Everyone wants to be successful. In the business world, it’s the most desired outcome. Costly sacrifices are made, personal lives and children’s education are at stake.

All to succeed.

Success is related to power, money, admiration. People seeking you out, asking you questions, and telling you what they want.

They say that to be successful, you have to be in the right place at the right time.

Which is difficult to plan. Success often has nothing to do with a person’s merits. This is seen daily in our society.

I’d even go so far as to say that relatively often someone’s success is the product of a prior injustice. Or of being unfit for what they’re doing, and being relocated to another, perhaps more relevant, but less important position so they don’t bother anyone.

Socially successful people who, when they speak in person, appear to lack education and weight. People with poor judgment. They lack a balanced personal life.

Personally, I prefer prestige. This depends on knowledge and consistency, and is linked to a positive influence on the people around the prestigious person.

When people talk to me about someone successful, I try to find out if they also have prestige. If not, the success we’ve been talking about is hollow, empty.

If it’s accompanied by prestige, in addition to knowledge and consistency, there has been effort, work, concern for people and the environment, and a personal set of values.

How many people, as I said above, risk their personal lives for a professional success they won’t achieve and eventually realize it wasn’t worth it.

I often think that the smart person is the one who realizes early what the decisions they are going to make entail; realizing it later is wasting their life and exposing themselves to not being loved.

The success that comes with prestige is worth it. It’s appreciated by others when you leave. You’re missed. It’s a sign that you were useful to others.

Let us not forget that others are our family, our children.

Professionally, people are loved for what they’re worth or can be worth. In the family, for who you are.

We must strive for success, but without failing in the fundamentals. Otherwise, success, if achieved at all, will be a lifelong failure.

Anything else is just missing the mark.