TheRoadToSuccess.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe

You're listening to the MentalNotes podcast. In this episode, MentalNotes founder, Scott Dow explains why success changes like the weather.

So what does the weather and a Broadway actor have to do with your success? I know that sounds kind of arbitrary, but there is a connection and I'm going to share what it is. It starts with this story.

I live part time on the upper West side of New York City. I love it up here because my neighborhood is a petri dish of highly successful people. Now how I got into this neighborhood is still a mystery but that's a story for another day. There's plenty of the rich and famous in my neighborhood, but I'm not referring to them. I mean, highly successful people you've never heard of that have reached the very top of their field. People from the worlds of finance, medicine, academia. And yes, there's plenty of actors, Broadway stars and musicians, but they have one thing in common.

Over the last number of years, they've allowed me to study how they think about success. And I've had one major takeaway, one big takeaway that I want to share with you. It can be summed up in a conversation I have with a woman that's old enough to be my mom. So she's up there. Sorry, mom.

The lady performed on and off Broadway for nearly 50 years. She had a great career, and she's one of my favorite people in the world. She said to me one day, Scottie, success is like the weather. It's always changing. Now she grew up in the South, so I thought it was just another one of our Southern sayings, but it wasn't. It was a whole lot more. She explained that most people think of success as sunny days. Success is the perfect temperature, it's a nice breeze, it's a beautiful sunset.

She thought of sunny days kind of as the trappings of success, all the things that she had worked so hard to enjoy. But to her, success included all of the rainy days too. She said that most people thought of success as an outcome, and that made her sad. The road to success, she said, is where we live most of our lives.

Her point, we've got to embrace the bad weather. It's going to get cold, it rains and the fog is going to roll in. The road to success is really hard work. It's raincoats and umbrellas, and it's filthy snow. New Yorkers know about filthy snow. She thought of success as both the trappings of success in the road to success. She didn't distinguish between the two, and that's the common theme I found across every interview, every interview I've conducted.

High performers view success not as an outcome, but as an ongoing process. To enjoy the trappings of success, you have to embrace the road to success. Sunny days are a whole lot more enjoyable after a string of harsh weather. The way you think about success is going to determine your approach to personal development.

Now there are four key points I want you to keep in mind, and the first thing is this. Success is the process, it's not an outcome. It's a weather pattern of both rainy and sunny days. Second thing is this. The road to success does not feel successful. It takes hard work. It's raincoats and umbrellas. It takes resilience and it takes patience. Third thing is this. The trappings of success are very, very fragile. That bonus you just got or that big promotion, the positive feelings of that are going to wear off. It's going to begin to fade over time.

And fourth and finally, enjoy the sunshine but embrace the rain. Some people struggle to stay successful. The people that enjoy success and stay on the road to success, They keep doing the work. They keep pushing outside their comfort zone. It's hard work, but they embrace the rainy days.

Now as you think about your personal development, keep this story in mind. To stay successful, you have to stay on the road to success. You have to keep pushing outside your comfort zone. You can enjoy the sun, but you have to embrace the rain.