Today a great friend of mine sent me a video about Kim Kardashian and how she build a business empire. I watched the video and thought it was incredible how a person goes from releasing a sex video with a small time rapper to having a world leading empire in a few short years.
Linked to this video was another which I clicked through (youtube AI is getting really good at knowing what may interest me…) This was the video:
If you want go ahead and watch it.
First of all, I quite liked the video. I thought that many of the points were really interesting and worthy of remark. If you would like to hear my take on the 7 points he raised (and a few other thoughts I have on the topic) comment something below!
As I watched a thought kept on haunting me — the characteristics this guy is talking about, the end game result that he is alluding to, the ultimate objective and how a person is meant to derive their own individual value as a human — is it all about how much cash you make in the end of the day?
This thought grew stronger… is human value the same as the size of their bank account? Is my value the size of my and account? What have I been fighting for? What am I teaching my students to aspire, fight and accomplish?
This is really about how I define “success”.
Now, I am sorry if this is a bit controversial… I am not trying to be contentious, it is just what I have learned in life so far. For me, success is all about being able to achieve a delicate balance between:
- short and long term income;
- personal time;
- time for those you love;
- the sustainability of your business activity;
- your contribution to life.
In the first part of this article I am going to explore the first 3 and on the next part I will wrap up the last two and a conclusion.
Short and Long Term Income
Well, when we are only focused on making some money we can sacrifice a lot to achieve short term gain. While this may be an important immediate objective, in the long term this shortsighted greed will be closing off options and possibly undercutting your long term. Success therefore is just as much about how much revenue you have right now as it is about focusing less on current revenue and building something that will last with you in the future.
Personal Time
Yes! This is fundamental. I was talking to a scientist the other day about how doctors can undertake DNA test of blastocysts (if you don’t know what this is about, you need more personal time!). The result of our conversation was that we explored a very creative way of solving a problem which in turn inspired a thought on how my student could solve a business issue. Success is about having time to invest in you. In your physical and mental health, in the stimulus of learning and the pursuit of your hobbies and interest. This will make you a MUCH more well rounded individual and you will gain inspiration from the other fields that will give you competitive advantage in everything you do.
Time for those we love
Generosity is amazing. I have a family friend, Jaime, who epitomizes this. One time he was on a trip overseas and he saw this amazing pen. It was fun, interesting and useful and so he bought one for himself. He thought: man this is a really good pen, good enough for me, so there must be others who could like it too. So he went ahead and about another 5! He then would share the story of this pen and if he still have one he would offer the person this pen. He simply was a very generous guy… For me this one of the most amazing expressions of success: to be able to be generous offering things you value (physical things or even your time!) to people who you care about. If you invest in the people you can about, without any hidden agenda, your are much closer to being a successful person!
I want to hear from you… What do you think? How do you judge your success? How do you perceive value?