Extraordinary Success

As promised, this post begins a brand new topic–Extraordinary Success.

Extraordinary Success is unique among our four main topics because it is the only topic for which we do not offer a definition. This is intentional of course. We don’t provide a specific definition for extraordinary success because it will look different for each of you. You should define what extraordinary success looks like for your life.

You need to decide where you are going, but no matter what destination you choose, we can hep you lay out a road map to get there. There are principles that have been consistently present with individuals and companies who have achieved their own extraordinary success. It is around those principles that we want to explore the topic.

In Jim Collins’ best-selling book, Good to Great, he details how fifteen researchers spent five years investigating what made extraordinary companies so great. The results were surprising and remarkably consistent. The research clearly showed that companies that achieved extraordinary success are those that had clearly defined core values that drove behavior. In other words the great companies were very intentional about their culture. We want you to do the same, in your company, in your home, and in your personal life.

Ordinary companies give lip service to core values, culture, mission and purpose statements. They are vaguely aware that such things are supposed to be important in some way. The core values may be prominently featured in the company handbook or the mission statement hung on wall plaques but almost no one at the company can tell you what they are, much less understand what they mean. This common pattern of core value formation may satisfy corporate committees but is useless as a catalyst for culture. Only clearly defined and universally understood core values can shape behaviors, and behavior is culture.

As we go forward in this Extraordinary Success series, we will look closer at core values and culture and how they are the markers on every road map to extraordinary success–including yours! We’ll look at these keystone principles through the lens of three elements:

1. Tenacity

2. Intentionality

3. Purpose

Is there something inside of you that wants to make a difference? Of course there is or you wouldn’t be reading this blog! So make sure you tune in over the next few weeks and we dig into the essential building blocks of Extraordinary Success. Perhaps you’ve thought–or even think now–that extraordinary success is for someone else but not you. But I’m here to tell you, extraordinary success is for you, at whatever level you want it to be!

So get a clear picture in your mind of what extraordinary success looks like for you, both personally and professionally. Keep that picture in your mind throughout this series and I promise you the road to getting there will appear much clearer than it did before. I’ll see you back here next week for Tenacity Part 1.