Does Success Change People

Does Success Change You?

Imagine this scenario… You spend years working hard to succeed. During these years, you have some success, mixed with lots of frustrations, but you never really reach the level of success you dream of. And then something shifts. Everything begins to work, and your fame and fortune take off.

Here’s the question: Does success change you? Does becoming successful cause you to think and act in a different way? Understanding the answer to this question has significant implications for your future.

The answer is “yes” and “no”. Professionally, success definitely changes us. It causes us to think and act differently. It causes us to become more creative and causes us to collaborate more effectively, seeing opportunities where we never saw them before.

Success causes us to dream even bigger, setting goals we never would have considered possible. This shift in thinking causes us to take actions we never thought we would. We manifest the courage to move out of our comfort zone and strike out in directions that, up until then, intimidated us. Each of these shifts acts to propel our success to ever greater levels.

But the story can be very different on a personal level. Many people have fears and limiting beliefs around money, success, and their impact on us. Some people have a belief that success makes people superficial. Others believe that success makes people materialistic. Some have a fear that success brings overwhelm and overload, causing them to lose the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed.

These fears and beliefs which are at odds with success can – and often do – sabotage our efforts and undermine our success. If you have an intention or belief that is in conflict with what you’re attempting to accomplish, it counters all your efforts. The consequent results are mediocre. Unless we find a way to put them behind us, true success will remain elusive.

Let me share what I know to be true about success and its...