The Edge on Success: From Success to Significance

" Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no lack of enthusiasm". Winston Churchill

I have certainly had my share of successes and failures in my life. In fact, failure seems to be a rite of passage to success. I wouldn't want to give the young people the wrong idea - if you can go straight to success and skip the failures by all means ... do that. The point is - don't fear the failures, embrace them, because they make the successes all that much sweeter.

2011 WCK Canadian National Kickboxing Champions

I took a management seminar early in my career where the speaker referred to a progression we move through in our professional lives: from Survival to Stability to Success to Significance.

The idea of a progressive movement through these stages of existence identifies, not only the growth we experience as Humans, but also that success is not an end in itself but a step towards Significance. We all move though this process in our lives with varying speed and efficiency. Significance is where we use lessons learned in Survival and Stability and the resources we acquired through our Successes to give back and help others.

Significance will mean something different to each of us - and it will mean different thing at different times in our lives. For the most part it has to do with giving back that which we have received so abundantly. The metric by which we will gage our Significance will be based on our internal moral compass. The critical point here is that we ought to always move through our lives with the understanding that we are capable of Significance. By acknowledging this we save ourselves from falling into the mediocracy of Stability or the indulgence of Success - both comfortable states in their own right.

Even though we know that we are headed towards Significance, most of us have little or no idea of how this will manifest itself in our lives. An orientation toward goals or a vision based on our internal compass is important. If we narrow it down much more than that we run the risk of selling ourselves short or missing it altogether. It has been my experience that I really don't know what's good for me. My successes have mostly involved me getting out of the way and working hard.

If we are true to our beliefs and put 100% of our attention into doing "the next right thing" in our day to day lives we will move through this process in the most effortless and efficient manner. Conversely the harder we try to project and force this to happen the harder we will work and the end result will be watered down.

As you move though the rest of the day, week, month, year and so on apply 100% of your attention and energy on the task at hand. Focus on those things that support you in your efforts to get more of the things you want in your life. If you find yourself doing something that is working against this end - STOP. Regroup quickly and do something else.

As you look back and take inventory you will see that Significance has manifested in ways far more fulfilling and substantial than you could have ever engineered. This is my experience and has worked for me in a all circumstance over the last thirty years.

Best, Sam Edge

The Next RIght Thing ...

Happy Humpday,

On October 15, 2013 I got over 1,300 hits on my Poetry Blog. This is more than ten times my average traffic of roughly 100 hits per day(hpd). Now, before I launch into a speech about how hard work and perseverance pays off and the complex inner workings of critical mass and tipping point dynamics, I will disclose the following:

I have no friggin' clue what I did right.

If you follow my Poetry Blog and can offer any insight please let me know so I can do it again. I looked at all the obvious variables and I can find nothing unusual.  It closely followed a poem I wrote for the passing of my Grandma so ... um .... well... I'm not really sure what to say about that.

Ultimately, I have surrendered to the reality that even a broken clock is right twice a day and my explosion in hits was the result of the Chaos Theory in action. That is, all the moving parts lined up strictly as a result of repetition and inevitable coincidence and nothing to do with my highly contested brilliance.  

Doing the Next Right Thing

The older I get the more I realize that "less is more". As a young buck I adhered to a "run fast - hit hard" paradigm. This, combined with a tendency to over-think things, was inefficient and I did a lot of work with marginal results. The only reason I had any success at all was I had endless energy and I could afford to run down numerous dead ends before getting it right.  

This frantic pace proved to be unsustainable and by the time I hit forty I was burning blue smoke out of every orifice (and leaking from a few gaskets). Now, I've spent the better part of a decade learning how to do more with less. One of the keys is to put 100% into everything I do. This requires more than simple brute strength - it requires some strategic thinking. Such as:

1. Do one thing at a time.
2. Do what is in front of me first.
3. Don't do other peoples work.
4. Identify my strengths and weaknesses.
5. Do more of what I'm good at.
6. Delegate what I suck at.

These are some of the basic strategic elements in no particular order of living an efficient life. It can be summarized by: "Do the Next Right Thing". If I do what is in front of me to the best of my ability the next thing requires much less effort. Conversely, if I am preoccupied with past or future things, I expend more energy and produce less and lower quality. 

Hardly rocket science, however, it has worked well for me. If you find your self jammed up over a thing. Stop. Do the next right thing and nothing else.  Rinse and repeat. You will find nothing is insurmountable - at least this is my experience. In the case of my mysterious increase in hits, the next right thing is writing this Post.

Now it's time for a coffee break. 

Enjoy the rest of Hump Day, Sam