Is it success having all of your material needs met and a family that hates you?

Money is not everything, they say. So, success may just be developing an angel’s heart and winning over your people who would die for you anytime anywhere even if it means struggling financially.

How about love, family, friends, a career or enterprise that is enjoyable and abundantly rewarding?

There is no single person, thing or place that can, on its own, be defined as success. No one person can universally define success. This, unfortunately, also means that no one can say for sure what it takes to succeed.

Parents, teachers, managers and mentors can attempt to help. It will generally be with regard to a particular manner, subject, work or profession.

This is not necessarily bad news. Think about it; if no one really knows what success is, we really have no business spending valuable time and many sleepless nights worrying about achieving or not achieving it.

A few elevated people can articulate what success is for them and know what it took to achieve the success they experience. Most have no idea how success can be defined beyond material possessions and are less likely to attempt a two-sentence tutorial on how others can achieve it. If they did, it would be a guess.

This is the reason we spend a lot of of time pursuing success as defined and described by others.

"Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal,” said Bob Proctor.

This means that success is not an event. It is a continuous experience. It is not something we chase after. It is an experience. Success is not a tangible achievement. It is an ideal that the more conscious of us endeavour live up to — one that must be worthy of us and not the other way round. Simple.

Unfortunately, we spend our lives regurgitating people’s definitions trying to achieve by others’ methods. My ideals are not necessary yours.

I, therefore, cannot define success for or to you and vice-versa. It follows, therefore, that I cannot teach, guide or mentor you on success and vice-versa.

That said, to make a spirited attempt at helping you to succeed, it is imperative that I understand what your ideals are and work with you to articulate them. Together, we would then evaluate and audit your everyday experiences against your ideals.

From here, we can only take one course of action: eliminating the negative variances between experiences and your ideals by establishing a modus operandi based on the realisation of YOUR ideals. The material wins that you are likely to enjoy are simply by-products of living your ideals.

Here’s to your success.

The writer is an expert on attitude and human potential.