What does success look like?

If I asked what does success look like, what visions arrive in your mind?  Do you see a person driving an expensive sports or luxury car?  Maybe, you see a person living in a 10-bedroom mansion.  Some may see a person in a beautiful suit sitting in an executive office with persons listening to them speak.  Whatever you envision as success is success by your standards; however, I want you to consider the journey to become successful because that, in my opinion, is true success.

30 years ago, Gail Kelly was a bank teller at Nedcor Bank in Johannesburg South Africa.  She eventually became the head of human resource for the same bank.  In 2001, Kelly and her husband and four kids moved to Sydney Australia where she became the general manager at St. George Bank.  She eventually became the first female CEO of Westpac Bank, the second largest bank in Australia with over $600 billion in assets and 36,000 employees.  Today, Gail Kelly is considered the 62^nd most powerful woman in the world, according to Forbes.  To think, only 30 years ago Gail Kelly was a bank teller.

Moments ago, I stated true success is in the journey that one travels to reach it.  Could you imagine Gail Kelly’s journey to success in a male dominated profession such as banking?  Appreciating her journey gives you a possible blueprint to obtain the same success as she.  Imagine, she is a teller who arrives at work 30 minutes early to ensure that she starts her day well.  She is cordial and respectful to her customers and co-workers even when she is frustrated or in a bad mood.  She gives a 100% of her focus to her job while at work.  Her manager recognizes and recommends that she be promoted to head teller.  Once head teller, she does the same thing that she did as a regular teller.  She begins attending college; and, during that time, she is moved to different departments within her company.  She eventually graduates from college and pursues her MBA (Masters of Business Administration) while pregnant with her oldest daughter and graduates with distinction.  Throughout her career, she kept doing the actions that made her an awesome teller along with increasing her knowledge in people management and business.  Eventually, she became CEO of St. George Bank which lead to her becoming the first female CEO of Westpac.

Little Steps and little successes, do you appreciate those in your own life?  You must appreciate those!  Give yourself a pat on the back.  Seriously, matter of fact, pat yourself on the back now.  Those little successes eventually add up to monumental steps and successes.  Think about a door-to-door sales person.  What is their idea of success?  Maybe, getting one sale a day.  However, they may only get more leads and no sales for the week.  Therefore, in a situation like this, the sales person will need to find the little steps and successes for that day or week.  What would those little successes be?  Well, they were able to practice their sales pitch and close in front of 50 people for the week.  So, the sales person is 50 people closer to getting a YES! A Yes from a willing buyer.  The sales person could view the past results as an indication that they need to work on their sales pitch and close to increase the number of sales.  They may need to read more sales books or interview top sales persons at the sales office.  Those little steps, if appreciated, will allow for this sales person to grow into a successful salesperson one day.  The sales person must see these steps as success; otherwise, they will quit their sales career because they are not getting any sales.  But, when that sales person gets their first sale, they need to remember what they did to get that first sale and continue doing that while improving their technique.  The accumulation of these small sales, continuing education, and recovery after failures will propel this salesperson forward.

In closing, the little successes and lessons along the way add up to the big successes eventually.  Appreciate any activity small or large that occurs during the pursuit of your goals since they will add up to the success you have always sought.