What drives you? Success or Money?
If we remove all other variables and just focus on these two motivators what would you choose? Success is my biggest motivator, and money is the byproduct of achievement. Self made money is created by success; however success cannot be created from just money.

Byproducts are evident everywhere you look. White Chocolate is a byproduct of brown chocolate, diesel fuel is a byproduct of unleaded fuel. The interesting thing is that the byproduct can in fact become more valued than the original. Fuel is a perfect example, Diesel is now more expensive per litre than Unleaded fuel, even though it was originally a byproduct of Unleaded.

The focus on the byproduct can easily distract people from their original goal. Similar to fuel, people that begin with a focus on success can sometimes inadvertently find that their focus shifts to the byproduct, money, thus making it the main driver. The problem with this is that money comes from success and not the other way around. Consequently your long term wealth goals can be hurt as you start to try to make a sale through poor customer service and heavy handed tactics, instead of the good customer service / relationship building gold that you used to offer.

It is important to step back every now and again and reflect. What came first, success or money? How did you get to where you currently are, or how do you intend to get to where you want to be? So many people have a goal to be successful, and sometimes you have to go backwards to go forward – a money focus may interrupt this decision and stop you from achieving real wealth because your goal is money not success.

This argument also relates to the value of self-made money vs. inherited money – people who make money, understand its value and know how they got it – through being successful! Inherited money is often used to buy success, and often it can be a bit harder to sustain. It’s the lotto winner that ends up in more debt 3 years after they won…

So next time you look at your career path, consider what’s important; consider your happiness and your drive. Focus on the feeling of winning and being successful and less on your earnings. If you focus your energy and attention on achieving success, chances are, one day you’ll look at your Maserati Quattroporte and go “Oh Shit! It actually happened…and I didn’t even realize it.”

Happy New Year and welcome to Twenty Ten!  Our second Millennia is entering into its Tweens and possibly one of its greatest learning phases through its teenage years.  As we develop into adults we often forget the frenetic pace that we had to learn things as children and adolescents.  Often it’s easier to just let life happen and not take control of it. 

When we were kids, we had to go to school to learn… Now we don’t. This is why, in our adult lives, we have to push ourselves to be better.  We must push ourselves to know more than our competitors, and be better at what we do than they are.  We also need to push ourselves to be able to have happier lives by doing things more efficiently or more effectively. We need to strive to be a positive influence on people around us and to ultimately reach our potential.

I wanted to take this opportunity to share some of the best developmental sites that I have come across on the internet and regularly refer to:

Ivan Miser Blog (Founder and Chairman of BNI) – Business Success and Networking

BNI Podcast – Business Networking and Referral

Ted Talks – Top speeches from some of the world’s most influential

Academic Earth -Top Lectures from Universities around the world

Philosophers Notes TV – A great resource about work /life harmony and life success.

There is no excuse to stop learning. If you want to, you can learn about anything and most commonly for free.  From this we can assume that the more we know the better informed our decision making process will be, and consequently the better the outcome.

So if there is anything that I can encourage you to do in Twenty Ten it is to saturate yourself in education and continually improve the person that you are both personally and professionally.  The resources available to you are free, cover almost everything and the opportunities are abundant.

Don’t wait for a promotion in Twenty Ten, strive for something that you want to do and create the opportunity.  Don’t accept mediocrity or the norm because its comfortable, consider what you really want out of life and strive for it – you’re never too old and you’re never too young!  Remember the more you know the better prepared you are for a situation…

“I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.” Winston Churchill

So go and Live it, Learn it and Love it!