How Do You Spell Success?
Rebecca Coates Nee

A great live shot? A top 20 anchor job? A six-figure salary? An entry level job in TV? A happy family? The freedom to go on a month-long vacation?

Success means different things to each of us. Even the dictionaries give varying definitions:
success (n) The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted .
The gaining of fame or prosperity. (American Heritage Dictionary)

success (n) That which comes after; hence, consequence, issue, or result, of an endeavor or undertaking, whether good or bad; the outcome of effort. (Webster's)

When I ask my clients what success ultimately would look like to them, most are stumped by the question. They know what success might mean a year from now, but not five or ten years after that.

Most of us compartmentalize success. We believe we're successful if we gain fame or prosperity, even if it means having the personal life of Bridget Jones. We take great pains to map out our strategy for professional success while leaving our relationships up to fate. We put success in terms of dollar signs but not in the quality of our entire life.

A popular definition of success at Coach University goes for a more comprehensive approach: Success is having an extra supply, or reserve, of time, energy, love, money and space.

Imagine if you had more money than you needed AND more of all the above - time, energy, love and space. You'd have great relationships, good health and freedom to move at a pace that you choose.

How many of you can even picture that type of success? The best-selling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki, says most people aren't successful because they fall into one of life's biggest traps: "They work very hard, for little money, clinging to the illusion of job security, looking forward to a three-week vacation each year and a skimpy pension after forty-five years of work."

The rich, writes Kiyosaki, don't work for money - they have money work for them. They do this not by working for others, but by working for themselves. Kiyosaki believes the only true assets we have are not our paychecks but interest and dividends on well-invested money and royalties on intellectual property.

Most broadcasters are financial illiterates. I'm not sure why, maybe it's because we didn't go into the business for the money. But even if you do manage to pull in a good salary for a few years, you need to understand how temporary that paycheck is.

Most of us spend what we earn and then are left with nothing but debt so we're forced to keep earning and earning even more. Kiyosaki says to be truly rich, we should work to learn and then be able to sell what we've learned in the marketplace.

We don't even need a high income to be rich, he writes. "Money comes and goes, but if you have the education about how money works, you gain power over it and can begin building wealth."

Take some time to learn about money and then put together your own definition of success - for ALL the areas of your life. For more information on Kiyosaki's books, go to www.richdad.com.