Success & Significance
Some dream
about it, some talk about it, some strive for it, while others
achieved it!
The consensus is
that "Success" means differently to all of us. As beauty is to
the eyes of the beholder, so is success to the mind of the
achiever. It largely depends on our aspirations, convictions, values, and
dreams at the various stages of our lives. Success and significance to
some, are intertwined and connected; while others perceived them as
separate goals to achieve. Success tends to be internally focused and
intrinsic; while significance tends to be externally oriented and
extrinsic.
The following are
some brief insights and wisdom from our colleagues on the following:
- What is success?
- Is significance important in one's life?
- Can we achieve both success and significance in our journey in life?
Anna Ho,
former Vice President, Group Dept., Home Office, AIA Hong
Kong :
Success can simply be defined as achieving a
goal or meeting an expectation. Success can be just a personal
matter. However, if what is involved touches other lives, it becomes
significant. For example, one can do a very successful presentation on a
project and gain much applause on oneself. However, only when the
completed project can actually make life much easier for the people concerned
will it become significant.
In my journey in life, I do hope to be able
to achieve significance by making a positive impact on those around me with
what I say and what I do, rather than thinking too much of my own
success. Whether I'm successful or not in my various roles is not for me
to say. However, I can be certain that I have failed many times in my
different roles, but have also tried to better myself as time goes by.
As it is said, "Failure is the Mother of
Success", true success comes after many failures and with much effort put
in. If a goal is achieved or an expectation is met with just one go, it
may be by sheer luck and the success will not last!
Daniel Tan, Group Chief Operating Officer, Acquaint Property
Ltd., Australia
Success: achieving the
goals and targets in my life in the areas of family, church, finance,
possessions and positions. In short, what I can achieve materially are
temporal.
Significance: Yes,
much more important in this season of my life after having achieved little
successes in my life. I am doing things that are meaningful, transforming
and lasting.
Seeking significance
requires personal sacrifices like being away from family and friends, and the
comfortable life in Perth Singapore
Significance precedes
success! If I do the thing with significance in mind, success usually
follows. Even if it takes a long time to see the successful outcomes and
in some cases, I may not be around to see the results of the efforts put
in. This is what some people called "Leaving a lasting legacy."
Vice President, Prudential
Assurance Co. Ltd., Singapore:
I'm not sure if
I've achieved it but I've always shrived towards living A Life, rather
than two separate lives, a corporate and a personal life. So success
to me is to live a significant and meaningful life.
Even if, to
some I'm perceived to be successful at work today, believe it or not I've never dream of corporate success. In fact, I don't feel successful, rather I
feel blessed that it's one of the many stops in my life journey. My dream
is to achieve spiritual success.
So my thought
is simple. One cannot be successful without significance.
Michael Tan, Chief Executive Officer, Great Eastern Life , Vietnam
Success means different things to different
people at different stages of our life journey. When I was younger
starting my career and family, success means personal career achievement,
accumulating wealth and material possessions. Then when you grow older,
all these measures of success seem like an illusion. Today, my success is
to work to the best of my ability and to trust God to direct my path with
humility and sincerity.
Significance is leaving a legacy
- transforming lives; caring for the less unfortunate and needy in
society; and being with my family
Dominic Lee, former Chief Actuary, Home Office, AIA Hong
Kong; Lead Coordinator for AIA Alumni Club, Hong
Kong :
Most worldly people take success as the
procurement of fortune and fame. I am impressed by a motto from ROC
President Chiang Ching-Kuo which states that fortune is defined as the
"fortune for the people", while fame is defined as "fame not
only for the current generation but for many generations going forward."
As an Actuary, my forte is in numbers and not
in words therefore my remarks are terse!
