5 Questions That Define Success
Nov 09
Photo by aloshbennett
How do you define success? For most of us (me included, to some extent), success is something we pursue and we often tie it in to our achievements, status, great relationships, or the amount of nice stuff we accumulate.
This morning I re-listened to an interview with Srikumar Rao, the founder of the Creativity and Personal Mastery breakthrough course and also the author of the book Are You Ready to Succeed: Unconventional Strategies for Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life, and one of the topics being discussed was about definition of success.
He defines success differently, and for him it is about answering these 5 questions:
- How do you feel when you wake up in the morning? Are you feeling excited about life?
- Do you feel a deep sense of purpose and fulfilment from what you are doing?
- Do you feel how much good fortune you have, that you could involuntarily get down on your knees with sincere gratitude each morning?
- Do you have a deep sense of well being? That no matter what happen in your life and around you, you are fundamentally OK, and always be OK?
- Do you bring greater good to the community, and feel humbly grateful for the opportunity to do so (not the ego thing)?
Srikumar said that if you could honestly answer all of them with a YES then you are a success in the deepest, truest sense. He carried on to say that if you don’t live your life like that you’re wasting your life… pretty strong words!!
Me? I don’t think I’m there yet but happy to say that I am moving on the right direction. Currently I am not at the stage where I involuntarily get down on my knees every day with deep gratitude, although I do experience that feeling more often now than I used to… It feels that I am taking baby steps now in all those 5 areas, but deep inside I am happy that I have started, and there’s no turning back. Once your mind is stretched, it will never come back to where it was.
How about you? Give yourself some quiet time and ponder these questions… then if you feel like it please share your insights or experience here.
I’m still working on all 5 of these my man. I have a long way to go before I can become a true master at these 5 questions.
Great stuff to keep in mind!
Keep up the good work!
Same here my friend
Perhaps it’s going to take a lifetime or more to truly master all 5, but the most important thing is that we can make some conscious, daily improvement in the right direction.
One thing that struck me most when I learned about these 5 questions was the ‘getting down on your knees in involuntary gratitude each morning’ part. It reminded me to something I heard in an interview about John Demartini – he said he didn’t leave his bed in the morning before he got tears of gratitude on his eyes! To cry out of joy and gratitude is a deeply healing and cleansing experience…
Anyway, thanks so much for your comment & kind words Glenn, talk to you soon!
Andre
You hit the NAIL on the head sir
I love these questions. Great, great post. If you can’t answer YES to every single one of those questions, you MUST change your life. Otherwise, you won’t be happy. Keep the post coming 
.-= Ryan´s last blog ..Do You Have A Plan For Your Business? =-.
Glad that you love these questions too Ryan, and thank you so much for taking time to comment and sharing your thoughts here!
Talk to you soon,
Andre