Article
How to Define Success
Author(s):
Yes, success can be measured by the amount of money a business makes or puts in the owner's pocket. But for most successful entrepreneurs, there are many more intangibles that surface as non-quantifiable metrics of success.
When I coach entrepreneurial physician clients, one of the questions I often pose is "How will you define your success?"
Obviously, this question requires considerable introspection, even though the most obvious answer upfront tends to be "When the business is up and running, and I'm making good money."
The 10th and final rule of successful entrepreneurship in Bill Murphy Jr.'s “The Intelligent Entrepreneur” addresses similar questions —
.
play the game for life
Yes, success can be measured by the amount of money a business makes or puts in the owner's pocket. But for most successful entrepreneurs, there are many more intangibles that surface as non-quantifiable metrics of success.
This is indeed true for many of the entrepreneurial physicians I have interviewed in my “Conversations with Trailblazers” series. In my own experience as a physician business owner, my sense of satisfaction about how the business is doing is as much tied to what my clients are accomplishing and how meaningful my work feels to me on a daily basis as it is about profit and revenues.
The book recounts how one of the candidates profiled, Marc Cenedella of TheLadders.com, tells each of his new employees "We're here to solve a mystery. And that mystery is 'Why am I here?'"
