you ever asked yourself “How did I end up here?” Wondered why you achieved some level of success while others you know have not? Or, conversely, struggled to understand why something bad happened to you, like losing your job or not getting the one you wanted, while your friends’ careers continued to flourish? Perhaps you have walked by a person experiencing homelessness and unconsciously judged them for their current plight. Or questioned the reasons that led to another person’s success or failure? How we explain what happens to people in life impacts our motivation, behavior, and attitudes toward others—and ourselves. It may also be at the root of ma... posted on Aug 5 2023 (2,613 reads)

The more intense the effort behind the failure, the more important the excuses or defense mechanisms become. Covington found that, when it comes to dealing with failure, students generally fall into four categories. 1. Success-Oriented Students: These are the kids who love learning for the sake of learning and see failure as a way to improve their ability rather than a slight on their value as a human being. Research has also found that these students tend to have parents who praise success and rarely, if ever, reprimand failure. 2. Overstrivers: These students are what Covington calls the “closet-achievers.” They avoid failure by succeeding—but only with her... posted on Mar 23 2014 (30,524 reads)

E. F. SCHUMACHER LECTURES OCTOBER 2004, STOCKBRIDGE, MA EDITED BY HILDEGARDE HANNUM Judy Wicks is one of my heroes. She is a single woman who built and runs a financially successful business, which at the same time is socially responsible and ecologically accountable. The White Dog Cafe not only serves regionally grown organic food but actively supports the network of farmers who grow that food. Staff share in profits and decision-making. The White Dog Cafe hosts community discussions around global issues of peace, renewable energy, rights of workers in countries around the world, hab... posted on Apr 17 2018 (7,480 reads)

able to adapt quickly to meet their customers’ needs, and they respond more quickly to the downturn. They keep their customer engaged even when things are bad, often by sharing what’s going on in their side of the equation and opening up the space for dialogue. NE: What happens to you if you’re not compassionate? MW: There’s some research that shows that not compassionate organizations are like ego systems. People become isolated. They drive their own success and they don’t think about the success of other people. They might trample over their customers’ needs in order to sell more or get ahead. Compassionate organizations are... posted on Sep 13 2018 (7,491 reads)

there is a defining conceit at the heart of the way so many of us think about leadership, it is that of the no-nonsense, hard-charging, often-wrong-but-never-in-doubt boss who enjoys the glories (and bears the burdens) of success all alone. That’s what makes executive life (in theory) so glamorous: Who isn’t eager to match wits with brilliant rivals and stay one step ahead of a complex world? Of course, that’s also what makes executive life (in reality) so exhausting: What happens when rivals come at you from more directions than ever, when markets change faster than ever, when problems loom larger than ever? As a business culture, we’ve made the lure of exe... posted on Jun 17 2013 (26,063 reads)

major breakthroughs when he realized that time need not pass at a constant rate." Contingent superorganisms "Biologists have joined with social scientists to form an altruism debunkery society" — pushing the belief that every altruistic act is done in self-interest. But a new concept, "contingent superorganisms," says that we live life on a few different hierarchies. The idea is that when you reach a higher level, you are willing to put the success of the group or a higher cause above one's own. This is what drives militaries, fire departments, and rock bands. Copernican principle The Copernican Principal is the idea t... posted on Aug 5 2013 (590,206 reads)

his girls, one of whom said he was always the cool dad." There were mothers like Mary Francis Knight, "devoted to her daughters ... who had just recently watched with joy as her older daughter got married," and grandparents like John Johnson, "always smiling, giving bear hugs to his 10 grandchildren ... who would have welcomed his 11th grandchild this fall." Have you noticed that when people die, their eulogies celebrate life very differently from the way we define success in our everyday existence? Eulogies are, in fact, very Third Metric. At HuffPost we've made the Third Metric -- redefining success beyond money and power to include well-being, wisdom and ... posted on Dec 4 2013 (59,874 reads)

Western culture, many people define success narrowly as money and power. In her uplifting book Thrive, Arianna Huffington argues that this leaves us sitting on a two-legged stool, which will tip over if we don’t add a third leg. She makes a passionate case, supported by science, for expanding our definition of what it means to succeed. One of her new metrics is giving: a truly rewarding life involves contributing to and caring for others. I love this message. It’s a powerful call for us to become more generous and compassionate. Unfortunately, when people answer this call, they sacrifice their own success. Burning the midnight oil for other people, they fall behind on their... posted on Apr 24 2014 (30,337 reads)

is grit? Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts and Sciences, says it is the capacity to work hard and stay focused. In her recent book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, she explains why grit is necessary in addition to talent, and why talent needs the drive that grit provides in order for one be successful. Duckworth, a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, discussed her ideas on the Knowledge@Wharton show on Wharton Business Radio on SiriusXM channel 111. (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.) An edited transcript of the conversation follows. Knowledge@Wharton: Could you talk about g... posted on Nov 26 2016 (14,787 reads)

it has been reported that the working poor make up roughly one-quarter to one-third of the population in the United States. Living from paycheck to paycheck leaves this portion of the population extremely vulnerable to unexpected emergencies and crises. Currently, hundreds of billions of dollars annually fuel poverty-alleviation efforts—either public programs or those advanced by academic or non-profit institutions. Some are innovative and pattern-changing, but most do not demonstrate success in achieving the goal of moving low-income people into the middle-class. Resources to low-income families often come with case management and restrictions, and help families if they highlight ... posted on Feb 23 2022 (2,215 reads)

