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.  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 lifetime, but Significance lasts several life time.  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

 

 

 


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