Most people want to succeed. Most leaders want to succeed. Yet, grasping success often proves to be an exhausting and unfulfilling pursuit. Success is difficult to procure and maintain because often we are looking at through the wrong lens. Real success is elusive. Real success is exhilarating. Real success is different from the versions that are paraded in front of leaders today. Real success is not about you. Real success is about who. Real success is the tireless, enduring efforts to bring out the best in others.

Winston Churchill said,

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”

There is no understanding of success until there is an understanding of failure. The only reason we value winning is that we understand what it is to lose. You will never lead and develop people effectively until the people you lead have the ability to fail. Fail proof systems are not systems that develop strong people or strong leaders. The idea that “everyone is a winner” is the same notion that “everyone can be a leader.” It is utter nonsense. In order to win, you have to know what it means to lose. In order to succeed, you have to know what it means to fail.

First, Failure is a Great Teacher.

The most successful people that I have studied did not find “success” because they found a superhighway. They most often found a broken road. They traveled back roads, dead ends and took the long way around. It takes time for success to unfold. Failure is how success unfolds. Instead of thinking of failure as defeat, simply see failure as a part of the unfolding of success. Imagine that you have a piece of paper and inside of it contains a message, but in order to read the message, the paper has to be unfolded. Success is very much the same way, except the folds are often not as simple or as easy to open as a piece of paper. But, the idea is that success is not hidden, it is simply folded up. Failure is the process in which we learn how to unfold the message. This process of learning to unfold is a great teacher, a great instructor.

More than information, successful people find the right instructor.

There are different elements to your life, different aspects, some people refer to them as buckets. Despite, whatever you call them, they represent different areas of your life that you need learning in: vocational, relational, emotional, spiritual, financial, etc. Every area that you need learning in, it is more important that you find the right instructor more than the right information. A seasoned instructor knows how to apply the information. Information doesn’t apply itself, it has to have a human to apply it (even computers need a human to code it). It is easy to look across the street or next door and think that the person next to you has find the “right” instructor. Listen, that might be the right instructor for them and the wrong instructor for you! The right instructor for you will seek to understand you, speak truth to you and be willing to walk with you. Trying to get someone to sit down with you who doesn’t have time or the patience for you is probably not the right instructor for you.

Instructors are more valuable than modern mentors.

Avoid the idea of modern mentoring. Modern mentoring is nothing more than networking. Networking is simply the idea that you build a network of relationships with other people in positions that ultimately may be able to help you. This is primarily what modern mentoring has become. Avoid this. An instructor is someone who has more experience than you, even if you think you have more information than them. Don’t worry about expertise or pedigree, find someone who has experience that has been earned over time. The word mentor actually was the name of Odyssey’s chief servant who was entrusted to train his son in everything he could not for the rest of his life because Odyssey was going on his quest. That does not remotely describe modern mentoring. If you want to be successful in your vocation, in your application, in your relationships, in your finances, then you must find an instructor. When you find this instructor you must listen to them and apply. Listening and applying is the process which we humble ourselves and learn.

What Real Success Looks Like: Others

Real success is not a large bank account, freedom to do whatever you want when you want, public recognition or fame. All of those things can be taken, stolen or wrecked. Real success is living a life that brings the best out of others. This cannot be touched, stolen or taken. When you bring the best out of others, you extend life. Inside of each one of us, there is more–more life, more soul. Bringing the best out of others is hard work. What I love about the Bible is the emphasis on the “one anothers.” In fact, there are almost 60 different times where “one another” is used in the Bible. I love the first line in Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life. It simply says, “It’s not about you.” Real success looks like the serious, serving to bring the best out in one another or in others.

Real success is only found as you learn who you are.

Forget your why.  Forget your purpose. You need to know who. Who you are. Who you follow. Who you actually are, not who you think you are. Who others think you are. Who is more important than why. Why comes after who, not before. Self-awareness is at an all time low in the world. We are inundated with information, technological advancements, convenience and movement. All of this deludes our sense of who we really are. You will never help others become their best until you learn how to bring the best out of yourself. If you aren’t becoming the best version of you, how will you ever help others become the best versions of them? You won’t because you can’t. Leaders who find success in developing others aren’t in a lifelong pursuit to understand who they are. As a follower of Jesus Christ, I quickly understood who I am (a sinner) and who I needed to be (a sinner saved by Christ’s grace). I am not in the process of trying to figure out who I am. This allows me to more freely help others discover who they are and what they are capable of. This has allowed me to face reality of what I can do and what I don’t have any business doing.

