First things first: how would you describe success? What needs to be happen for you to feel successful or feel like a success?
Believe it or not, much of the potential for success in your life depends upon two things:
- Your ability to effectively function physically, mentally, and emotionally and
- How well you balance where your career or business life stops and your personal life starts.
Forbes contributor Jim Blasingame says the best way to be successful AND happy is to be able to define success in many ways, including having a life that’s balanced with richness outside of your career or business. Getting that new customer on board is an essential part of your business’s future. But making the time to attend a child’s activity in the middle of the day is also important to the long-term well-being of your business.
Many of us equate success or being a success with money. The more money you have – the more successful you are. Jim goes on to say “if you think being rich will make you happy get your umbrella out, because I’m going to rain on that parade with these two truths:
- Wealth only provides options, not a guarantee of happiness.
- If you can’t be happy without money and stuff, you aren’t likely to be happy with it.
Having multiple touchstones of success, not just money and stuff, helps keep the rough patches in business and life in proper perspective. Like…
- Loving and appreciating yourself
- Having great relationships
- Obtaining courage and confidence
- Attracting vibrant health
- Finding inner peace
You won’t have any of these things though if:
- You are unwilling to try and fail and try and fail until you get the results you want…
- You care what the neighbors think…
- You are not prepared to focus and take consistent baby steps toward your desired outcome…
- You cannot convince yourself that you actually deserve to make money and live well…
Regardless of what you do, people are always going to judge you. Kanye West recently launched an Adidas Clothing line. One online blogger described it as “perfect for the zombie apocalypse. This blogger went on to say “Kanye is so misunderstood, everyone. It is our fault. He is Neo and we are just all haters. And where is Mugatu from Zoolander to applaud this slowly? Because why wouldn’t you want to spend hundreds of dollars on clothing that Huck wore when he sat in the train station before Olivia saved him from himself?”
She is obviously not being supportive but when I saw an interview with Kanye after the fashion show, he was happy. Even if many think that his line is stupid or the clothes look like rags. Kanye is doing Kanye and that’s an important piece to the Kanye success puzzle. You have to dare to look stupid. Sure you will have hits and many misses but it’s only those who stay IN the game who win.
Julien Smith, CEO of Breather offers this advice: You don’t need everyone to like you. “Check this out” he challenges “when people don’t like you, nothing actually happens. The world does not end. You don’t feel them breathing down your neck. In fact, the more you ignore them and just go about your business, the better off you are. You know when they say “the best revenge is a life well lived”? Well, this is true, but it isn’t the whole truth. A life well lived is great, yes, but it cannot happen while you are sweating about who your detractors are and what they think. What you have to do, what you have no choice but to do, is accept it and move on.”
I recently saw the movie “The Theory of Everything” based on a memoir by Stephen Hawking’s former wife, Jane. Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. The film follows the scientist from his bicycling student days and through both the flowering of his genius and the depredations of his condition.
Diagnosed with ALS, a form of Motor Neurone Disease, shortly after his 21st birthday, he was given two years to live. In spite of being wheelchair bound and dependent on a computerised voice system for communication Stephen Hawking continues to combine family life (he has three children and three grandchildren), and his research into theoretical physics together with an extensive programme of travel and public lectures. He still hopes to make it into space one day.
Is having ALS challenging? I’m sure! But Stephen has completely beaten the odds and is still using the part of his body that no one has control over – HIS BRAIN!
Julien encourages “Take back your self-respect. Do it today – try it right now. Wear something ugly. Do something stupid. Tell someone the truth.”
Because you will never succeed if you don’t take a chance on YOU!
Giselle Hudson writes about unlocking potential, self awareness, self acceptance, self reliance, managing oneself and self leadership, the perils of disengagement and the pluses of highly engaged individuals and teams. and everything that peaks her interest or sparks a thought regarding transformation and the journey towards it. If you enjoyed this article, then join her free newsletter.
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