“Success is a lousy teacher. It makes smart people think they can’t lose.” – Bill Gates Success is accomplishing your goal, it’s getting to the finish line first. Success is getting an app to production on time and under budget. Success is having a start up or building an app that brings in revenue. Success sets us up for failure. Failure is where we learn and grow. Failure is where we find out what doesn’t work, what needs to change, and what needs to be completely removed from our process. It’s through failure that we learn how to become successful. Unfortunately, the reverse is not true. Success doesn’t teach us how to fail instead it has a tendency to make us forget how to take risks and fail. When we are successful we become fearful of failure. Success does not set us up for future success. In a keynote he gave at the Grow Leader Conference, John Maxwell, a well known name in the world of business and leadership, talked about how success is not inherently stable. What gets you to success may not be the same thing that maintains success or leads to future success. In his talk, he listed out several areas where success is actually a detriment to future success. There are many things that success creates that can prevent future success. The counter to the many is the one thing. Create a personal definition of success and make it personal. Other people may try to define success for you, but it’s not them walking the path and taking the risks to be successful. You are the one doing that so you are the one who determines what is success for you. When you do reach those goals, become successful don’t let that success hinder you from future success. Watch out for these areas and stabilize your success so that you are able to continue in it. Links Join Us On Patreon Level Up Financial Planning Donate to Beej’s Mission Fund Memo: Put “BJ Burns” in Memo John Maxwell Books