The 12 factors of Business Success: Discover, Develop, and Leverage Your Strengths

Chapter 10. Wealth Building

Success is achieving whatever it is that you've set out to do in your life. It is the mental state that allows you to accomplish your goals and live your life to your fullest ability and capacity. The definition of success is purely individual and measured by you. Your definition of success may or may not include the accumulation of money and things. Yet, for most people, the definition of success is or includes financial freedom. Financial freedom simply means that you can live on what you have today for the rest of your life if you chose to.

How important is wealth building to you? What is your definition of "wealthy" or "rich?" What kind of lifestyle do you want to live? One of the most important things that you can do when deciding on a goal or starting down a path is to clearly define what success looks like so you know when to quit. Far too often people keep going long after they've reached the goal because they didn't know what completion looked like. They just kept putting out the effort without looking at the result. You can't complete any task for which you don't have a definition of the finished product.

We include wealth building as a core aspect of achievement because money is a key tool of success. It provides security so you can focus on other things. It provides freedom. It allows you to live your life to the fullest. And it buys you opportunities to create additional success.

Wealth is not wired into anyone's genes. Your unconscious motives ...