Success Was and Is...

I was participating in an online forum the other day and someone asked for advice on attaining success. This actually turned out to be a forum topic I could personally answer with just a few clicks of the keyboard, because this very question posed itself to me, only hours before.

For as far back as I can remember, I held one visualization of having “made it”. I would have attained success when the start of my work day included strolling down a big city street, swinging (not too hard as to hit a passerby and start a city scene, though), a leather briefcase (you name the designer), walking into a skyscraper to ride the elevator to the 21st floor, plopping down in my soft as a baby’s skin leather chair, and making two complete rotations to capture (1) the amazing city scape and (2) my employees peering into my office window. This mini success commercial has been with me for so long that although my day begins with dropping my daughter off to school then racing in a four door sedan to the park and ride, every now and then, I replay my commercial and smile.

What I did not realize in those pre-career, dare to dream days, was that most roads have pebbles, stones and people on them that can make you trip, completely fall or knock you down. I’ve had a few unexpected stumbles and some intentional pushes, that left me with badly scraped and bloodied knees. As these scenes were nowhere in my success commercial, I was never sure what to do after a fall. Should I turn around? Place a call to the city office for them to fix their roads? Do I push the one who pushed me back? The decisions, scrapes and blood sometimes paralyzed me. Most of the time I just wanted to disappear. I did not want to see the red drips. I did not want to walk – it hurt. I did not want anyone to see me looking like anything but the pretty, professional, briefcase swinging woman who lived in my mind.

Today, as I walk my city streets, a simple glimpse at my reflection in a glassed building puts me face to face with the woman I have become…A woman whose scarred knees bring back memories of the shared stories, pain and laughter of those who too had fallen on their roads…A woman whose limp has given her a new definition of having “made it”. Success, for me, is having the courage to stand up and keep walking no matter how many falls or failures there have been - - and perhaps getting a few good rotations in a top of the line recliner.