What Is True Success

I've met a lot of people who wanted to be successful in this life. For some of them success meant making a lot of money, for others it was running a great business, for others it was having a happy family, and for others it was all of that and much more. But there’s one thing that has always made me either look at them with admiration or turn my head away every time - who they were as a person.

Not who they are in front of a particular person or in a particular situation, not who they pretend to be to get what they want or to use people to their advantage. But who they really are deep down, the values that run their lives, the standards they set for themselves and the people around them, that voice in their head that makes them differentiate right from wrong even when they know nobody’s watching.Here are a few things I've learned from the truly successful people around me, the ones who are winning on all fronts even when they’re losing.

1. Establish Your Beliefs and Stay Strong

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Life will throw a lot of things your way to challenge your beliefs, to make you bend to other people’s will, but if you’re clear what you stand for, you will always understand the difference between staying strong in your beliefs and being flexible about how it looks instead of putting your beliefs to the side because of what other people believe. People who stand for nothing will never achieve true success.

2. Nothing is Worth Your Integrity

There will always be moments when being in integrity is the hardest thing to do, when there is an easy way out that ends up destroying something or someone in the long run. But being a true leader, being incredibly successful only amplifies the importance of being in integrity, being a person of your word.

3. People are More Valuable than Money

It’s easy to get to a point in life where the success you have makes you feel invincible. The most successful people, the ones who manage to stay successful in all areas of their lives throughout time are the ones who understand that there people are always more important. They treat everyone with respect and value kindness and love beyond anything else. Stepping over people is not part of their life plan.

4. Build Your Tribe

Having a community of trusted people who know your worth and value you is immeasurable. However being able to build your tribe is not just about making friends, but about proving them they can count on you no matter what, that you won’t sway with the wind. Once you've built your tribe, you have something to come back to when things don’t go your way as well as when they do go your way.

5. Set Your Boundaries

Many times when your success starts to show on the outside, there will be people there to celebrate with you as well as people to take advantage. Always set your boundaries to make sure you always keep the right people around. Don’t worry about alienating people. The right ones will always stay.

6. The End Never Justifies the Means

Never ever compromise yourself. If you do something that you feel ashamed on embarrassed about, fix it. If you can’t fix it, at least try. Sometimes we discover our greatest powers in the power to be better than we were.

7. Be Better Every Day

Twitter has this slogan written on their wall “Let’s make better mistakes tomorrow.”But is it really about making more mistakes or is it just their way of acknowledging that we will always make mistakes, it’s in human nature to err, we will always try to learn from our mistakes, to correct them when we can, to always be better for it.

8. We Don’t Have Endless Time

Vince Lombardi used to say“We didn't lose the game, we just ran out of time.” The truth is we don’t have endless time in this world and acting like we do will get us to lose at the game of life. Every successful person out there cherishes their time and knows how important it is to give time to the things that truly matter instead of the things that seem more urgent.

Albert Einstein said,“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” While we all find our own way to define success and to be successful in this life, let’s never forget to be people of value in the process.