I had a conversation today that caused me to spend some time thinking about failure, success, and starting over. In the course of that contemplation, some things became clear to me that, at least to me, seem pretty profound and I wanted to share them with you.

The dictionary defines success as

An event that accomplishes its intended purpose

It doesn’t say anything about cars, houses or money. It doesn’t speak to your level of education, your earnings potential, or your family genealogy. It simply and succinctly states how we can achieve success… by accomplishing our intended purpose!

That gives rise to the next logical question… What is your intended purpose? NOW the cars, houses and money come into play. If your intended purpose is to have the nicest car on the block, fine. When you’ve done that you are successful. At least until your neighbor drives up in his new car a couple of weeks from now. If your intended purpose is to accumulate wealth, again, fine. Just understand that one dollar today does not equal one dollar ten years from now. Depreciation, taxes, even catastrophic life events can wipe out that tidy little nest egg over night… along with your “success”.

Balancing the success scale is failure. If success is to accomplish one’s goal, then failure can be simply stated to be NOT accomplishing your goal. As simple as that sounds, it can be a little tricky. Lets break it down a bit.

First, a goal can have many parts. For instance, I want to save $1,000 by December 31st. That’s a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Attainable (maybe), Relevant, and Time-bound), but what if you only have $995 on December 31st? What if you didn’t get that last $5 till January 10th? Did you fail?

In the clearest sense, yes you failed. You did not have $1,000 saved on December 31st. But life is not always so clear. You do have almost $1,000, you’ll have the last $5 very soon, along the way you learned how to save, probably cut corners or be more frugal. If your goal were to “by the end of the year save around $1000 for a rainy day” then you might count this as a success.

Which brings us to starting over. If you have cash “in the bank” and lose it for whatever reason, you’re only starting over if your intended purpose is to have cash in the bank. On the other hand, if you have $100,000 in the bank and lose it, but your needs are still being met, food on the table, gas in the car… are you really starting over? Only if you goal is to have $100,000 in the bank. Because if your intended purpose is to have all your needs covered and some wants attainable… what have you really lost?

Does a marathon runner “start over” when she gets a cramp or stumbles? No. Its a setback to be sure, but she is not required to go back to the starting line and begin again. It’s just par for the course, and she keeps on running.

If your Definite Major Purpose, your intended purpose, your goal, is to make work optional, certainly one way to do it is to hit the lotto and live fat, dumb, and happy. Of course you’re still subject to the unforeseen events that may wipe out your winnings. A far better way, and the way I pursue, is to create diverse streams of income that require as little work as possible and produce enough income to cover all my needs plus a couple of wants.

Sometimes, in the course of creating these multiple streams, one (or probably many more) will fail. You’ll start a new blog, start selling product X, whatever… and it will not pan out. It will not “produce 25% of the income required to meet my needs” and will thus be a failure. But meeting that failure doesn’t mean YOU are a failure or that you have to start over. It simple means that way didn’t work.

Thomas Edison is famously quoted as saying,

“I didn’t fail to make a light bulb 10,000 times. I found 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb.”

Well, if its good enough for Edison, why isn’t it good enough for you?

You must consider the totality of the situation and make sure your perceived goals are in line with your intended purpose. If your intended purpose is to travel, that doesn’t mean you need to have $50,000 in the bank. You might be able to travel by driving a big rig!

I see this play out all the time when people say they need a job that pays better. Really? Why is that? What are you going to do with the extra money? If it pays better, does it require more of your time? (Unless trading your time for money is your goal, you probably want to steer away from that!)

Making more money is a short term goal that most people can’t tie to any specific long-term objective, other than perhaps to say, “Oh, I want to retire some day.” If by retire they mean quit working, I wonder if they’ve done the math with that extra money they’re chasing after so diligently.

Far and away, the better solution is to spend your time today creating sources of income that will continue to pay over time. This does a couple of things for you:

Pays you “retirement” money in inflation adjusted dollars – Since you don’t get it till you need it, you can assume it is adjusted for inflation. If you get it today and try to save it till tomorrow, it will NOT be adjusted properly.

Allows you to “retire” much sooner – Since you’re not trying to save a million dollars or more, you can have a much more attainable goal, one you can be successful in reaching, and then wave goodbye to your job.

Success is what you define it to be, not what your parents or your neighbors define it to be. Write down your Definite Major Purpose, say it outloud to yourself ever morning, then go make your success happen! If you stumble or hit a few bumps in the road along the way, that’s ok as long as you’re still making progress toward your goals!

@jtrigsby

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