The Single Metric for Success!

My son and I had a conversation this weekend, during the Shabbat morning meal. “What is success?”

The topic of success came up, and we discussed several different elements of success, and what it means.

• What does success mean today?
• How can success be attained?
• What is (and isn’t) success in real-life?

Firstly, we explored the subject and came to the understanding that success means different things to different people. For his 10½ year old younger brother, who is leaving off to summer camp for the very first time, success is defined as ”getting $20 bucks from Zaidy (grandfather) as extra spending money.”, Success for a teenager is defined quite differently; perhaps getting to take a trip to Europe or Israel, or some other perk, like getting $100 from that same Zaidy, from whom his younger sibling has much lower expectations. But one thing became glaringly obvious as our conversation continued; the awareness that success is a totally different thing to us than it is to someone else. In a sense, success is like a choice product from a toy store: something very different for each person!

After a 20 minute or so lively banter, the folks around the table found that we could all agree on at least a definition of success that was agreeable to us all: that ultimately, success is achieving what one sets themselves out to achieve.

By extension, this definition means that to be successful, the very first metric that will allow you to know if, in fact, that goal is (and, once measurable, to go on to achieve it!) is to have a very clearly defined and measurable destination or goal to get to. If that is missing from the equation- nothing you do will get you closer to achieve anything great

To paraphrase English writer and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known by his pen name, Lewis Caroll):

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there- immediately!”

 And, When the destination or goal you defined is reached or achieved, respecting and honoring the achievement, and the great feeling that such arrival brings along, that is the feeling of success.

The wonderful thing about success is that when you hit your goal, you can continue to ride on the trails it leaves in its wake. Riding on the confidence of one success and one achievement, and leveraging it and your good feeling and self-confidence in having achieved it gives you the desire and thrill to create another milestone and measurable goal.

And when that next, second goal is achieved– you feel (as you truly deserve to feel) that you are a winner! With two achievements behind you, you know and feel that you are capable of achieving even bigger goals and scaling even greater heights. You are simply continuing a pattern of behavior and achievement that is good, hard work, but well worthwhile– and you know you can do it, because you’ve proven it already. Twice, in fact! You are a person who has success followed by more success. Hence the term “successful”. Full of victories, one by one, until you are the embodiment of successes!

 And another point worth reflecting upon:

The bigger the odds of achieving the clear and measurable goals you have set for yourself, the stronger the feeling of achievement you will feel, and the sweeter the triumph of success.

To succeed and feel the victories, The need to demand of oneself, with real honest readiness to be bold with your vision and envision goals that, to be frank, scare the living hell out of you. Then and only then, can a goal be set that leaves you with the certainty that you will hustle to achieve it and be a winner- or fall flat and feel like a loser. And we all know that we, entrepreneurs out there to make the world spin just a bit faster or on a slightly different axis, are not losers, are we? Hell no!

 Hence, we put ourselves in the necessary mental state of endurance to do what it takes to win and rack up the amazing success that we strive for. 

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

 Thus, success is a very personal feeling as the direct outcome of your personal achievement, against all odds. And, distilled to its essence, for an organization as a whole, the success of an enterprise is actually simple math: The personal achievement of each individual involved, combined for the success of the whole.

And… therefore, dear reader, it’s of extreme importance for your own success in life to clearly define;

• What is your clear and measurable one month goal?
• Three months out? Six? The one year mark?
• For yourself, personally?
• For your business?

For some of you, it may be something private that you’d rather not share. But for the rest of you: be bold! Put your goals out there for the world to see.