How Redefining Success Will Change Work and Society

Why connection, love and meaning are taking on greater importance

OUR RECIPE FOR SUCCESS prior to Covid-19 was based on many things – planning, leadership, expense-control, employee engagement – but the main ingredient was effort. Ask any parent, teacher or rock star entrepreneur and you’d hear “hard work” to explain the mystery behind a successful person or business.

We’ll look back on the pandemic as an event that caused us to redefine success and how to achieve it. Success will have a narrower definition, not as the ultimate goal in life or in business. It will be defined as those things that satisfy us; wealth, possessions, accomplishments, awards; all those external events we helped create. “Humans in control of nature”. Happiness, on the other hand, will take on greater importance and will be defined as being surrounded by people we love and who love us. “Humans in union with others and nature”.

In the future, we’ll be more discerning where we place our energies. Working hard for success will continue as long as it isn’t at the expense of our happiness. Covid’s big lesson is to realign people, teams, companies and society to meaning. Gone are the days when we blindly work hard to achieve an external result. This new focus will cause dramatic changes in how we teach our kids, “work our people”, lead our teams, measure results, support employee resilience and set policy.

In the future success will be based on; balance, happiness and meaningful hard work. Look around you. These changes have already begun.

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“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.”

― Roy T. Bennett