What is the Success Equation?

How do you become successful? That's always been a truly difficult thing to measure because there are so many factors at play. What is “success” is the first most important question to consider. Is it prestige? Is it money? Is it happiness? Is it health? Is it time?

There are so many factors that are taken into account that it becomes a difficult task to truly understand exactly what success means let alone what the equation is to become successful. Think about just these two factors–success varying from person to person and that success can be measured in various ways.

I've always considered success to be a goal that I would never attain. I'm sure high achievers and driven people aka the CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners and startup founders are nodding their head in agreement. When you are driven, you never fully reach the proverbial mountaintop. You have to understand and train yourself to appreciate the process and celebrate the steps (backward and forward) and markers along the way. If you don't do this, then you could be setting yourself up for serious frustration.

As I've reached and achieved goals, I have come to the realization that I enjoy the drive sometimes more than hitting those goals. If I don't hit a goal, I look and see what I could have tweaked to achieve a better result and if I hit the goal, I say to myself that I should have strived for more.

Now, this “mentality” or “perspective” will vary from person to person just like the definition or of success (or like the definition of being a CEO :-)) but this remains true there are certain things that it seems that successful people have and do. While we may not be able to give the exact equation like 2+2=4, we can look at those that have been “successful” and are successful and take a look at some of those things that they've done or the mentality that they have that attracts that “Midas Touch.”

This month, we are looking forward to looking at some of those aspects of the success equation–not to guarantee success–but to increase the likelihood of being successful. Just like everything in life and especially in business, you can't eliminate risk but you can attempt to mitigate risk. We hope to do the same.

Happy September!

– Gresh