Highlighted across the home page of a website reads: “I’ll Show You How I Make Over $100,000 a month on-line”. The photo below that caption is a person driving a super duper sports car. Ahh…success. Something inside of me did a little twist as I read this. Surprisingly, the twist was not to see myself driving such a fancy vehicle. It was a twist about cows. Yes cows. I’d recently read about an organization with a program called Cows For Kenya. From the moment I finished reading the article I was changed. I was on a mission to help fight poverty in Kenya by buying cow for a family there. I could buy a lot of cows with $100,000 a month.

We all define success in different ways. For some, it’s the ability to drive a hot new sports car, for others it’s being able to live in any community or afford a large home. It’s important to know what success is to you. Is it money? Is it status? Is it having peace of mind at the end of the day? The problem with defining success is we have been programmed to identify success in a certain way. Success looks like Donald Trump, Oprah, Google or Mercedes Benz. Many go after this model of success with disappointing results at the end. Perhaps your goal is to drive the best luxury car available. You get it and after the new car smell wears off the empty feeling takes over. Or instead of being yourself you try really hard to be someone else. The best thing about Trump, Oprah, Google and even Benz is that these are stories of people being themselves. That is the secret of success. Russell Simmons’s new book Do You is based on this very fact. Doing YOU is success. If you love flowers then do flowers. If you love all things culinary then cook. If making art makes you sing then do art.

If you want to know what success looks like to you, you have to be willing to look at yourself. The real you and see what’s there. What do you really, really love? I really, really love the idea that $300.00 can buy a cow for a family in Kenya. For me success also means being able to help the local library raise funds for books and literacy programs; and to create Mosaic Collage artwork that makes people smile. It took me a while to understand how I define success. I had to wade through many, things and have had many experiences along to the way to enlightenment. I’ve had my share of great spa treatments and things that sparkle. But at the end of it all it has come down to cows, love and sharing what I have to make this world a better place for others. Oh and lots of joy and laughter.

It does not matter what your picture of success it. What matters is that your success makes you feel alive and fulfilled. If it's the sports car that’s great, if it’s having money to send your kids to college that’s great.

When you know what success looks like, you’ll be able to chart a course to get you there.