What is success?

Welcome back, in this article we carry on covering the basics of wealth, money and success.

Before we can move on to the more practical side there are certain basics that hold us back and I would like to explain this principle a bit better.

Money and the creation of it can be likened to school. In life, too many people try to skip steps and go straight to matric without having learnt the foundation of reading, writing and mathematics metaphorically speaking.

In the same way we are clueless on how to manage our money and create more of it by working less.

I’ve in the past tried to show friends or family advanced strategies to grow their money and it would go straight over their heads. They did not have a solid foundation and could not comprehend what I was saying.

As we progress together, your skills will begin to develop and by the end you should (if you followed all these lessons) be out of school with all the wealth life has to offer. By the way, wealth does not mean money, this is a later lesson.

This week’s lesson is on success. What is it and how do you define it in your life?

For some people, success means a new car, bigger house or name brand clothes. For others it’s a promotion and the corner office. Still for others its finishing university. With so many connotations, how can we tell which one is correct? For me, they all could be described as the definition of success but at the same time they all could just as easily mean failure.

Earl Nightingale had a great definition of success that I subscribe to: Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal/goal. In this way anyone who is progressively realizing a goal of theirs is on their way to success.

A mother whose goal is to raise healthy happy children and is doing just that, can therefore be seen as a success  A teacher whose goal is to help shape young minds and is realizing this goal can be seen as a success.

I, at one stage earlier in my life had reached a goal that I had set out to achieve and everything was wonderful for a few months. But then something strange started to happen, I became depressed, unhappy, aimless.

Even though I looked a success from the outside, I was a failure because I had not reset my goals.

This definition has one catch, there are terms and conditions. In order for you to qualify as a success, your goal has to be a worthy one.

A person selling drugs or stealing cars can therefore not be seen as a success (even if they reach their goal of becoming rich) as they do not contribute positively towards society.

They may evade the laws of society for a while, but as mentioned in a previous lesson, other laws will always bring things back to order.

This week’s lesson: Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. What is your goal?

For me to help you even more I would like for you to become involved. We all learn more by doing: What worthy goal are you looking at achieving this year? Send your answer to rolfjoss1@gmail.com