(If numbers can be translated to philanthropy
giving, it becomes significant in nature)
Mack Eng, Country President, ACE Insurance Limited:
Success can be defined in so many ways, and
means different things to different people. Success is doing what you
love and doing it well. Success is also multi-faceted, whether we are
'successful' as a leader at work or home is dependent on the individual's
focus. Success at work means not just delivering the
results for the organization, but the ability to garner the support of your
team at all levels to share your vision and focus: that's always trick since,
individuals have different values, principles, backgrounds and priorities. Success is creating a work environment that can bring out the best in your team
- I'm a strong believer in creating a positive, progressive, open, and
conducive environment for individuals to collaborate and excel.
Success in an organization can be defined
when teams are able to work well together, which will breed a winning culture
and success for a company. Being a good husband, father, son, brother and
friend to family and close friends are what I defined as success as well.
Overarching all this - work, family, and friends is my faith - being true to my
Christian faith and belief is the ultimate success I'm striving for - it's work
in progress! When it's all said and done, success is knowing what you want out of life, working
towards it and having a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment in whatever
you set out to do.
Significance is important, whilst we do what
we can, it's not for us to say it is significant but others are the judge of
what we do. Work wise, I've been fortunate to have bosses who have guided
and mentored me throughout my career, and given me opportunities. It's
important to pay it forward - I see budding young talent - future leaders in
the industry, my way of giving back is to guide, develop and invest in the young
talents in our industry. Contributing to our industry in any way
that can pave the way for our future leaders is also critical – it’s not a job
requirement but beyond the call of duty. The sowing of these seeds is a
mid to long term play - the significance - only the future will tell.
Success and Significance should go hand in
hand - it's what gives meaning to our existence, to know that we have done what
we can, left our mark and legacy, and paved the way for others ... we can and
we must strive to make a difference.
Lance Tay, Chief Executive Officer, Tokio Marine Life Insurance
Singapore Ltd.:
Both success and significance can mean
different things to different people. I think it is important that we do
not judge people based on our own definition of success as we may not know the
goals or aspiration of someone else. Significance is even harder to pin
down as what is meaningful to one may not mean much to another.
Putting definition of these two words aside,
it is safe to say that successful leaders would have achieved some level of
success and significance in their life. So it is entirely possible to
have achieved both success and significance.
To me what's important is to know what we
want out of life and who we want to be. If we achieve what we set out to
do and be the person we want to be, we would have achieved success and
significance in our own way.
Timothy Chia, Chairman, Asia, Coutts & Co. Ltd.
Success is subjective and means differently
to each individual. It could be viewed as achievements in the area
of career, status, wealth, family, or even spiritual aspirations.
I've been blessed with a wonderful family,
good health and have achieved reasonable success in my career and to hopefully
return a small part of what I have taken
back to society.
Significance to me is to make a discernible difference in the lives of others, by providing resources in the area of education, medical facilities and research. Education provides an
equalizer for the less fortunate by enhancing their earning capacity and
thereby narrowing the income gap.
Chin Chung Wen, Chief Agency Officer, AIA Co. Ltd., Singapore
Success to me means living a life one can
feel proud of. Two things come in mind. The first is success in our
career, the part of us that's ambitious, that wants to accomplish. Many
will also relate this to having the tangible things in life, position, status,
home address, cars, wealth, club membership. Personally, I think normal
people judge someone's success as achieving all these tangibles. But
working hard and wanting to be successful may not mean our desire is to have
these tangibles. Some go for success to provide a better living for the
family.
That's where the second comes to mind -
success in the area of family ties, friendship, helping others, being a good
father, a good son or daughter, unconditional love for the family, making a
positive difference in people's lives- the intangibles such as giving love,
contentment and happiness. Success in this area outweighs the
first. People will better remember us in these successes than the
successes in the workplace.
There are usually some conflicts between
success and significance in today's demanding and hectic work life - chasing
after the next promotion or work taking priority than spending time with loved
ones. Likewise, it may not be easy to do well in work when the focus is
on family and friends. Some jobs may allow us to help others and be
successful, but most do not. It is not easy balancing the two, when we
know having a balance is important.
