Story Gordon

Saying our quest for success means answering questions may seem a play on words, consider this: Question, the term, can be viewed as the coalescence of two – quest and ion – with quest “an arduous search” and ion “a net charge”; therefore, question can be viewed as “an arduous search driven by a personal charge.”

Curiosity is one key. It may have killed the cat, but it’s a core human quality. Watch infants taking it all in. They are seeking answers to life’s early questions. My success checklist includes these five, each answer is a prerequisite for the next:

Q1: What’s it about? What’s what about? Everything. Everything that’s important at the time. What’s the cosmos about? Earth? Life? Human life? My life? Your life? The answers form a healthy worldview, our foundation for success.

Q2: Who am I? As a person? With others? In the cosmic scheme? Knowing who we are is critical and keeps changing.

Q3: Where am I going? What’s my mission? My vision?

Q4: Who will go with me? Who are my fellow travelers and not?

Q5: How will I participate in life? What am I doing? Who am I being? How clearly am I seeing myself, others and the rest of it? How am I helping more than not?

Knowing our place and purpose encourages self-actualization as our[true]self. Personal evolution makes continued success elusive. Each question a set point for the next, especially the Q3 and Q4. When we are more concerned with who will go with us than where we are going we may be distracted from our purpose.

In his book, Fire in the Belly, Sam Keen noted that Howard Thurman told Paul Tillich, “The two most important questions in life are ‘Where am I going and who will go with me. If we get them reversed we are sunk.’”

While the epithets we recall as reinforcement can be excellent success triggers. Our original ideas are more valid.

Being curious about everything we see as important can be the most influential quality in our pursuit of success. What are your answers to these questions. That’s the ticket.