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Guest post by: Jane Perdue Become an Author

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The article title "Are you willing to pay the price for success?" did its job. I began reading.

Hard work is the key to success, so work diligently on any project you undertake. If you truly want to be successful, be prepared to give up your leisure time and work past 5 PM and on weekends. ~ Charles Lazarus

By the end of the second paragraph I knew this article was something aimed at "first act" me - that ambitious woman who wasall too willingto pay the price the author offered up as requirements for success: long hours, the Blackberry grafted to my palm, living out of suitcases, singing the corporate song and perpetually doing more with less.

"Second act" me would love to introduce the article writer to Marilyn, a client who says "I've lost my way and don't know what to do."(Hey, I'd like to chat with him, too.) Marilyn, like so many others (including me!), enthusiastically anteed up the big blind for corporate success, and paid it over and over again for 20 years.

Marilyn achieved the success she sought - the coveted senior vice president role for a large multi-national firm.

Now, after two years in her long sought treasure, Marilynquestions not so much the price (that was clear and understood from the beginning) but rather the success itself, i.e., all that for this: longer hours, more travel, a single-minded business focus on the bottom line and the stock price, and greater pressure to do more with less.

As Marilyn described it, it was just more of the same only on a bigger scale.

There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way. ~Christopher Morley

What the article author and Marilyn did was define the price. Neither defined success.

• Is success the corporate corner office, the lofty salary, the grand job title?
• Is success feeling contentment, knowing that you've made a difference?
• Is success public acclaim or being a celebrity?
• Is success being able to work from home wearing your sweats and no mascara and/or not shaving?
• Is success writing that anonymous six-figure check to your favorite charity?
• Is success having a home on both coasts, a luxury car, designer clothes?
• Or is it something totally different? Even a combination of the above?

Every human has four endowments: self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom: the power to choose, to respond, and to change. ~Dr. Stephen Covey

Whether we define and measure success by or with things or outcomes or feelings, the choice is ours. There's no right or wrong answer.

The key for fulfillment comes with knowing what our personal success target is. That way,when we claim our prize, we're getting what we truly wanted.

Have you thought about what success means to you?

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