Achievement vs. Success

Is it possible to achieve success and NOT be successful? Absolutely! 

This is a great excerpt from Greg Salciccioli's book Enemies of Excellence

"Most leaders who experience rapid success experience a serious gap.  Because success has come so quickly, and character is slower to develop than talents and abilities, their character is inevitably less developed than their talent. YET, like all of us, they need character to sustain success."

This is what I've appreciated about the teachings of Jim Rohn because he constantly preaches "Success is a result of the person you become." Achievement and "Being Successful" are not necessarily synonymous.  We can hustle and grind all we want but if we do not manage our integrity or character we open the doors to the "enemy".

In my career working with and training sales people, this concept became very apparent in the "favoritism" shown to these sales people because they "achieved" above average success.  In hindsight, my biggest error was not also taking as much time to help them grow to MAINTAIN that success.  Lessons such as:

-Creating proper saving and spending habits

-Ensuring clients left with a positive testimony of their experience

-Enrolling those closest to them of what they were up to

-Making sure personal life is in order such that their business life is in order

-Seeking and fostering relationships with like minded people

-Putting systems in place to make sure they didn't have to work as hard to produce the same results preventing the "burn out" or looking for greener grass.

As a leader, a coach, or a manager...maybe the answer is not always to DRIVE the numbers, but rather to GROW the person.  It's not EXPECTED to care about people’s personal lives when we're in business, but it doesn't change the fact that we deal with people who have wants, needs, desires, concerns, goals, and dreams.  When we take the time to KNOW these things, and help them BECOME successful rather than just ACHIEVE success we create loyalty.  Which in the end, as a leader, THAT is what we want and need to sleep good at night and to have people behind us willing to weather the storms that come, not MIGHT, but WILL come our way.