If you work in the corporate
world, you are likely subjected daily to the pressure of producing
results. To stay competitive, your company checks itself through certain
indicators. These indicators could be in dollars (revenues, assets,
equity) or numbers (branches, employees, shipments, inventory) or rank
(stature within industry, territory, profitability). You are pressed to
perform to make these indicators look good for your company.
Measuring your progress to fulfill
a mission is an excellent concept. It works well in the corporate world
and works quite as well in our personal affairs, too. I am all for it.
But let's look into it more closely.
Your salary, the size of your
backyard, the educational degree you attained are some of the dollars,
numbers, and rank that most people take to be indicators of success.
Well and good. But what if your own indicators are not looking good?
Say, $200,000 in debt. Or one night in jail. Or three packs a day. Or
demoted in a shake-up. Or missed school passing mark. Get it?
Sadly, people look at these then classify you. Your indicators can get
you admiration but they can also get you labeled as a disgrace.
The late American billionaire,
Dale Carnegie spent the first half of his life accumulating wealth and
then spent the last half giving it all away to charity and to the arts.
In my view, the billionaire Dale Carnegie is of far less significance
than the "whole" Dale Carnegie, a humble man with drive and
persistence that stemmed from his passion to make others' lives better.
Humility, drive, persistence, passion, caring - these define a great
man, regardless of dollars, numbers, and rank.
What is the lesson here? You can
have nothing but actually have everything. Conversely, you can have
everything but amount to nothing. The 'WHOLE YOU' DETERMINES YOUR
SUCCESS, not some aspect of you that people magnify. Each experience and
each decision you made in your life up to now are what made you who you
are today. Why not make each of them count? Let each one transform you
into the person that you want to become!
Did you just cross a milestone?
Perhaps, you passed the driving test or bought a new house or exceeded
your sales target. Or did you just suffer a setback? Like, you lost your
job, you have been taken ill, or a rift came about between you and a
loved one. Go check your 'indicators' and assess your situation
appropriately. Cherish each win and endure each loss but then ask:
"AS A RESULT OF THIS EXPERIENCE, WHAT HAVE I BECOME?" . If a
better person has emerged out of it, then you just orchestrated a
tremendous triumph - your self-transformation!
