Secrets to Success
November 28th, 2011
sssshhh it's a secret
When it comes to success I sure don’t have all the answers, so I reached out to people who I think are very successful to get their take on this topic. But, before you read any further, the first and absolutely most important step to take when it comes to success is to define it. Success could mean giving up all your worldly belongings and meditating on top of a mountain, or finding that gorgeous trophy husband who spends his entire day cooking, cleaning and eagerly anticipating your arrival. It’s all in how you define it. Here are a few secrets from successful people in my life:
I have a friend – let’s call her Malene. She’s a fit and balanced mom of 2 teenaged boys, a vegetable gardener, an artist, a full time government employee, a bookkeeper for her husband’s business, and so much more. She attributes her energy to power vegetable juice shakes in the morning. With the amount that she gets done, always with a smile on her face, I’m seriously contemplating choking down some of her green lumpy potion. I’ll keep you posted.
Then there’s my hairdresser – I’ll call her Rene. She’s a hoot, even if she has the flu. Her secret to success is to just laugh her way through it all, the good times and the bad times. I swear, one day she was cutting my hair and she looked awful, which is extremely unusual as she’s the most gorgeous gal you’ll ever meet. But on this day she looked so miserable and haggard with a cold, yet we laughed and giggled about how horrible she looked! It doesn’t matter what kind of day Rene is having, she’s having a blast no matter what.
John Espley, our Business Development Manager, says his secret to success is actually other people’s success! He is forever surrounding himself and learning from “successful people”. His favorite thing is connecting his contacts and forging partnerships that many times have nothing to do with him at all. Oh, but they do have something to do with him, don’t they? He comes out with knowledge he’s gained from these successful people, becomes the total hero having brought people together (and gets immense personal satisfaction from this) and now has 2 great friends who love him dearly and he jokingly says owe him one!
Another friend – I’ll call her Michelle – I have tremendous respect for. Like a lot of women out there she juggles the whole work thing, kid thing, wife thing, home thing. Where her success secret comes into play is that Michelle actually has her own life in addition to all of these things tugging and pulling at her: she’s a hard core mountain biker and skier. How is she able to do this with all the other things on her plate? Well, she steered her kids toward sports that she can do withthem on the weekends. So instead of sitting in a hockey rink freezing her bored ass off, she’s ripping up the trails with her two boys! Nice.
Mandy Farmer, "Stand up straight and you'll look confident"
So what’s my personal secret to success which I’ll probably always be working on? Good posture. It can convey so much confidence even if you lack it, which of course can happen from time to time! The best way to bring that into your life on a regular basis is a good yoga class which will teach you the basics of good posture as well as give you an ongoing weekly reminder to really make it stick.
How do you define success and what are your secrets for achieving it?