A Formula For Success

I asked my partner three critical questions when we first started dating:

What’s your spirit animal? What super power would you want? And finally, how do you define success?

Apparently it had been a while since I had answered that last question for myself, as all I could honestly come up with was “success is being present”.

My partner wasn’t the biggest fan of that answer, so I went back to the drawing board and came up with… well, a drawing.

Let me break it down for you: love, grit, and flow.

Have you ever heard a hippie say, “the universe is love”. That’s pretty much what I mean, and I believe that’s what Buddha, Jesus, Laozi, and countless others more or less mean too. Love is fundamental. It’s also ineffable, which makes writing about it tricky. In my formula, love is the realm of compassion, oneness, and wisdom. For more on love, I highly suggest listening to this discussion with Eckhart Tolle and Oprah Winfrey.

Grit is passion and perseverance for long-term goals. That’s how Angela Duckworth describes it, and she literally wrote the book on Grit. This is the realm of commitment, courage, and accomplishment.

If grit is hard, then flow is ease. Flow is serenity, entropy, and imagination.

Each of these factors is on a sort of spectrum ranging from zero to one. Then comes pi. Why? Because it’s funny! And because it’s a reminder that even if we are in a highly loving state, grittily committed to our values, and creatively flowing, (1 + 1 + 1) / 3.14 ≠ perfection.

That’s my silly success formula. And like success itself, it is a work in progress.

Growing grit is only a worthy goal when we are rooted in love and free to flow from time to time. Before getting all gung-ho, get clear about what success means to you. As we practice and strengthen our abilities to focus and execute on trees, we must also remember to keep the forest in mind and at heart. Physically bringing our minds and hearts into the forest, it turns out, is a great way to practice this key piece of success!

Root, reach & let life flow,

—gritgrow

Feb 25, 2022