How do you Measure Success?

There is a ton of information on the World Wide Web on this topic.  If you do a Google search on this question, you will discover as I did, 33.5 million references to this subject.  That's a lot.  Just to see if most of these referenced our question, I started scrolling through the pages.  I stopped at page 50.  Guess what?  Google was still showing me links to websites, blogs, articles and lectures on this question even on page 50 of my search results.  I'm sure it would have kept going after 50, but I stopped there.
 
Why so much?  I think almost everyone wants to be a success in life.  We only have one shot at this life, and most want to leave their mark; their legacy that shows they were successful.

Since so many have already spoken and written on this topic, is there anything else that I can add, especially with regards to how this relates to our topic of Business Ethics?  I'm sure that I will not add anything that hasn't been said before, probably many times before, but I think it wouldn't hurt to look at it anew.  My hope is that in some small way, I can shine a little light by means of a thought, a word, a challenge like I'm sharing in the blog this week and as I have in previous weeks that will assist you as you navigate your journey in discovering how to be successful, not only in business but also in life.

Success, how do you measure it?  Do you look simply at those with money, and call them a success?  Is that what success means to you personally?
 
If your business and career efforts are providing you with monetary gain, but you don’t enjoy what you do, can this really be called success?  We all know people that have and make lots of money, but their lives are harried, stressed and frankly, pretty miserable.  Pursuit of the almighty dollar can split our families, destroy our health and even take our lives.

I think there is a much calmer, more contented, and surer way of measuring success.
 
Proverbs 16:8, "Better is a little with righteousness, than vast revenues without justice."

The verse shows us the first way we can measure success.  Money, whether it be a little, or even a lot, if it is gained honestly, ethically and with integrity is how you measure success.  I'm sure in the eyes of many; Bernie Madoff was successful, before his Ponzi scheme became public.  He was rolling in the money, but he had gotten it dishonestly.  Today, he is in jail.  His life is a failure.
I fear that in our culture today, fewer and fewer are seeing that living ethically responsible lives at home, at work and inwardly within our own consciences no longer factors into how we measure success, but according to Proverbs 16:8, it still does.  In doing research, I came across the "Top Ten Traits of Highly Successful People."  Do you know what was glaringly absent from that list?  You probably guessed it; it was doing business ethically.  At the end of the day, how we live and conduct ourselves is what matters.  Putting the verse in my words, to me it says, "It's better to be poor and ethical, than to be rich and dishonest."

Proverbs 16:16, "How much better to get wisdom than gold! And to get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver."

What is your main pursuit in life?  Is it to make money?  I think this verse shows us the 2nd way we can measure success.  It is saying that getting wisdom and understanding is "much better" than getting gold and silver.  Gaining wisdom is more valuable than riches.  Do you buy that?  This verse ties in with our previous verse.  How?  When your pursuit in life is wisdom and understanding, your life will be more content, even if you don't have a lot of material possessions, because of the wisdom and understanding gained, you will earn what you have ethically.  Your life will be more satisfied.  See how it fits together?
 
Where do we get this wisdom and understanding?  You can read great books, and study the ancient philosophers.  There is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from that, but you would still be ignoring the one Book that can give you that wisdom and understanding.  I'm referring to the Bible.  It is still the best source for wisdom and understanding.
 
I read recently that the American Bible Society contracted the Barna Research Group to conduct a survey to find out the "State of the Bible in 2012".  What they found was that still an overwhelming majority considers the Bible to be sacred literature, yet what the research discovered was that people just aren't reading it.  Fox News quotes Lamar Vest, President and CEO of ABS when asked about the results of the survey.  He said, "There are probably five Bibles on every shelf in American homes. Americans buy the Bibles, they debate the Bible, they love the Bible... they just don't read the Bible."  If we pursued wisdom and understanding as hard as we did money, that statement would not be true, but unfortunately, it is.  Those who claim to be Christian and those who don't are both equally guilty of not reading it, even though most Americans still revere it as God's Word.

Proverbs 16:19, "Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud."

This verse shows us the 3rd way we can measure success.  Humility is to be desired over pride.  Dividing the spoil speaks of gain gotten dishonestly or unethically.  Living a simple life with others of like mind will allow us to achieve far greater success than living a life that is caught up in the pursuit of gain in this dog-eat-dog world.  Capitalism is one of the things that has made this country great, but it can also be brutal and cut-throat.  It can suck the life out of those who are caught up in it, who have allowed the pursuit to become more important than living a life of integrity.

Did you notice the same key word in all 3 verses?  It was the word "better".  Success is measured by our integrity in how we make money, by what we desire more than making money, and by how we live our life in spite of the business philosophy of many in this dog-eat-dog world.

When we think about success, invariably we think of individuals; people that we think of as successful.  It's normal.  It's natural.  Who do you have on your list as examples of success?  Steve Jobs?  Michael Jordan?  Tom Hanks?  Mother Teresa?  In light of our verses today, I got to thinking about people who I consider to be successful, and my mind went to an uncle and aunt, my Dad's sister and her husband.  The last time I saw them was 3 years ago.  Even though it had been well over 20 years since I had seen them before that, they not only looked exactly as they did back then, but most importantly, and why I think of them as a success, they were still living their lives the way I've always known them; humble, godly and honest.  Today, they are in their mid-70's, maybe older.  Their Godly example that I saw 3 years ago is exactly how I remember them 20 years before that, and that is exactly how I saw them when they and their two boys would visit my Grandparents during my years growing up.  They lived in Michigan and would come for visits in Tennessee, practically every year.  What stood out to me from a small child to an adult pushing 60, has not changed, wavered or diminished.  That, in my opinion, is how you measure success.