Based on our personal values and our life experiences, we all have different ideas about what success means for us. In this episode, we’re kicking off a series about success. To start, we’re exploring the following question: How do you define success as an entrepreneur?
Look at success as not only a number but as an emotion and as reaching further than just their business. It needs to reach into their life as well because business success without personal life success is, in the long term, not the goal.”
Pamela Grice, Business Coach
In this episode, we talk about how we each define success, how our perceptions of success evolve over time, and how our mindset around success impacts our business relationships.
We’d love to hear from you. How do you define success for yourself and your business? How has that definition changed over time? Comment below and let us know! And dont forget to tune in next week, as we take an in-depth look at success in business..
How Do You Define Success in Your Life and Business?
What we Talked About
- [00:00] Thriving Minds, Thriving Lives: What does success look like for you?
- [02:22] How our perceptions of success change over time
- [05:03] Gauging our success by our impact on others
- [06:01] Navigating a mismatch in values: Can you build close relationships with people who define success differently?
- [11:10] Evaluating and re-evaluating our definitions of success over time
- [12:50] Beyond the numbers: How do you measure success in your business?
- [16:03] Our best advice for young entrepreneurs: Success beyond the surface
- [19:20] Infectious optimism: Finding inspiration from younger generations
- [21:04] Our favorite purchases from the past week
- [23:14] Coming up next: Success over the life cycle of your business
Our Personal Definitions of Success
- “Some words that I would use would be peace and security–basically, living the life that I chose to live and having the security to be able to do that and not living in fear. I think those are the definitions of success for me.” – Pam
- “Mine would be waking up in the morning and being excited for what I’m doing in the day. I think success also means, to me, loving the people around me well and being a good human to them. I think when we’re younger, success looks different. Now, success is really about being in a good spot in what I’m doing in this world and that it changes people’s lives.” – Teri
- “As a child, I think you define ‘rich’ as successful. That’s what success meant to me when I was a kid. They’re super successful because they have lots of money. Now, having grown and lived life, I look at it much differently. Finances are nice. But it’s what you do with those finances, I think, that makes you a success or not.” – Pam
Definitions and Redefining Success
- “Once you have that aligned in your life of what you are defining success is, where people might want to go in their mind to be ‘successful,’ then that’s the people that will be attracted to work with you, whatever your business is.” – Teri
- “The definition of success is fluid over time, based on circumstances of your life, your goals at the time. So it’s something we need to revisit over and over again. I think it’s a good thing to put into your annual planning is to say, ‘What does success look like this year? What does that look like? How will we know we’ve gotten there?’ And then heading towards that, i think is important.” – Pam
- “I think it’s two-fold. Yes, it’s the numbers. But it’s also am I providing value for clients? Am I worth me having on their payroll? I really want long-spanning relationships. That’s a general in my life. That’s success to me, too–knowing that people come and go as part of life. But I don’t want everybody to go. I want to have some of that base, of these people are sticking around. So the services I’m providing are worth them investing in me, and my business, and my team.” – Teri
Our Words for New Entrepreneurs
- “Success, I would tell a younger person, would be being able to take the valleys and the mountains in an entrepreneurial journey because it’s a really hard walk sometimes. So to know you’re not going to walk into a business and be on top, that there’s going to be some lows. So can you successfully go through that terrain and get to the next place.”
- “Success, too, is being able to say, ‘Hey, I don’t know how to do this,’ and reaching out. I would tell them you’ll have more success if you can learn to ask early on. We’ve all fumbled through a million things because you get to be a million different jobs in your business. It’s not just about what you do. It’s about everything that doesn’t work all the time.”- Teri
- “As entrepreneuers, we operate from the mindset of, ‘I could figure it out.’ That becomes a stumbling block for us because sure, you could figure it out but there’s a better way–by having a mentor, or by having coach, or at least talking to other people who have been where you want to go, you get to avoid some of their mistakes.” – Pam
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