Episode 989: How Do You Define Success?

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 989 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Ryan Englin: I'm Ryan Englin with core matters and the blue collar culture podcast. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasure is to live out your.

[00:00:21] Having the ability to grow yourself and your business is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer,

[00:00:34] Scott Maderer: we can say being true to ourselves, being true to our ethics, to our morals, to our values, to our priorities. That's the definition of success, not in a selfish way. This isn't about getting everything you want and doing everything you want. Instead. It's about recognizing that, Hey, if having a big house as a goal of mine, that may be something I want to aim for.

[00:00:58] Welcome. And thank you [00:01:00] for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time. Your. And your treasures for your true color in the inspired stewardship podcast, we'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:25] And today's episode about developing your influence through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about why you need to define success for yourself. I also share why it's hard and why most definitions of success. Aren't really sufficient. And I give you some tips on what to look for as you define success.

[00:01:44] You've heard me talk about developing your talent and what are the best ways to do that is through. But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the time to read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible. Go to [00:02:00] inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial.

[00:02:06] There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. The truth is that when it comes to defining success, it's one of those almost arbitrary or subjective ideas.

[00:02:36] And yet it's something that there are tons of books. There's tons of podcast. I've talked about it before on the show. I've talked about it. This one. It's things that we all try to nail down because we want to be able to define what success means. We want to be able to say, this is the criteria that makes someone successful.[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] But sometimes when doing that, we forget that our definition of success is closely related to how we were raised to our culture, our social or political, our educational and our religious values. In other words, it's related to our belief system, our ideology. And yet usually when you see something in literature about the word success is defined strictly in business or monetary terms, it's about how much money you have, how popular you are, how much attention you have, whether or not you've achieved the ability.

[00:03:38] Being successful in terms of dollars and cents are successful businesses or doing something that makes you a celebrity or famous or popular in some way, but is it possible for someone to have success and do something that others would look at and go, but that's not [00:04:00] really success. And I would argue that it is because use an example of someone like a mother Teresa.

[00:04:08] She did not achieve financial success. Yes. Eventually her name became known, but she did it by serving others in a selfless. And she actually would not consider herself a success in the ways that the world defines success, but she was a success in her own heart because she began to achieve the goals that she wanted.

[00:04:33] Now she didn't finish those goals because they were very big, but she did work. So we all have our own perspective on what makes a person successful. And in fact, you could have five different people that look at one person and look at what they've achieved. And some of them would define that person as successful.

[00:04:54] And some of them would not because our own view, our own bias, our own [00:05:00] lens is put on that. Our idea of success is closely tied to our values and to our ideals. So given that who gets to determine if someone is successful or not, the truth is there's not a lot of work out there on this part of the question.

[00:05:21] Instead, there's a lot of things put forward in saying, this is the definition of success, as opposed to this is my definition of success. And the truth is to some extent, you have to look at it through the lens of your own life and what you are deciding is successful or not. Let's look at the actual definition of success.

[00:05:47] If you look it up in the dictionary, it says for many success means reaching a goal, accomplishing a task or otherwise accomplishing what they set out. Essentially something is a success. When the [00:06:00] outcome turns out well is desirable or is favorable beyond that. The definition of success is personal a little bit.

[00:06:09] So a subjective and wishy washy definition. It hedges its bets multiple times. It says, or it gives you a list of different ways and it ends up with a copy. Kevin's personal, but the truth is I think that definition's good because it is personal. It involves our ethical decisions. It involves our moral outlook on the world.

[00:06:32] It involves our values. It involves a lot of internal and subjective items. I've seen definitions like this when you try your best, that success. When you try your best at everything that success. But the truth is I don't want to try my best at everything. There are things that I want to cut out of my life because there are things that I don't care to and I'm not required to do.

[00:06:57] And they aren't necessary for [00:07:00] my definition of success. Perfectionism, for instance, is a trait that most of us wouldn't say is good, but trying your best at everything that you do is a form of perfection. Things like success is always doing your best success is having a place to call home success is understanding the difference between a need and a want success is believing that you can successes learning that you have.

[00:07:28] Th that you sometimes have to say no to successes, knowing your life is filled with abundance. But think about it. All of those inherently are not good or bad things, and you may have identified with some of them, but there's others in that list that you may have said, that's not really my definition of success.

[00:07:46] And that's the key. You do have to sit down and recognize that how you were raised the influences on. These things affected. What you've said is success. And for most of [00:08:00] life, most of us narrowly define success, but the truth is we can define it bigger. We can say being true to ourselves, being true to our ethics, to our morals, to our values, to our priorities.

[00:08:16] That's the definition of success. Not in a selfish way. This isn't about getting everything you want and doing everything you want. Instead. It's about recognizing that, Hey, if having a big house as a goal of mine, that may be something I want to aim for, but I'll tell you, I don't want a big house along with that comes a lot of other stuff.

[00:08:37] I don't want a new car for me. Those are not emblems of success. They're not things that I put a lot of value in, but maybe they are. For you, but I guarantee you there's other things that I put a lot of value in that you wouldn't, what happens instead is all too often, we live our life based on the terms and conditions that others have [00:09:00] put on us.

[00:09:01] We let others decide and dictate to us what is success? And you need to look for the things that you value. You need to look for the things that you prioritize. And you need to make sure that you're living those things first as a measure of success. Thanks for listening.

[00:09:22] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of talent, you can go over to inspired stewardship.com/talent and sign up for our five week series on the stewardship of talent.

[00:09:53] Or if you're in the us, you can text 4, 4, 2, 2, 2 talent [00:10:00] tips. That's talent tips to 4 4 2, 2, 2, and get those tips until next time. Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.