Success, according to the dictionary I use, is:
- The act of getting or achieving wealth, respect or fame.
- The correct or desired result of an attempt.
- Someone or something that is successful; a person or thing that succeeds.
It’s also a word that has been ringing in my ears for the past few weeks.
On Saturday, Feb. 21, I attended a day-long workshop, Blueprint for Success: Turn Your Dream into Full-time Money, conducted at Muscatine Community College by Dawnese Openshaw. She is a friend from her years as a small-business owner in Muscatine. She now lives in Michigan and has become an independent and certified coach, teacher and speaker for The John Maxwell Team.
And then, while reviewing parts of her workshop that I didn’t finish and giving all of this some thought, I just happened to listen to a TED Radio Hour show on Success. The episode led off with a feature on Tony Robbins, the celebrity life coach.
What I know about Maxwell — the author, speaker, and pastor who has written many books, primarily focusing on leadership — would just about fill this paragraph.
And, OK, sure, it’s easy to laugh about Robbins.
But their views on success and leadership are resonating with me. At one point in her workshop, Dawnese said something about using blueprints to build a house. Why wouldn’t you, she asked, create a blueprint for how you want to live?
It makes sense to me.
I took the first step by attending a workshop. I took the next step by actually finishing the work I didn’t get done on that Saturday. I’m even willing to share some of it: Modified 2015 Blueprint for Success. It includes a vision statement I wrote and a list of five things I think I need to do every day to begin living the life I’d like to have, along with four questions to ask myself every day.
Dawnese did a great job. It was a pretty intense day and I came home exhausted. It took another week — working sporadically on my homework — to give the experience some thought. I finally decided to blog something about it if only to make myself accountable. It’s likely I’ll blog about it more in the future, because I’ve only done the easy part. Now comes the really hard work: Followup and implementation.
To succeed, I think, the bottom line is: It’s time to quit focusing so much on things about myself that I don’t like and accept or change them so that I can move on and fully become a more successful version of me.
Brome Hill 