Mitt Romney’s powerful quote/KSL Segment

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about choice, especially as individuals. What happens when two different people work hard and do good, but one person is “successful” and another not?

Mitt Romney shared a fabulous view of this in a convocation speech in April 1999, where that very thing happened. He said that his cousin had trained faithfully for the Olympics almost all his life, placing nationally and internationally. But during the Olympic trials he got the flu and didn’t make the team. Another friend of Mitt’s bumped around from job to job, seemingly aimless, until one day a friend suggested she help out with his new internet business. At this date, her holdings in eBay have almost reached $1 billion in value.
Both worked hard and did their personal best, but the point here is not about who achieved more or made more, but about what the word success means to either, and to us.
Mr. Romney said, “[The] secret to predictably successful living [is] the choice of standards by which you will judge your life’s success.”
How do you judge your life’s success? Do you feel pressured for “success” to equate to the size of a home, make of a car, or number of awards that children bring home? Is it the size of your waistline, the amount in your bank account, or the number of times you pray in a day?
Romney suggested that what mattered most to him, and to most others, was love, family, service, and devotion-core values, if you will. But if so many people feel that way, why do so many not feel successful? He says:
“It’s only fair that I warn you that it will not be easy for you to focus your life on achieving your core values. Unfortunately, virtually the entire world around you will ridicule those values and a life based on them…
In airtime and public adulation, vengeance will rise above forgiveness, wealth above charity, power above loyalty, ease above work, luck above preparation. A relentless campaign will be waged for you to substitute [society’s] values for your values…”
And then he finishes with this:
“It is empowering, invigorating, and emancipating to live for the success you can control yourself, to live for your most deeply seated values and convictions.”
Exactly. I choose to spend my core time as a mother, and squeeze in some time for writing, speaking, and consuming high-quality chocolate. If I based my success on society’s view of my net worth, I’d be in serious trouble (or eat more chocolate). Find out what success truly means to you, then put your energies behind that definition and live it fully.
This week, don’t measure your “success” on whether you got a 10 on your goal, a child got straight As, or your husband got a promotion. True success is when we daily love, serve, and live in a way that is honorable and meaningful, moving forward and becoming better, with no serious regrets.
Best,
Connie
P.S. Check out this KSL specialty segment on “Live Without Pretending,” a humorous and poignant look at being real!
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