To me, achieving significance is usually
linked to achieving the intangible, something worthy and important that
successes at the workplace will usually not get us. For those of us that
want to strengthen the intangibles, nothing without labor.
Strengthening the intangibles need a
conscientious effort. I know of friends that work hard in their summer
season of their lives, retire early to spend time with loves ones and do the
things they want to do. It will be nice to know that the option is
there. If we can't strike a good balance during our career, maybe we can
have better balance over our lifetime.
Success may or may not bring us happiness,
and that's why many place emphasis on having a job they like. Happiness
tends to go along the path of significance.
Peter Lin, Senior Pastor of Queenstown Baptist Church; former
President, Asian Operations, Mutual Liberty Group
A good friend of mine
said "Life is a journey of seeking for three things - destiny (successes),
love (relationships), and meaning (ultimate satisfaction)." I agree
wholeheartedly.
In my younger days, I
started my first quest - seeking for success as achievements and titles.
I have been blessed. ............
As I grew older, I realized
that achievements were overrated and were not lasting. The only thing that
seems to remain is friendships and testimonies of touching people's lives or
having been touched in return.
I began my second quest
- seeking for lasting relationships.
I realized even
relationships are fleeting as life cannot be taken for granted. There is an
intangible piece of my life that is not related to achievements nor even to
relationships.
In 2002, I decided to
embark on this last quest for meaning and soul satisfaction. I left the
insurance sector and became a pastor. My journey no longer leads me to limelight and recognition but rather humility
and service. I finally have a taste of the intangible satisfaction of the
soul that success and significance cannot offer.
Vincent Kwo, Chief Executive Officer, Gibraltar BSN Life Bhd. , Malaysia
I had just arrived back to KL from my trip to
Los Angles attending the Prudential International Insurance Convention.
It is the annual Life Planners convention where the top performers from
Prudential companies around the world meet together to celebrate the success of
these sales professional. The Prudential Life Planners approach where the
passion and commitment to helping families find financial securities in terms
of family protection is the guiding principle for each successful Life Planners
and you can feel the joy and pride when these successful Life Planners went up
the stage to receive the plaque together with their family members.
So, what is success? I would equate
success to happiness. A worldly successful person might not be happy but
a happy person must be successful in life. The worldly success is
temporary and relative to others but the everlasting success in life is to
achieve calmness and happiness internally. I was reading an article on
how to boost your happiness and hence your success in life: 1) Hug it out
and sharing love with family, loved ones and friends. 2) Go for the
flow. It means feeling fully immersed with what you are doing -
gardening, singing and even your daily office work. 3) Appreciating what
you have and expressing gratitude to others. 4) Have faith in life.
A spiritual experience and be connected with something larger. 5) Joy in
your daily activity in work and do exercise. 6) Sleep well at night and 7)
Helping others and make the world a better place.
I would like to wish everyone a successful
and happy journey in life and may you bring blessings to others.
Much has been said;
I hope that the sharing from our colleagues has opened up your thinking and
maybe sowed some seeds of wisdom in the garden of your mind.
I would like to
thank all our contributors for taking time and sharing their insights and
wisdom - one has written to seek clarification; another for a face to face
interview; another over a lunch appointment; others need to pause and wait for
insights to envelope them; while others are still seeking enlightenment.
One of our
colleagues recently donated one million dollars to the cause of helping
others to have a better and brighter future - an act which is commendable and
displays the positive side of the human spirit.
I conclude with
my parting words: To succeed in life is laudable,
but to live a life of significance brings meaning and purpose. In our
relentless pursuit of success and significance, may we not forget that we are
blessed and therefore in return should bless others and find our hope in
lasting values so that we can say as Peter Lin puts it, "It is
well with my soul". The choices you made in the past is what you are
today, but the choices you make today will determine what you are
tomorrow. Choose wisely and be blessed!
