Are you successful?

Do you want to be successful? What does that mean? Success is one of those terms that is like beauty – it's in the eye of the beholder. Being the curious sort, I did an online search of the word success and the search provided 7,010,000,000 results. Yes, that's 7 trillion!

Money, fame, fortune, happiness, love, purpose and helpfulness are all terms that you could use to describe success. One of the dictionary definitions in my search said:

The accomplishment of an aim or purpose.

We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to achieve success and yet, we all have a hard time defining what it is. Legendary motivator Tom Hopkins measured success based on four areas of fulfillment:

Financial accomplishments, based on self-image and goals.

Emotional stability and the ability to control emotional handicaps.

Physical fitness and feeling good physically.

Maintaining spiritual awareness and a personal relationship with a higher power. Hopkins suggests, "If you can meet all four of these, you're a successful human being by any measure of success."

I would add one more: Service to others. In our business and in my experience, true success comes from serving others.

Heavy topic for the end of the week, I know. At RAB, we teach the three nonverbals you must exhibit with every client engagement:

Joy – A deep sense of fulfillment with the work you are doing.

Confidence – Continuously seeking the knowledge you need to #GetBetter.

Passion – Simply put, you LOVE your job.

Success doesn't have to be "the goal" or the destination. Success can be the journey, the work and the service you provide every day. Don't live on "someday isle." Someday I'll be happy; someday I'll make a lot of money, etc. Make this the day that you look in the mirror and smile and tell yourself how successful you are. That will lead to confidence, passion and joy. People and particular clients are attracted to successful people. Even when things don't go according to plan, don't think you failed. You were successful in finding another way not to do something. 

Jeff Schmidt is the SVP of Professional Development. You can reach him at Jeff.Schmidt@rab.com. You can all so connect with him on X and LinkedIn.