This past month at the RMK Collective, we debated the topic of success a lot. 

Redefining the metrics 

As an executive and a leader, I spent a lot of time trying to put in place dashboards to measure progress and success, and often demonstrate it. When trying to convince a room of decision-makers or investors that your business is doing well, you have to show proof of that. In the past, progress was very linear, we measured the success of a business through the very obvious top line and bottom line figures (many times top-line trumped the discussion look at the 'We Work’s' story). 

By the time I was leading a transformation, we considered so many other indicators that define the health of a business. We looked at the CX data and measured satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty of our community, designed and optimized customer journeys. We studied the EX data and employee satisfaction. We even attempted to calculate equity, which I am sure if you are trying to do so, you can relate to the subjectivity of the method.

I am now confident to say that the success of a business is relevant to the destiny you attach to it; are you building an SME with a long-term vision of growth? Are you a family business looking to create a legacy for future generations or are you a VC-backed business looking at an exit in 5-10 years?

If anything, the above proves that the vision you create, the way you audit and view your business, and the way you define its trajectory, are going to tell a unique story. One that is yours to tell and to live, and not based on other’s metrics of success, benchmarks, or non-fiction tales. Copy them and you won’t really succeed. Get inspired and build, and you will find a path that is yours.

The many facets of success

What about your personal success? Did you ever ask yourself what success means to you? Is it happiness, linked to milestones? or is it a journey you live? Did you define it based on your own life or are you copying others? Did you take the time to reinvent your own matrix? And did you think to yourself, am I building a life to be lives or building a life with a high valuation (for others)? 

Cultivating "Eudaimonia"

While some of us now break for the summer, or at least maybe slow down a bit, let’s consider all the options we currently have. Let’s take a moment to be grateful for how far we came, airports can’t keep up with travel as humanity is ready to live and travel again, CEOs are quitting top jobs to sit by the beach, and entrepreneurs are becoming obsessed with creating sustainable impact. All because the hollow nature of material success is meaningless without purpose, values, and human flourishing, a concept that the ancient Greeks already referred to as eudaimonia. 

As for me, I am off to Canada with the family this summer to reunite with so many of my loved ones. Stay tuned to my stories and to a lot of exciting announcements after the summer for The RMK collective and on the podcast!