Sustaining Success

One of the biggest challenges any team, organization, or individual can face is a great deal of success.  Though it seems strange, success is a huge test.  This is proven time and time again in our society.  Think about a young movie star or musician who seems to be doing fine until he or she really hits it big and then they seem to go off the deep end, or a company whose stock explodes only to be found struggling to keep their doors open a few years later, or look at the frequency of the winning Super bowl team failing to make even the playoffs the following year.  Why does this happen?   Why is it so hard to remain on top? 

Throughout my career, I have seen this cycle repeatedly happen as well at different levels.  Teams that achieve amazing results quickly dissolve or individuals who zoom up the “corporate ladder” somehow completely fall off of it.  In thinking about these situations I’ve asked myself, what is going on? 

I’ve come to the conclusion that the biggest reason for the eventual failure of the super successful boils down to a lack of humility.  Before they “arrive”, the team, organization, or individual seem to possess at least some sense of humility which fuels a self-sacrificing mentally that pushes them to be willingly to do whatever it takes to get to the top regardless of how simple, mundane, challenging, embarrassing, hard, demeaning, annoying, and undesirable it is.  Unfortunately, once they hit it big, things begin to change and it seems most lose the humility they once had.  They seem to completely lose an appreciation for their success and they fail to value or even recognize what got them there in the first place.  Humility is replaced with ego, and a self-sacrificing mentality with an entitlement mentality.  With this change in mindset it becomes easy to feel underappreciated.  Soon people begin looking out for only their own self-interest and individuals who once got along and functioned so well together begin to seek more and more credit for the success.  Rather than continuing to work hard a feeling of being owed the right to stay on top permeates.  All of this builds up and the absence of humility leads to the eventual collapse of the highly successful. 

So what can we learn from this?  We must learn that success will present unique and difficult challenges in our lives.  Therefore, when success comes knocking on our door we must remain true to what got us there and guard against the ego and entitlement mentality so many fall victim to.  We must keep our feelings and emotions in check and remain humble and grateful for our opportunities and blessings.  In order to remain on top, we must value the humility and sacrifice it took to get us there.  Handling success well can be done and building on the success we’ve achieved by remaining humble will be gratifying.  Merry Christmas!