A few weeks ago on February 12th, 2013, Connie wrote this article for KSL:
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about success, what that really means. What happens when two different people work hard and do good, but one person is considered “successful” and the other not?
Mitt Romney insightfully addressed this very question in a convocation speech in April 1999, which was recently published in BYU Magazine. He said 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 Romney’s bumped around from job to job, seemingly aimless, until one day a friend suggested she help out with his new Internet business. At the time of his speech, her holdings in eBay were valued at almost $1 billion.
Both worked hard and did their personal best. But the point here is not about who achieved more or made more; it’s about what the word “success” meant to either, and to us.
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 social status of your children?
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?
Romney answered this way:
To read more of Connie’s Blog Post at Motherhood Matters KSL, click here.
