, some wealth. 

Being successful to me is about being the best version of yourself while developing your talents into skills – while practicing what you were born to do.  As Earl Nightengale said, “It’s the progressive realization of a worthy ideal or goal”.

There are countless worthy ideals or goals.  Pick one that suits your talent and go for it each day.  And as the definition says, you don’t have to wait until the goal is reached to be a success.  Only to go for it each day and continue making progress.  At Think Daily, that’s what I mean when I talk about success.  And I hope my words help you do that.

Filling your gas tank to E

I’ll never forget it.  When I was in high school and didn’t have a car yet, I had a friend who did have a car.  One day we went to the gas station and he got 50 cents worth of gas.  He paid with two quarters. 

Now, gas was cheap back then, but it was still less than a gallon of gas.  He sped away with enough gas to get where we were going that evening.

Many people settle for just enough.  They fill their gas tanks to E.  Because when you’re on “E” you can go a little more and get through a little longer.  

Just enough information.  Learning just enough.  Having just enough energy.  Getting just enough sleep.  Saving just enough to get through the week.  Learning to create just enough value to pay the bills.

Going beyond E to fill your life tank much more is to delay gratification, learn more, look to the future, work harder than is necessary at times, and getting out of your comfort zone.

Let’s go for more than E, and live a full life.

Don't get mad.

There will always be critics.  They will even criticize the perfect man, if there was one – so you don’t stand a chance to avoid it.

Slights and insults are powerless without your reaction.

A reaction won’t change anything anyway. 

Tune out idiotic and reactionary voices.

“It isn’t heroic to be enraged.” -Marcus Aurelius

Be a learner – an open and honest one

Spend time learning before making a decision.  Many people make the decision first and go do research to see that they were right.  (Confirmation bias.) 

You will always get some people to agree with any bad idea – but they rarely will honestly tell you how their life or business turned out much later using the idea, or if they even used it at all.

Learn well.  It determines how your life turns out.

Favor the great over the new

Most people will do the opposite – like when choosing a movie.

Favor the great ideas, the great philosophies, the great principles for living. 

There will always be the new coming along, only to yield to the next new shortly after.

The great sticks around.  It may not be a shiny penny, but it works. for the long term.

Compliment people

“Everyone likes a compliment.” – A. Lincoln

If you compliment people, they will look forward to seeing you.

The "wills and the will-nots"

It’s not the “have’s and the have-nots”, it’s the “wills and the will-nots”.

Will you?

The wealth gap

There is a lot of talk about the “wealth gap” today, and I wanted to give my views on it.

First, it makes sense that there is one (in fact there MUST be one), and it should be growing.  Let me unpack this.

How to make money is known, and it can be known by all who wish to know it.  There are no secrets.  Any idea that opportunities or knowledge are being kept from anyone is a myth today.

Making money is not easy and requires self-discipline, hard work, and taking risks.  Not everyone is willing to do these things simply because it’s easier today to chase short-term pleasure and entertainment.  If you had a hidden camera and watched what people do each day, you’d see the striking difference between how the top and the bottom spend their hours, and how they spent their hours years earlier to get them where they are.

The link between education and wealth is loose.  And education is available to anyone without going to college.  The idea that you have to have money is the first place to make money is a myth.  I am living proof and I am far from alone.  (And my son is light years ahead of me in science and math with no college.)

When we talk about a “gap”, we are talking about comparing the bottom to the top.  As far as the bottom, they have zero wealth.  They live hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck.  There are people who do nothing to improve their economic condition and millions who are downright destructive to themselves and their ability to make a contribution to others.  Zero will always be zero. The bottom 100 years ago, or 50 years ago or 20 years ago – was zero.

Now let’s talk about the top.  The people that get to the “top” are the advanced leaders showing us we can do it too.  We can see how they did it – no secrets.  There will always be the first person to make one billion, five billion, 10 billion – and there will be someone who will push the number ever higher.  And I am glad they get better all the time.  It creates lots of opportunities for me and everyone at the bottom – if they wanted to take advantage of it.

It used to be that a “million” meant you were rich – but now everyone who works in America will make a million dollars in their lifetime.  Some in a career, some in 20 years, and some in ten years, etc.  Even people on public assistance will collect a million in cash and benefits over their lifetimes without working!

I do not want to live in a world where everyone is equal when it comes to income and wealth.  This means that nobody can get ahead because by taxation or theft or through many policies.  I do not work hard to get ahead of anyone else, I do it to see how far I can go and how good I can get.  If I knew I couldn’t do better, I would not try.  If the guy at the bottom knows he will do as well as everyone else, he won’t try either, and nobody lives well or is fulfilled in a world where nobody is trying.

Money makes money – that can be true.  So the wealthy can eventually figure out how to live off their wealth without working.  But they have to earn it first.  And making money and managing it is a great responsibility.  In making money from money, they have to risk it and provide the capital and liquidity for new companies and new investments, and new jobs for others.  Sometimes they lose.

So, the rich get richer – that’s good by me.  Zero is always zero and will always be – I understand why.

So there’s a wealth gap – and it’s getting bigger.  I understand that and that’s the world I want to live in – and you should too.

Willingness to listen

Often young people enter “the age of infinite wisdom” and become unwilling to listen to anybody.  You know, where they know what they are doing and nobody can tell them otherwise.

Some people stay in this state their whole lives, and others may stay in it in some measure, or for certain areas of their lives.

Often we fool ourselves that a want is really a need, and once our brain does that we make excuses, don’t want to hear the truth, and dismiss it “because”.

The only thing that may wake these people up is when the culminating event happens and their life is a train wreck where they have to reach out for help.  For many, even that will not prevent them from stubbornly defending their positions, and they may be right back at it when the crisis passes.

People that are growing and ultimately succeed in anything, are open to listening and learning.  Learning from others (mistakes) is necessary, because there are a lot of areas of life and a lot of mistakes that could be made, and we will never live long enough to make them all ourselves.

Pick the right voices of value, and don’t just hear – listen.

Heavy load

Being heavy-hearted or heavy-minded is not about adding something that is going to make you happy – it’s about letting things go that you don’t need.

What did your mind press “save” on that you need to press “delete” on now?