Make a Life -- While You are Making a Living

by Dr. Ron Jenson

Are you successful? Stop and think about it for a minute.
Really try to answer that question: Are YOU successful?

Now, try to answer the same question from several other points of view:

What would your spouse say in response to that question?
What would your children say?
What would your neighbors say?
What would your friends say?
What would your co-workers say?
What does your body say?

What does your conscience say? Ouch! If you are like most people, you probably had a different answer once you processed how others saw you. Don't worry, that's normal.

However, this is a very important question to answer because everyone ultimately moves toward their definition of success. Almost unconsciously we've developed our own personal definitions from exposure to the media, from our backgrounds, from our schools, from our neighbors, from our families. And that definition of success becomes the determining factor in our behavior.

So, how do you define success? Maybe it's easier to begin by asking the question, "How do others define success?" I would suggest to you that there are at least five key measurements:

1. Power     2. Prosperity     3. Position     4. Prestige    5. Pleasure

When people talk about success, more often than not they are talking about those qualities. But the reality is, those things come and go.

Glenn Bland in a book entitled Success, published over 15 years ago, gives us a clear illustration that "the five P's" alone can't buy happiness and peace of mind. Bland tells of a meeting in 1923 of the world's most successful financiers, held at Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel. In terms of money, these financial giants almost literally ruled the world. Look at their names and positions:

Charles Schwab was the president of the largest steel company in America.
Samuel Insull was the president of the largest utility company.
Howard Hopkins was the president of the largest gas company.
Arthur Cutten was the great wheat speculator.
Richard Whitney was the president of the New York Stock Exchange.
Albert Soll was Secretary of the Interior in President Harding's cabinet.
Dusty Livermore, was called "the great bear" on Wall Street.
Ivar Kruger, was head of the world's greatest monopoly.
Leon Fraser was president of the Bank of International Filaments.

These men were movers and shakers, the kind of men we envy and wish we could be like because of their great success. But something went terribly wrong with their lives. Twenty- five years later, look where they were:

Schwab went bankrupt and lived the last five years of his life on borrowed money.
Insull died in a foreign land, a fugitive from justice, penniless.
Hopkins went insane.
Cutten became insolvent and died abroad.
Whitney had just been released from Sing Sing Prison.
Soll had been pardoned from prison and died at home, broke.
Livermore committed suicide.
Kruger committed suicide.
Fraser committed suicide.

The world called them "successes," but their lives ended in ultimate failure and disaster. Why? I think it's because of the way they, and so often we, define success.

B. C. Forbes, a great financier from the West put business success into perspective when he said, "How many men I know that are earning dollars aplenty but who are really earning little of what counts. They are so overwhelmingly engrossed in business that they get nothing for their dollars. The juggernaut of dollar-making has crushed out of them every capacity of genuine enjoyment, every grace, every unselfish sentiment and instance."

Writer John Steinbeck, in a letter to Adlai Stevenson in 1960, said the following:

"A strange species we are. We can stand anything God and nature throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much, and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick."

Now, don't get me wrong: power, prosperity, position, prestige and pleasure are all wonderful assets.

However, I want to urge you to not stop with these fruits of success. Instead, go deeper. In the process of making a good living, also make a rich, full, dynamic life.

In the research I've done on hundreds of top leaders around the world, I've asked, "At the end of your life, how will you know you've succeeded?" None of them even mentioned power, prosperity, position, prestige or pleasure. They said things like, "How did my children turn out? What kind of relationship did I have with my spouse? What kind of value did I add to my community? What kind of positive difference did I make in the lives of people around me? Did I live a virile, dynamic, personal life, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually?" . The bottom line to what they told me was this: True success means having a complete life, health not only in their businesses, but also in their families, in their personal lives. And secondly, success means having a life of contribution. Had they made a positive difference not only in their personal lives but their families and their friends, their businesses, their communities, their governments? The key to a rich, full life is learning to focus on principles The key is learning to focus on the kinds of principles that will allow you to have real success in all areas of your life and ultimate completeness and fulfillment Now, let me suggest how you can

The key to achieving this type of success-a complete, dynamic life and a contributing impact-is to focus on the roots in your life (right principles) and not the fruit. Success is the result of good habits and applying right principles to your life. If you faithfully build these principles in your life you will not only enjoy "the five P's" I mentioned earlier, but you will also enjoy a fuller and more complete life while having a maximum positive impact on others. Can you think of anything better?

Here are the principles I urge you to build into your life in the days to come. Each of these ten MAXIMIZERS principles are critical to achieving maximum success and significance.

1. Make things happen. Be pro-active, not reactive, an initiator, not someone waiting for someone else to lead. Don't blame your circumstances on your background or surroundings. Instead take responsibility.

2. Achieve personal significance. Realize you're a significant person, that you were created for a significant purpose. You ARE special! Also, remember the power of humility. Be honest enough to admit your weaknesses and look for opportunities to grow.

3. X out the negatives. Deal with the problems in your life. Learn how to have a consistently positive mental attitude. Develop a buoyant, can-do spirit toward all of life. See your "problems" as challenges.

4. Internalize right principles. Build the value system that is based on bedrock, absolute principles, and let your life be guided by those principles. Don't ever compromise on principle.

5. March to a mission. Have a sense of purpose. Know where you're going. Catch a vision for all of your life-faith, fitness, family, friends, finances, firm (business) and fun.

6. Integrate ALL of life. Be balanced in your personal, family and business life. Remember, you don't want to win at work and fail at home or vice versa. Give attention to ALL vital areas

7. Zero in on caring for people. Really care for people. Your goal is to truly love others through your actions and words, regardless of your feelings.

8. Energize internally. Develop your personal character and cultivate the spiritual side of your life. Your real power comes from within not without. Keep growing internally and strengthen your inner life. This is your real taproot.

9. Realign rigorously. Constantly make mid-course corrections and develop the skills to do so. Don't lose any emotional energy on worry, fear or hatred toward difficult circumstances or people. Instead, focus on what you can change-YOU. Solve problems, meet challenges and keep adjusting.

10. Stay the course. Stick with it. Just don't quit! As Booker T. Washington once said, "The greatness of an accomplishment should be measured by the obstacles that needed to be overcome to achieve it." Do you have challenges? Join the human race. Often, great people are very ordinary folk who just didn't quit.

If you build these habits into your life in the days to come, you will win not only professionally but personally. And, you will truly succeed as you make a successful life while making a successful living.

Furthermore, if you can build others who live this way, you will have a powerful organization filled with powerful people. As lives are being changed, people will rush to you to get help for building a business and making a rich, rewarding life. Moreover, people will want to stay with you because you are helping them succeed and be significant in all vital areas of their lives.

And, really, isn't that what we all want?