Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.
Albert Einstein
When we say success, many of us immediately think of money and power. Money and power is absolutely fabulous. It gives us the ability to make our life very comfortable, secure and even exciting.
But what if we expanded success to mean more than just this.
What if we redefine success to mean all of the following along with financial success?
1. Success is: Great health
Don’t use all your health to chase after wealth, only to spend all your wealth later to get back your health.
Joseph Prince
Ever wondered what the point of having great financial success with failing health is?
In the quest of more financial growth very often we ignore the overall state of health and overall well-being. We eventually reach a point of fantastic material success but an inability to truly enjoy it all, which the freedom of great health permits.
Can the two go hand in hand? Of course yes, if we prioritise it so.
2. Success is: Fulfilling emotional life with respect to friends and family
At the end of the day it’s not ‘what looks good’ that matters, it’s ‘what feels’ good.
Maddy Malhotra
This really is about consciously spending time with our loved us deepening our connections with them. This again becomes a much ignored aspect in the rat race of life.
Needless to say, so many relationships today are bearing the brunt of this with the gaps between individuals ever widening.
This is certainly not what Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese writer and poet, meant when he said“Let there be spaces in your togetherness.”
3. Success is: Mental growth
You’re either growing or dying. Stagnation does not exist in the universe.
Steve Siebold
The learning and growth that occurs by
- opening our mind a little more than before and expanding our mindsets,
- reviewing our beliefs to see if they are serving,
- expanding our perspectives by understanding the perspective of those that are very different from us, meeting people vastly different from us,
- reading books and listening to podcasts to expand oneself
- challenging ourselves to face our fears,
- travelling to new places and
- constantly exploring higher and newer versions of ourselves that lie suppressed in us until we tickle it awake.
4. Success is: Positive Impact on others
“Every life, no matter how isolated, touches hundred of others. It’s up to us to decide if those micro connections are positive or negative. But whichever we decide, it does impact the ones we deal with.”
Sherrilyn Kenyon, Infamous
I like what Anita Roddick, a British businesswoman, human rights activist and environmental campaigner, said: “If you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.”
No matter where we are placed in life and at whatever level, if we can have a positive impact even on one life, it adds tons to our own feeling of happiness and fulfilment.
Hence,
- uplift and encourage others,
- fuel others dreams,
- give back to your community or society in whatever small or big way you can,
- alleviate the suffering of even one other person,
- help someone,
- say a kind word.
Impact again is not just through monetary means.
It could be at an emotional and mental level even or just couple of minutes of your complete presence for another person.
5. Success is: peace of mind
If you are depressed you are living in the past, if you are anxious you are living in the future, if you are at peace you are living in the present.
Lao Tzu
Peace of mind is the most valuable asset any one of us can acquire.
- A peaceful night’s sleep,
- a calmness of being,
- a 100 per cent presence in the NOW without the baggage of the past or the worry of the future, and
- a peaceful and positive acceptance of life’s curveballs.
I hope we can redefine wealth creation and the meaning of success to include other facets as well besides just money and power. As Henry David Thoreau, an American essayist, poet, philosopher, said: “Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.”
Hence:
Judge your success by the degree that you’re enjoying peace, health, and love.
H. Jackson Brown Jr
Want to share your story of how you thrive? Write to us at [email protected]