I think we almost always measure success with money: Either we define success as having a certain amount of money in the bank or we define it as having a certain level of passive income or we define it as having a certain net worth.
Using these financial metrics, we can easily identify who is “successful” and who isn’t.
What’s interesting to me is how much we define success financially and rarely in any other way. But not everyone who has money is successful — people who receive a large windfall through the lottery or an inheritance aren’t technically successful in their own right, they were just fortunate to have the right numbers or family tree to get them the amount of money that we use to define success.
So I wondered if there were other metrics we could use to define success. I wanted to know what measurements could be used that, for the most part, would be indicators of success. Admittedly, just like the lottery exception above, there will be some exceptions but overall this is a pretty good list of success markers:
- Network: Successful people seem to have a wider network and great relationships with their network. This network may be any combination of peers, fans, followers, mentors, etc.
- Unsolicited opportunities: Purely anecdotal but the more successful I become, the more people offer me opportunities; specifically, opportunities for partnership and joint ventures.
- Multiple streams of income: Most of the successful people I can think of had multiple streams of income, even if they really only sold one “thing”. Some might have several different business ventures, others might have one business venture but they sell it different ways or to different groups of people.
- Haters: Everyone has haters but it seems like the more successful you are, the more haters you’ll have. Success attracts fans and haters.
- Productivity: I’m not sure how truly measurable this is but I think successful people have a higher level of productivity than other people. There are no lazy success stories.
- Resilience: Another harder-to-quantify measurable is a level of resilience — the ability to dust yourself off and press on. Many of the most successful people were failures who didn’t quit.
Am I missing any? I think there are other harder-to-quantify indicators of success that aren’t really measurements at all — like vision and charisma — but I tried to stick to things that could be measured.
Now here’s the real question: Can you jumpstart success by getting more of these things in your life? (Yes, even the haters).