Seek to Deserve Success
Results-driven leaders are often consumed with achieving lasting personal success. The ultimate prize is to reach the lofty goal of financial independence and the ability to make an impact through meaningful work.
However, the fixation on the outcome and not the process can prevent leaders from reaching their highest potential. They end up making choices focused more on the prize than on what it takes to be worthy of the prize.
Perhaps, a healthier way of thinking about success is to concentrate on the journey rather than on the destination. Instead of pursuing success, the best among us seek to lead and live in a manner deserving of success. When we lead in a way that deserves success, we often find others will clear the pathway for us toward rich and rewarding outcomes. Seek to deserve success. The outcomes will take care of themselves.
The word "deserve" is interesting. Since there is no universally accepted standard for what precise actions / mindsets / motives / thoughts etc, make a person "deserving" of which specific outcomes, we are left (and many of us happily accept the situation) in the seat of judgment ourselves to decide who is deserving of what. (even if it is ourselves we judge). Perhaps the concept you were looking for here is more along the lines of "focus on the actions that most typically bring about the desired results". Too nitpicky? Perhaps! But if the entire world stopped judging "who" was deserving of "what" & just set out to meet the needs of others while having our own needs met as well, we might do better. I originally heard this idea from Marshall Rosenberg. The more I think on it, the more it resonates for me.