Successful or Influential: Know the Difference

Successful or influential: Know the Difference

Copyright 2015    Aleasa M. Word   All Rights Reserved


A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a colleague about success. She was slightly disturbed because she had quite the presence online but her bank account didn’t reflect the thousands of people who followed or friended her online. She couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t successful. My first question to her was “what do you define as success?”  I mean realistically, we need to define something before we say we don’t have it right?

Each person has a different opinion of what success means and we say that all the time. When it comes to ourselves, however, we fall prey to societies idea of what success is and that always equates to money. No matter how many followers or friends you have, if you don’t have money you’re a nobody right? That is just not true but until your mindset changes that WILL be your truth.

Think about what it is that you do for a living. Think about the volunteer work you do for others. Which of those two things do you feel a deep passion for? If you said both, that’s great. More than likely, it’s one or the other unless they are one in the same. With that said, before you made any money doing whatever it is you are passionate about, what were your thoughts around it? Did you say things like “I don’t care what happens as long as I help one person?” Or perhaps you said something like “I just want to make a difference.” Maybe it was “All I care about is making life easier for people with xyz, so I need to create this program or product and it really doesn’t matter what happens to me as long as I can help them? “  If you said any of these things, think about where you are now. Do you still feel that way? Or have you allowed yourself to get lost in the “I’ve been doing this for quite a while and I’m not making jack squat, so I’m ticked off at my failure” club? Where did you turn the corner from what you BELIEVED success was and what you now THINK success is?

One of the reasons we become disenchanted with our success is we allow our ears and our hearts to be open what society’s opinions of success are. If you are stressed about money simply because you have financial issues that aren’t being resolved that is not about success at all. That is merely about need. Financial issues are cyclical and change from day to day. This is about PURE SUCCESS. You can be successful and have a low liquidity period due to economic conditions of the nation. As it pertains to success, true success in my opinion is whether or not you are happy with the legacy you are leaving on the world. As a coach, consultant and speaker, I may never make the money I wish I could to support my family or maybe I will. The real question I have to ask myself is “did I get into this for the money or did I get into this for the opportunity to be the difference for at least one person?”  If it is for the difference….at this point in my career I can say I’ve been successful.  The words I speak on paper, online and in person have had the power to change the perspective of others in ways I could of never imagined just 6 or 7 short years ago. The INFLUENCE of your presence and your abilities to positively make  a difference is where your true success lies. When you stop focusing on the financial part of it and work on the part that matters the most, finances will come.

Photo: Chris Potter/Flickr

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