SUCCESS AND SIGNIFICANCE



SUCCESS AND SIGNIFICANCE
Success is secular.  It is adding value to one’s self.  Success focuses on the three ‘Fs’ of achieving: my fans, my fame and my fortune.  It’s primarily knowing my purpose in life, growing to my full potentials and benefitting myself and probably my immediate family.


Significance is more spiritual, and those things that are spiritual tend to be deeper, more impactful, meaningful, touching and more lasting in our lives.

Significance focuses on the three “Fs” of appreciating:  (1) Faith (2) Family, (3) Friends. Significance is, adding value to benefit others without any string attached.  Significance is having a purpose for work, that you can lose yourself, purpose that you can affect others, purpose that brings you joy and happiness.  It’s once you learn something that is good, that works, an idea, you are ready to share with others.  It’s never having a ‘scarcity’ mindset!  “What you keep is what you lose”.  The seed of Significance – until you cross that barrier, you will never be a ‘Man of Significance’.

The journey of Significance takes time, you cannot be a man of significance in a short time.  The ability to forgive someone at a very high personal cost is very divine and profound.  Our job on Earth is not to compete with others on Personal Wealth, but to complete others.  It’s such people of Significance the Lord blesses.

Success is usually the stepping stone to Significance, but not anymore because people like Mother Theresa never added value to themselves but to others throughout their lifetime.

After some level of success in our lifetime, we get to a level where there is a vacuum, where we ask God “This cannot be all my purpose in life.  There must be something greater than this, a purpose in life that is greater than this”.  That is Significance.

Pursuing Significance, takes us out of our comfort zone, it’s natural calling to create meaning for our life, living for others.  Once you are part of Significance, nothing else will satisfy you.  To love what you do and feel it matters to other people’s lives is Significance.

With success, your motives may be for yourself or selfish, but with Significance, you are selfless.  When you help others, you help yourself and when you help yourself, you might not help others.

With success, your influence is limited, but with Significance, you influence is unlimited because it cuts across a larger spectrum.  With Significance you influence a leader, the whole sets of people and their life, and community that looks up to them.

Influence literally means:

 

I         =       Integrity

N        =       Nurture people

F        =       Faith in people

L        =       Listen to others

U        =       Understand people

E        =       Empathy for others

N        =       Navigate for people

C        =       Connect with people

E        =       Empower people

Success can last a life time, but Significance lasts several life times.  Spend valuable time with loved ones and evaluate your time.

Live a life of significance.  Be a giver, not a taker.   

Culled from:  “Success and Significance”, by John Maxwell

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

QUIET LEADERSHIP

It’s a reflection of Carlo’s time in football and his thoughts and philosophies on what it takes to be a leader in this profession as a football coach/leader.   Values like resect, loyalty, value of money and hard work and the importance of relationship and family. Quite Leadership There is power in being calm and measured, in building trust and making decisions coolly, in rising using influence and persuasion and being professional in your approach .   It is born out of the idea that a leader should not need to rant or rage with iron fist, but rather, their power should be implicit .   It should be crystal clear who is in charge, and their authority must result from respect and trust and value creation, rather than fear.   You earn the respect you are shown, partly through a successful career of delivering trophies (value creation) for players, clubs, but perhaps more importantly because of the fact that I respect those I also work with (building r...
Read more

BOLD: HOW TO BE BOLD IN BUSINESS AND WIN – The Story of “Virgin Galactic”

The future belongs to the Bold .  The world is so crowded that only those who have a significant and dramatically different story to tell will grab the attention of customers. In a world and age when we have come to expect good level of service and product as given, only an exceptional and memorable experience will earn customer loyalty. Different breed of organizations are now emerging, they succeed because they have courage, confidence or just sheer chutzpah to pursue a purpose beyond profit :  to engage, entertain and educate their audiences, who see their customers and employees as members of a like minded community, who create and administer cult-like following among their brand – both within and outside their organizations – who are not just different, but dramatically different and who push to the extreme the consequences of their dreaded positioning and strategy.  Virgin Galactic is one of the bold brands. Virgin Galactic Virgin has long been thought ...
Read more

TAKE THE LEAD BY BETSY MYERS

Image
    TAKE THE LEAD      (Motivate, Inspire, and Bring out the best in yourself and Everyone around you) Author: BETSY MYERS Who is Betsy Myers? I cannot possibly do a comprehensive review of this book without first giving you an insight into the life and background of the author. Betsy Myers served as chief operating officer and senior adviser to Barack Obama’s 2007- 2008 presidential campaign and chaired the women for Obama organization. A senior official in the Clinton administration, she was the first director of the White house Office for Women’s initiative and Outreach. Before joining the Obama Campaign, she was executive director of Harvard’s center for public Leadership, and she currently serves as founding director of the Center for Women in Business at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Question1. ”Why is it that some people challenge us and motivate us to rise to our best abilities, while others seem to drain our ene...
Read more