I was told from a very young age that nice people finish last.  My mother, a saint by all accounts, handing over the last dime she had to help someone in pain, spending all her time lending an ear to the troubled, died young, broke and without the husband she wanted.  In a sense I think that was pre-destined.  She believed that only people without virtue had money and power and marriage.

Were you raised with a similar idea that nice people are victims?  Do you hear about the ways you are “too nice” and you need to change in order to survive?  Is this the reason you hang back from taking big risks, because you fear the corruption of traditional success?

Today… to instantly have more success… challenge your views on what it takes to be successful… and what it means to be successful.

You can – and should- be nice in the world in order to succeed.  This virtue is actually a pre-requisite to the kind of success you will likely want!

In dismanteling the ideas I picked up from my family about the evils of money and success, two big themes have proven time and again to weigh heavily agaisnt angry, selfish, not-cool people where success is involved.

Trust.  

It is something you can’t get enough of these days, because as we become more disconnected with technology the contact we do have with people needs to be as solid as possible.   Shifty liars and corrupt people get exposed pretty easily in the age of the Internet.   It’s easy to Google someone.  We have Yelp. Message boards. Data bases.

I found out that a man I had dated who I truly couldn’t trust no matter how hard I tried was a total liar.  He also promoted himself as a big success.  More lies.  And in his eyes, I was too nice and too unrealistically Utopian to be globally successful.

Strangely, I never wanted to be globally successful until after I met this very angry man.  Now, its part of my mission to prove you can be nice and “utopian” and still do great things on a grand scale.  So, I thank him for being the person he was: a true catalyst.

The shifty and shady “fake it till you make it” success stuff doesn’t really hold water these days.  The truth always shakes out.

 

Love and passion translate. 

You can feel when someone truly cares for what they do. I can feel it.  I am attracted to that energy of passion.  I bet you are, too.

In his book A Whole New Mind,  Dan Pink breaks down the facts of the new economy.  In order to succeed in a world gone automated and outsourced, you truly need to be invested in what you do professionally with heart and soul.  Design and storytelling, trust and love, empathy and symphony create amazing success. It is an awesome book, a real must-read, especially if you are a highly creative being who has been told that you are wildly impractical.

MFA’s (yes, fine art majors!) are being recruited for top positions at huge corporations.  The world needs art.  Art is love and passion and human connection.

This is all love my friends.  This isn’t anger, it isn’t being manipulative, and it certainly isn’t destructive.

In my worldview, success isn’t your car, your home or your fancy friends.  I see success is stability, contribution and living your purpose… whether it brings you billions or enough to survive comfortably and help others.

Idea for the day: write your own definition of success.  I know it sounds very simplistic. I just did this recently after being asked many times by people I admire to do this… And it’s eye-opening.  Not only will it bring to light any  ideas you have about having to sell your soul or “lean in” your life for the sake of making money or achieving things, it can help you instantly direct your energy toward the things that matter most to you!!!!

This is the fun-limitless-infinite-exciting stuff!!!  xoxo Dana

 

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