What Is Success?
Success it the act of trying to improve upon things you are already doing. It is growing and developing. It is accepting bigger and greater challenges. It is not being afraid of making a mistake, suffering a setback, or failing. It is trying to do your best.
Successful people have several things in common.
1. They have a goal.
2. They develop a plan to meet their goal.
3. They obtain specific knowledge or training to implement their plan.
4. They are willing to work hard and stay focused on their plans.
5. They not willing to accept setbacks as final.
“I can give you a six word formula for success: think things through – then follow them through,” Edward Rickenbacker.
“The greatest obstacle to your success is probably you. Most barriers to your success are man-made. And most often, you’re the man who made them.” Frank Tyger
“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not! Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with great talent. Genius will not! Un-rewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not! The world is full of educated failures. Persistence prevails. Determination alone makes you omnipotent.” Calvin Coolidge
“If you have never experienced a failure, you are not working hard enough,” Jeffery J. Mayer.
“The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed,” Lloyd Jones.
I know my vision of success has changed over the years. (For some reason that statement make me feel old.) Below twenty, success would have been measured in activities. Visit Disney World; attend the big event, and other activities that I had no real input into. Twenty to Forty, success was measured in my impact on activities. Being “only” forty-eight, I am too young to rate the forty to sixty measurement, but it will be different.
One way to look at success is on four levels. First to yourself, then to your family, next to you fellow citizens, and last to God. I am not sure the order is correct, but I am going from small picture to large picture.
Self
What is your obligation to yourself? What do you owe yourself to be successful? I believe the first step toward personal success is knowledge building.
Knowledge Building
The Bible says - fear is the beginning of knowledge. I have been in Asia for the last two years and many of the Asian sayings are similar. The similar Asian saying is – all suffering comes from ignorance. In my view the first step toward success for you is your education. It does not have to be formal schooling, but you do need to make a concerted effort to obtain knowledge to prevent suffering.
Lou Holtz said, “The only thing that can change you from where you are now, to where you’ll be five years from now, are the books you read, the people you meet, and the dreams you dream.” The books you read are your self-education.
“Be wiser that other people if you can; but do not tell them so,” Philip Dormer Stanhope.
“ I have always observed that to succeed in this world one should appear like a fool but be wise,” Montesquieu.
Honestly / Trustworthy / Dependable
Success has to involve honesty. Proverbs says, the wealth of the wicked is saved for the righteous. Jesus said, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Asian saying is, for the universe to take care of you, you have to take care of the universe.
Honesty evolves your word being kept. What you promise, you must, within your power deliver. Honesty also involves the employment. You are being paid to perform task, if you perform the task below your abilities you are not being honest to yourself.
“A man’s treatment of money is the most decisive test of his character – how he makes it and how he spends it.” James Moffatt
Not sure I agree with this, but I thought it was funny, at least it says be honest. “Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give your opportunity to commit more,” Mark Twain.
Start to Finish
Personal Success involves not where you are today, but from where you started.
Two women were talking.
The first says, “I made my husband a millionaire.”
The second answers, “ Oh that is great.”
The first replies, “Well not really, before I started he was a multi millionaire.”
Success is not dependent on where you are today, as much as the improvements that “you” have made in your life. My grandfather died when my father was nine. He dropped out of school at 13 to help support his mother, brothers and sisters. I was supported and sent to college until I was 19. Because I started life with much more help than my father did, the measure of what is success will be much different for me than him.
Financially my father has done extremely well. He has been blessed with a good work ethic and health. Because I started with more, I will be lucky to equal my father’s success. Success is more than financial. It is personal development from which other benefits will arise.
“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.” Booker T. Washington
Pleasant Tasks or Pleasant Results
Ask yourself which you like better, pleasant task or pleasant results? Most people will eventually answer pleasant results. Therefore if results are more important than tasks, the difficult task become important to achieve the pleasant results.
“The difference between failure and success is doing a thing nearly right, and doing it exactly right,” Edward C Simmons.
“Worry not that no one knows of you; seek to be worth knowing,” Confucius.
Personal Happiness
Your life cannot be considered a success if you are not happy. Who is responsible for your happiness – you are. You are the captain of your ship. If you are not happy it is your fault.
“Success if getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get,” Dave Gardner.
“Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life. Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.” Benjamin Franklin.
Family
What is your obligation to your family?
Success involves your family. There are very few people in the world that wants to see you be successful. Most people see the world as one large pie, and your success will take that piece of pie away from me. I believe, and I am in a small minority, that if we work smartly together we can make three pies, and have more than enough to share.
You should be careful when you discuss your problems, some people will be sympathetic, but most people will be glad you are having trouble.
Your Parents
Your parents are some of the few people who want you to be successful. The Fifth Commandment is to honor thy father and thy mother so your days may be long on the earth. The reason you would life longer if you honor your father and mother is that they have your best interest at heart.
“A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down,” Arnold Glasow.
Your Siblings
Many coined phases are there because there is some truth to the phase. “Sibling Rivalry” is one such phase. Many young children and immature adults see the small pie picture. The Old Testament speaks of one person defeating one thousand and two people defeating ten thousand. Many brothers and sisters spend their time fighting over one small pie instead of working to make three pies.
“Few men have the natural strength to honor a friend’s success without envy,” Aeschylus.
Your Spouse
“Get yourself a spouse. Some thing you just can’t blame on the media or the government, “ David Mahoney.
The most important decision you will make in your life is whom you will marry. Many of the decisions in your life are not totally up to you. Doors are opened or not opened according to your abilities or being in the right place at the right time. In Asia this is called fate.
What are the values you should look for in a spouse?
1. Moral
2. Ability
3. Attractive by not gorgeous
4. IQ balance
5. Energy
6. Family
7. Father
Your Children
“For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.” Theodore Roosevelt
Fellow Citizens
What is your obligation to your fellow citizens?
Today we stand upon the shoulders of others. Our present knowledge and standard of living is because our fore fathers worked hard and sacrificed for the future generations. Today we have an obligation not to let the sacrifices be in vain.
As a young child we would visit my mother’s father and mother. Dora was larger German woman; Eaf was a small Scottish man who was a commercial fisherman. My mother tried to describe to me what the place looked like when she was my age. She described this large open bay where her and her younger brother Sam went sailing. Her older brother Willard had helped her father start a seafood processing plant and the plant was built on this large bay. Evidently Willard was a good businessman. WW Barnes Seafood was a large seafood processing plant the employed over twenty people.
Part of the sacrifice of the older generation was that Lt. W.W. Barnes died in France in WW2. I have often wondered how my mother’s and my life would be different if there was a large seafood processing plant in the family. By the time I was ten it was a small place in which the large bay had been back filled to construct a paper mill.
I had a chance to work with my Father in his church in 1999. He was unfortunately in a traffic accident that placed him in the hospital. Several of the people from the church came to visit in the hospital. I thanked one of men for coming to visit Dad while he was in the hospital. He replied, “There was no way we would not be here, your father has never not came to visit us when we called with a problem.” I know you are thinking, but he is a pastor he is supposed to do that. I believe Jesus mentioned that we are all to be servants, ministers, and pastors of sheep.
To a Higher Power
What is your obligation to God?
I have been all over the world, met thousands of people, and have met only one or two people who professed not to believe in God. Humans have a built in belief that there is a higher power. I believe the higher power placed it there.
Jesus puts it like this;
How can you say you love God, whom you have not seen, if you do not love your fellow man that you have seen?
By this you will know my disciples, that they love one another.