The coach of the Jamaican bob-sled team in the movie Cool Runnings, if you remember the story, you would think that he was successful because he was a double Olympic champion … that sounds pretty successful to me but you will also remember that he had cheated and got stripped of his medals which does not speak well of his success. I think the coach’s answer summed it up quite nicely when he said, “A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you are not enough without it, you’ll never be enough with it.”

Which leads me to ask this – What exactly is success then?

I have looked up the meaning of success and there are literally thousands of articles written on the subject so I don’t want to bore you with them except to say that success has different meanings to different people and can be defined by each individual.

What I do want to do is challenge your thinking regarding the meaning of success in a general sense.

Firstly, success is not defined by what you do when you are at the top. It is easy to be successful there. Success is better explained by what you do when you are at the bottom. This is always determined by attitude. Think of when you are winning at a game of any sorts, especially individual games, and how easy it is to have a great attitude when you are winning. But think of the attitude you display when you are losing … trust me, it is not pretty.

Secondly, when you are at the bottom, you are generally down and out and lying on your back so just remember that you are looking up … and that is the best place to be looking because it will help you focus on where you want to be. Depending on your attitude, of course.

Thirdly, when you are lying on your back you can kick with both feet but when you are standing up you can only use one. This means that when you are down, kick and fight to get back up.

Lastly, and this is an important lesson to learn and re-learn and re-learn until it becomes part of our very being, when we fail to achieve what we have set out to achieve then we have only failed at achieving … we are not the failures.

Let me say it again, when you fail to achieve you are not a failure, you have only failed to achieve the desired result!

All of us have done this hundreds of times in our lives but yet we get up, fight back and carry on.

There is a great book by John Maxwell called “Failing Forward” and you would do well to read it if you need more reading on the subject.

Let me end off with the example of Mother Teresa. This remarkable woman spent a large portion of her young life fighting to go to India to work with the poor. She decided to give up her comforts to do what her calling in life was. She owned no businesses, probably never owned a car, did not have Louis Vuitton luggage, Gucci outfits and so on, yet this woman was highly successful.

Go out, be successful at who you are and make sure that you are enough without your gold medals.

Driven by love and fueled by desire

Shalom