Grateful and Hungry

by Jim Stovall

Success, and life in general, is a multi-faceted process. Anyone who purports to tell you the one key to success or happiness is either misguided, mistaken, or short-sighted. Each of us have many elements within our daily lives. You have your professional or work life, your family or home life, your friends or social life, as well as your finance, faith, physical health, community involvement, etc.

Overwhelming success in any one area can be totally negated by failure in another area. If you make billions of dollars but have an impoverished family or home life, we could not call you a success. If you have a great career but neglect your physical health, you could not be considered successful.

Success is much more of a balancing act. You must master each of the elements that matter most to you. It is not a snapshot but much more like an epic motion picture. It is always changing, growing, and evolving. You do not achieve success in gardening one time and reach your goal once and for all. Having a wonderful garden is a process. It is always either improving or declining.

One of the most critical elements you must balance to achieve success is your ongoing passion and drive. This is difficult, because you want to also enjoy the process, be thankful for where you are, and take time to smell the proverbial roses; therefore you must strike a compromise between being grateful and being hungry.

If all you want out of life is to earn more, own more, and have more, you will never be successful nor content. On the other hand, if you are totally satisfied with your current condition, you will never reach your potential. I believe that it is easiest to find this balance when we realize that our past success--as well as our hope for future success--is not only about us.

You can experience overwhelming gratitude for the success you currently have when you reflect upon the people that made it possible. No person is an island. All of us are a product of many contributions toward our success made by others, both known and unknown.

You can stay hungry when you recognize that your future success is not simply a matter of you getting more than you have now. We must remember that success comes from the service that we provide to humanity. Just as you cannot succeed without the help of others, you cannot experience more success without being a help to others.

As you go through your day today, be grateful for the people who helped you to get where you are, and be hungry to help others through your future success.

Today’s the day!

For more information about Jim Stovall: jim@ultimateproductivity.com or www.ultimateproductivity.com