What is success?
Success is a multifaceted concept, manifesting uniquely across various domains of life. For athletes, it embodies reaching the pinnacle of their sport. For employees, it signifies ascending the career ladder to attain top positions. Academics view success as achieving eminence and recognition within their field. For those battling illness, success is synonymous with recovery and restored health. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, often measure success in terms of financial prosperity and business achievements.
Having worked with people for some 30+ years, I try and find out what success means to them and we figure out a way to get there by using a variety of methods such as NLP. What a mentor defines as their own success is not usually what the client wants.
However, and this is interesting, as the world changes, people do look out for “signs” of success from mentors. If you are in sports, then you would normally look for a sportsperson with achievements and experience to mentor you.
On the entrepreneurial side, sadly, in today’s world the signs people look for are materialistic things especially if someone is looking for financial success. People want to know how much money you have, what is your net worth, how many supercars, houses and watches you have. This is many people’s definition of success and if you can show off enough of these, they will trust that you are successful.
I too have fallen victim to this “showing off” sickness at times and know all about it! It consumes you, takes over your life and takes your focus from other important things in life. A few years back, I was on all the social media platforms, hammering away for hours each day, reaching 10m+ views a month and showing people how successful I was. I was recognised in many countries whether from my latest posts or driving a car that people had seen. Was it “amazing”? No! It was annoying!
The funny thing is, I was more successful when I wasn’t wasting my time showing off my success on social media! This was a great lesson in life and why I am so passionate about trying to instil a sense of reality in the people I work with. It’s not about showing off. It is about NOT showing off and knowing deep down that you don’t need to.
There’s a problem though. Not following the herd is HARD. Everyone is telling you about how successful they are ALL the time.
There’s so much information overload out there that in order to reach people and give them your message and for them to believe in you and trust you, you need to show off!
I know many multi-millionaires and quite a few billionaires (see, I am showing off!). The really rich ones, the ones that can buy any number of supercars or houses, rarely show off. They “know”. When so-called pretend rich people rent supercars and drive around Puerto Banus, the “real” rich people go with their private jet to a private island. These really rich people don’t even have or care about social media. Think about that.
I do limited mentoring when I have time with athletes and entrepreneurs. I wouldn’t say I am on the level of having my own private island but I do well enough and am experienced enough to help people reach the top of their game, whether it is becoming Mr Universe (yes I have worked with several) or making £50m+ (yes I have helped people make a lot of money).
As much as I hate showing off, the one thing I constantly get asked, even from people who know who I am and what I have achieved, is what cars have you got now? How many houses you have? What’s your net worth? How successful are you?
My definition of success
- If you are healthy, you are successful.
- If you regularly achieve your goals, you are successful.
- If you are married and keep your marriage together and happy 80%+ of the time, you are successful.
- If you spend your life with your family, seeing your children grow up every day and are a big part of their life, you are successful.
- If you are not addicted, not mentally ill, not deeply unhappy, you are successful.
- If you wake up every day looking forward to the day and to life, you are successful.
- If you have a good friends and family life, you are successful.
- If you are more liked than hated, you are successful!
- If you don’t have to worry about money, you are successful.
- If you don’t feel the need to show off, you are successful.
- And yes, for many people, if you have a lot of materialistic things, you are successful - in some way.
If you are looking for a mentor to guide you through any area of your life and you have a healthy budget, I will consider mentoring you. Please get in touch. I have not put my contact details on this site on purpose because I want to see how resourceful you are in being able to reach me! That will be your first test.