More on Redefining Success: Excerpt from my book: A Friendly Guide to Writing and Ghostwriting
A few years back, I was collaborating on a self-help book at the Malibu home of a motivational speaker. She was a wealthy woman in her mid-thirties who talked fast and never stopped moving. It was a task for her to sit still for the two hours we worked together each week and she gave new meaning to the old expression, “ants in her pants.” Late one afternoon when the sun was setting in its pastel glory over the Pacific Ocean, she paced back and forth and asked me breathlessly, “What do you see in your future? What are your hopes and dreams? What do you really want?”
I watched the gulls soar and swoop in front of the plate glass windows of this woman’s sumptuous beach estate. I had traveled extensively with the ballet in my youth, my literary career was on a good track, I liked what I was doing for a living, I had a home that I loved, I had great friends, a beautiful cat, and I preferred foods that were fresh and organic.
“Peace,” I said. “I want peace.”
“Is that all?” she asked me, clearly disappointed by my answer. “Don't you want to be successful?”
I smiled. I knew where she was coming from. I’d been there too, not so long ago. I want to make it clear here that I’m not knocking fame or wealth. It’s good to have high hopes as you follow your dreams, make lots of money and work toward something that you want. It's good to be lauded for your accomplishments, but enjoying the steps along the way is what success is all about. So is keeping a positive attitude when you fail. As you get closer to what you want, when you glimpse the success that seems to be right around the corner, you have to be ready for a challenging dance with failure, the opposite of the success for which you’re striving. It’s helpful to remember:
Light cannot exist without darkness.
Success cannot exist without failure.
You’ve probably heard the famous story of Thomas Edison, the genius inventor whose school teachers said he was too stupid to learn anything. As an adult, after thousands of attempts to invent the light bulb, somone asked him how it felt to fail over and over. He said, “I haven’t failed. I’ve just found thousands of ways that don’t work.”
The willingness to see your failed attempts as the road to success requires an appreciation of the process, trust in yourself, and the stamina to keep going. If you hold onto a romanticized version of achievement, the door to success will slam shut in your face. It’s true that author J.K. Rowling built a billion-dollar industry from her Harry Potter series. Other authors like Stephenie Meyer with her Twilight vampire trilogy and E. L. James who wrote the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy made a small fortune and they’re still counting. But these are the exceptions.
Do you relate to any of the following?
Billionaire Warren Buffet said, “Success is really doing what you love and doing it well. It’s as simple as that. I’ve never met anyone doing that who doesn’t feel like a success.”
Richard Branson, billionaire founder of the Virgin Group, says: It [success] is the satisfaction of doing it for yourself and motivating others to work with you in bringing it about. It is about the fun, innovation, creativity with the rewards being far greater than purely financial.
Author Zig Ziglar says: Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph.
Author/integrative physician Deepak Chopra says: Success in life could be defined as the continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realization of worthy goals.
And then there’s my personal favorite from Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson:
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know that one person has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is success.