Success is Serious

Intentional has become a buzzword. I’ve switched to serious. To be serious means “thoughtful, subdued and advancing in a dignified, composed manner.” If there was ever a time to be serious, it is now. The world seems out of control inflamed by passion that burns out quickly looking for constant stimulation. I have found that serious people might not be as “fun” as others, but they certainly are often more successful at bringing out the best in others. I have seen that intentionality has lost its seriousness. There is a graveness that has a quiet energy that is getting lost by all our intentionality. You have to take people serious and treat them serious to bring the best out of them. If they could bring it out of themselves, they would. This is the power and value of an instructor–a serious instructor.

Real Success is Really Hard Work

Most people who want to “develop” others simply are doing it for the wrong reason. This wrong reason is simply self. They are doing it for themselves. If this is at the core of why you are trying to “develop” others for self-preservation, then you will never find real success. You are simply using others. They are rungs on your ladder. Real success is hard work, because you have to lower yourself and be willing to be a rung in the ladder of another. Serving others is hard work, but it is in the serving of one soul to another that the best is both discovered and can be cultivated. The best in another is most often buried deep within their soul. This why failure is such an effective teacher, because we are confronted with our own ability at the deepest level of who we are: our soul. Failure pulls back the layers of pride, deception and dishonesty that we surround our souls with.

Why are there so few so good at unlocking and bringing out the best in others?

Because most people only want to work on the surface. Because most people want steps or a formula. There are no steps or formula for the soul. Failure deeply affects the human at the level of his or her soul. The soul is deep.  So, when you have a skilled instructor willing to wade past the layers of pride, emotion, will, mind and enter the realm of the soul, there is a vulnerability that exists.  This vulnerability is also where our deepest fears reside. By our nature, we are very selective of who we let get this close. Summarily, we don’t ever do the deepest work which makes the greatest difference, wrestling with the soul.

Wrestling with the soul of another is the often only real way to bring the best out within them. We see a glimpse of this in the Bible when Jacob wrestled the Angel of the Lord (Genesis 32:22-32). After Jacob finished wrestling with the Angel, he wept (Hosea 12:4). I believe he wept because he had a break through at the level of his soul. Weeping comes from deep, from our soul. The Angel was bringing the best out of Jacob.

Success has to be fought for. Success more a collision than a collection. 

Success is not given away. Success is not a prize that you open a box and find. You do not collect success. You collide with success. You get on the road least traveled and you get to work. Most people aren’t willing to do the work of collision that is needed to knock off the  Real success is bringing the best out of others. Others have to be fought for. Occasionally, out of love you have to fight them for them. This is tough work. You have to really be humble to lower yourself and be willing to wound the one you care about with the truth at times. You have to be willing to take the relationship to a difficult place so you can get through the difficult place. Most people simply want to avoid what is difficult. Bringing the best out in others means you have to get to difficult and work through it. No one walks quickly through that which is difficult. It has to be worked through. This is the hardest work, but the most valuable work which leads to the most success.

Spend your time where it can make the biggest difference.

I have spent my leadership career simply trying to bring the best out in others. Their success becomes my success and there is a shared, untouchable joy that my soul knows that no one can take from me. I do not need riches or fame or freedom, because I have friends. Seeing these friends who have come to me and allowed me to instruct them, each on their own unique timeline, gain success brings the greatest level of satisfaction to my soul. This level of satisfaction is never gained by a paycheck, recognition or reward. This level is deep and worth the effort to see another’s best come to the surface. This only happens when I spend time with others. Thus, I spend the majority of my time at this stage of my life and career trying not only to invest in others, but to bring out the best in others. My life well-lived will be evidenced by the lives of others well-lived.

Real success is found in bringing out the best in others. This is also the hardest success.

(c) Alex Vann