What IS Business Success?
Whether you achieve business success or not depends on whether you think you have achieved business success!
Err… what are you going on about?
Let’s start by answer the first question: What IS business success? Well… business success is:
- An emotional experience (which can be fleeting – thus potentially unsustainable).
- Subjective / a projection of thought.
- A concept that we’ve made up.
- Not going to affect who you are / bring happiness.
Still wondering what I’m going on about? I’d like you to consider the possibility that someone is only a success if their projected/perceived experience is that they are a success. Let’s look at that for a moment. You could have two people at exactly the same point in their business or their career, or sporting endeavours. One of those people could experience that they have achieved success, and the other may have an entirely different perspective. Would you agree that is possible…?
The way it looks to me is that all of our experiences are projected from within us. All of them. We cannot experience something outside of our own consciousness. So we can only experience business success directly in relation to our projection of it. Everybody’s projection is different, and none of these projections can be stated to be right or wrong. They simply are what they are. So there is no official version of what ‘business success’ is. Success is only an experience of something that you have projected from within and then created thought around it to label it as a success. That’s it. You can measure your success against things if you like, but they are also your own projections and labels.
In the west most of us live a lifestyle that seems to centre on the idea of being ‘successful’ as being more important than anything else. But how can that be true if success is an experience projected from within?
Why do we seek Business Success then?
Or any kind of success for that matter? Fear… Conditioning… Habit… Belief… The idea that we’ll feel good when we get there? An interesting study of Olympic Gold Medallists has shown that many athletes who reach that pinnacle, often do not feel as good as they thought they would. Initial elation gives way and other feelings come in. The same can be said of lottery winners. A year later they pretty much feel how they felt before, just with more stuff.
This is the realisation that happiness and contentment cannot come from seeking things externally. Happiness and contentment are available from within. They are available to everyone. No matter how ‘successful’ or otherwise you may be in business. Not sure what to do with this knowledge? That’s okay. You don’t need to do anything with it. Want to delve deeper and get a better understanding of our states of mind and how they can impact us in business? Then get in touch.
Want to know more about how I can help? Drop me a line or give me a call. A successful coaching relationship depends upon a great rapport, so it’s important to talk. I want to get to know you, see inside your world and we can assess how we’d go from there!