Einstein’s was estimated at 160, Madonna's is 140, and John F. Kennedy’s was only 119, but as it turns out, your IQ score pales in comparison with your EQ, MQ, and BQ scores when it comes to predicting your success and professional achievement. IQ tests are used as an indicator of logical reasoning ability and technical intelligence. A high IQ is often a prerequisite for rising to the top ranks of business today. It is necessary, but it is not adequate to predict executive competence and corporate success. By itself, a high IQ does not guarantee that you will stand out and rise above everyone else. Research carried out by the Carnegie Institute of Techn... posted on May 5 2012 (78,688 reads)

the commencement of one of the finest universities on the planet. I first visited this campus as a high school senior named John Stephens in 1995 -- 19 years ago -- and I would have never thought at that moment that I would be standing here as John Legend, speaking to you today. The reason I'm here, the reason I've had such a wonderful journey so far, is that I've found love. Yes, love. We were all made to love. And I've found that we live our best lives, we are at our most successful, not simply because we're smarter than everyone else, or because we hustle harder. Not because we become millionaires more quickly. The key to success, the key to happiness, is opening ... posted on Jun 29 2014 (29,679 reads)

means different things to different people. But for the majority of us, regardless of our definition, the road to success is paved with challenges and tests. It can be a roller-coaster ride filled with highs and lows and fruitful learnings. One thing is clear -- all those of us who reach for the stars and actively stretch towards our dreams emerge from our efforts transformed. If you have a dream and are working hard to see it realized, be assured, the journey counts just as much, and sometimes more than the destination. Our failures are not a waste of time, humble persistence can sometimes serve us better than strokes of genius, and great heights can, and have been re... posted on Apr 2 2015 (20,148 reads)

dedicated the past two years to understanding how people achieve their dreams. When we think about the dreams we have, and the dent we want to leave in the universe, it is striking to see how big of an overlap there is between the dreams that we have and projects that never happen. (Laughter) So I'm here to talk to you today about five ways how not to follow your dreams. One: Believe in overnight success. You know the story, right? The tech guy built a mobile app and sold it very fast for a lot of money. You know, the story may seem real, but I bet it's incomplete. If you go investigate further, the guy has done 30 apps before and he has done a master's on t... posted on May 13 2015 (34,092 reads)

so forth... MS. TIPPETT: Yeah. MS. POPOVA: ...are long gone. But my real-life friends, the majority of them, are significantly older than I am. My partner is significantly older than I am. My youngest friend is six years older than I am. MS. TIPPETT: [laughs] OK. MS. POPOVA: So I don't feel — I feel like I'm such a profound failure of representing my generation. [laughs] MS. TIPPETT: [laughs] Alright. You are who you are. How — if I ask you how you measure success, like, in any given day, what comes to mind? MS. POPOVA: Well, once again, I am going to side with Thoreau. And he said something like, if the day and night are such that you greet them wit... posted on Jul 15 2015 (11,439 reads)

a job, they'll work for your money, but if they believe what you believe,they'll work for you with blood and sweat and tears. Nowhere else is there a better example than with the Wright brothers. Most people don't know about Samuel Pierpont Langley. And back in the early 20th century, the pursuit of powered man flight was like the dot com of the day. Everybody was trying it. And Samuel Pierpont Langley had, what we assume, to be the recipe for success. Even now, you ask people, "Why did your product or why did your company fail?" and people always give you the same permutation of the same three things: und... posted on Jun 20 2016 (22,833 reads)

You get what you pay for. Success is everything. Work is what you do for money, and that's what counts. How could it be otherwise? And the converse of that last rule, of course, is that if you're not paid to do a thing, it can't be important. If a child writes a poem and proudly reads it, adults may wink and ask, "Think there's a lot of money in that?" You may also hear this when you declare a major in English. Being a good neighbor, raising children: the road to success is not paved with the likes of these. Some workplaces actually quantify your likelihood of being distracted by family or volunteerism. It's called your coefficient of Drag. The ideal numbe... posted on Nov 4 2020 (9,741 reads)

hard and reminds me. I don't know that it's an issue for anybody but me, but it's true that nothing I did where the only reason for doing it was the money was ever worth it, except as bitter experience. Usually I didn't wind up getting the money, either.  The things I did because I was excited, and wanted to see them exist in reality have never let me down, and I've never regretted the time I spent on any of them. The problems of failure are hard. The problems of success can be harder, because nobody warns you about them. The first problem of any kind of even limited success is the unshakable conviction that you are getting away with something, and that any... posted on May 21 2023 (4,303 reads)

and greedy when you have no money, when you get a lot of money, you’re going to be rich, nervous, anxious and greedy. It doesn’t do anything to change your being. If I were to get $10 million today, in about a week I’d be worried about what I’m doing. I don’t think money changes your essential nature at all. On the surface, maybe. When I get a big check sometimes, I feel secure for a short while, and then I’m the same person.” We tie money to success. How else could we define success? “When you have discovered what your gift is as a human being. Whether you can play the piano, write books, earn money, or whether you’re go... posted on Feb 7 2012 (27,511 reads)

wisdom on how to find meaning and make wealth can be found in Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age. ALAIN DE BOTTON ON SUCCESS Alain de Botton, modern philosopher and creator of the“literary self-help genre”, is a keen observer of the paradoxes and delusions of our cultural conceits. In The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, he takes his singular lens of wit and wisdom to the modern workplace and the ideological fallacies of “success.” His terrific 2009 TED talk offers a taste: One of the interesting things about success is that we think we know what it means. A lot of the time our ideas ab... posted on Apr 22 2012 (55,696 reads)