Issue 26 May 18, 2004

The ProCompass Newsletter is a publication of ProCompass Management Services shared with over 500 subscribers on the first and third Tuesday of each month. Please share this information with your friends and associates.

To unsubscribe from this newsletter please follow the link at the bottom.

If you have questions or inputs regarding this newsletter please contact us at mailto:Contact@ProCompass-ms.com

In this Issue:

Are You a Master of Success?

Last month I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting and listening to Dr. Ivan Misner, a world-renowned leader in the area of business referral marketing. Dr. Misner was promoting his newly published book �Masters of Success� which I have found to be very enlightening. This book is a collection of stories and articles by and about a number of other individuals who have been recognized as being highly successful, and is filled with insightful ideas about the nature of success, some of which I would like to share (with some of my own insights and comments).

Success come in Cans, failure comes in Cant�s. I am sure we all know people who have succeeded at something with no more ammunition than the belief that they would succeed. On the other hand we all probably know those who do not succeed because they believed that success is not within their grasp. Abraham Lincoln lost seven legislative and congressional races before being elected president of the United States. It is said that Thomas Edison tried 10,000 times to develop a usable electric light bulb before he finally succeeded. Would we still be enslaved in darkness if these men had decided, �it can�t be done�? (Yes, the pun was intended).

The word Luck is not part of success. It often appears that people who have succeeded at something just happened to catch a lucky break, or be in the right place at the right time. Actually it is more likely that they did something to cause that �lucky� break or that they made plans that put them in the right place at the right time. More often than not, success is the result of hard work, persistence and the unwillingness to accept defeat.

Failure is only an event, it is not a person. Consider Lincoln and Edison. Although these men had many unsuccessful trials they did not consider themselves failures. They did not give up. After all, success and failure are really only results. We strive for more of the result called success and less of the result called failure. Fortunately, we put a heavier weighting on success, rather than failure. Consider the average golfer (hacker) when one good shot (forget the 99 bad shots) of a round is encouragement to come back and try again.

Success is personal. Wealth, fame and power seem to be our standard measures for success. But are these things truly the measures of success that we want? Would you accept all the wealth, fame and power you could ask for, if it meant you would live a miserable life? Before you accept and pursue someone else�s definition of success, be certain you understand what it means to you. I was surprised to read of many wealthy, famous and influential people who felt that their real measure of success was somewhere else; family, friends, employees, society etc. And, that those standard measures were merely byproducts of a true success.

Success is the journey, not the destination. When you achieve some level of success, what do you do? Well, you might celebrate! That would be nice, but then what? Do you just sit on your pinnacle of success? Pinnacles have a tendency to be rather tenuous and uncomfortable places to sit, and they tend to erode away with time. Really successful people move on to the next pinnacle and then the next and so forth. Success is a continuous process, the successive realization of your own worthwhile achievable goals.

Success Comes on the Backs of Others. Does this mean that we should treat others as our lackeys or beasts of burden? Of course not! I should state this better as �Success comes as a gift on the backs of others�. Even the most acknowledged �Self Made� person will proclaim that they achieved success as the result of the contributions of many other people. Developing, supporting and maintaining relationships are a cornerstone of developing a formula for success.

The Secret of Success. I saved this for last because it is so profound, and people keep searching for it so I thought I would prolong the search a little longer. OK here it is: The Secret to Success is �There is no secret�. That may be disappointing to some, but those who have followed the preceding parts of this article had probably figured it out already. If you can get a highly successful person to tell you their �secret of success� it will probably be along the lines of �hard work, persistence, reliance on others, and an unwillingness to accept defeat�. Well, we�ve heard this all before and it is very common knowledge, so where is the secret, if there is any? The most well known secret of success is that it is the �Uncommon application of Common Knowledge�. This is well known because almost everyone has access to common knowledge. It is only a secret if people cannot or will not apply it to their own personal idea for success.

Masters of Success, edited by Ivan Misner and Don Morgan, Entrepreneur Press, 2004

Visit the ProCompass Strategic Thinking and Business Planning Flyer Back to Top

Visit the ProCompass Website Here

To Unsubscribe to the CompassPoint newsletter, click the link Here

PRIVACY POLICY: I do not rent, trade or sell my email list to anyone for any reason. You' will not receive any unsolicited Email from a stranger by being a part this list.

John Yost

ProCompass Management Services

(831) 438-7833

john.yost@procompass-ms.com

http://procompass-ms.com