How do you measure how successful you are? The size of your home? Your car maybe. Perhaps it is about the amount of money you have in the bank. How many friends you have. The size of your wardrobe. Wearing designer brands. Eating regularly at the best restaurants. Staying in the best hotels. Holidays in exotic place. Or is it the number of homes you have. Perhaps it is the amount of free time you have. The time you can use on whatever you want.



In our experience the best way to measure how successful you are is by looking at how many people rubbish you. How many people criticise what you stand for. How many people go out of their way to ridicule you.

The more people that criticise what you do and complain about, the hours you work, the way you earned your success, the way you spend your money, the way you run your life, the more you can say I have made it. I am a success.

It's a sad but true reflection of the world we live in that the more successful you are the more people want to bring you down. It doesn't matter to them that you have spent years learning and practicing before gaining the fruits of your efforts.

It doesn't matter to them that given the same opportunity that you grasped and worked for they would have let pass as being too difficult. No. The point is they just can't resist complaining and criticising.

It seems as though they have no intention of facing their own demons. They have no intention of standing out from the crowd. They just want everything to be the same.

The last thing they want is you and people like you being different. The last thing they want is you and people like you showing them that there is another way to live your life, a more successful way. They do not need you and people like you to show them that to be successful you have to change your thoughts, the way you see the world.

They want to go through life on minimum effort so the last thing they need is you showing them that by making effort you can succeed. To them the fruits of their labours are simple and regular, they don't need you and people like you showing that with a little nous and commitment the fruits of your labour can be enormous. They do not need people like you showing the world what is possible.

The last thing they need is someone who has the courage to believe in themselves and work towards what they want and become successful.

If it is any consolation to you, the more successful you get the more critics and complainers you collect.

You just have to accept that when they start on you in your office, in your town, in your profession then you are on the verge of being successful. You have done what they are frightened of doing: you have conquered your fear of the unknown and gone for your dreams.

You have the courage. You have the desire. You have the willingness and ability to focus on your dreams. In the end:

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

President Teddy Roosevelt

Good Luck

Graham and Julie.