What is success?

Last week I had the opportunity to talk to a couple of great groups, big in size, yes, but greater in their interest and passion for what they do.

First, on Tuesday, I was in Guadalajara speaking about on-line marketing to a group of marketing communications professionals from the Agency Vértice Comunicación. Thank you very much for inviting me, for all your excellent (and in some cases difficult to answer) questions and thank you for your passion for on-line marketing. It will be an honor to collaborate with you in the future.

Then, on Wednesday, I was invited to share my thoughts about what Professional Success is for me, with students from the Communication School at Universidad Anáhuac del Norte.

And I would like to share with you a little of what I talked about with these future leaders on what I think is a real signal to know that you are on the right track to success:

Through out any professional career there are different stepping stones we escalate and that represent important achievements for us like getting promoted and getting more responsibilities, reaching for better positions and richer titles and of course generating a larger income.
Also the fact of working for an specific company, specially if it belongs to the privileged circle of the most important global companies is a considerable achievement in itself. The same goes for when some of these firms happen to be your clients (on advertising, consultancy, coaching, human resources, finance o whatever your discipline of specialization may be).
Another huge achievement can be being awarded with some recognition in your industry or the fact of belonging to some organizations as an active member, a temporary collaborator or a special guest.
But as I said to my new friends in U.A. I’m sure that even though these are all huge and very important achievements, real success is not necessarily in them.

For me at least, achieving success is finding your passion, your calling, your mission in life and doing it. Discovering that special activity that really moves you from inside your heart and working on it by taking this passion with you everywhere you go and imprinting it on everything that you do, letting this “calling of life” help you collaborate with others, touching somebody else’s life and letting them touch yours.
In the words of Paulo Coelho: “Discovering and living your personal legend”.

In my case for instance, living my personal legend means connecting with people, establishing and cultivating great relationships by sharing what I’ve learned and what I think and by listening and learning from what others have to say and promoting an environment of collaboration and synergy.

What does this mean exactly? Well, that I don’t necessarily have to work on a specific profession, like teaching, to develop my strengths (although that would be very cool), but that I can (or should really) imprint my calling in everything I do as an advertising and communication professional.

I think Howard Behar – President of Starbucks International – said it best when he wrote in his new book It’s not about the coffee: “If you choose a job just for the title that just might be all you get out of it. If you follow your passion and greater purpose the rewards will be much more meaningful, and you’ll make a bigger impact”.

Excellent words, don’t you think so?

Well, this week I will be speaking about how brands should communicate with the Mexican consumers to the Marketing and advertising students of the Tecnológico de Monterrey at their Monterrey City Campus, in their conference “Addicted to advertising."

And I cannot wait! See you on Thursday!