Success is a relative term for the ongoing process of self-actualization. By this definition, then, one can only be personally successful by degree, and most people who are "successful" need to be further challenged to attain "another success," even when the need for money, power, or prestige may no longer be present. The intrinsic, self-actualizing property of success calls for more success, long after the more tangible rewards for success are irrelevant.
In addition to perceiving success as an ongoing process, motivational writers such as Norman Vincent Peale, and more recently, Michael Korda and John T. Molloy, have emphasized the importance of self-confidence in one's abilities as being a key feature of success. Such confidence is the result of faith and positive thinking, according to Peale, while Korda and Molloy downplay faith (at least in Peale's Biblical sense) and instead celebrate the "me" factor in success. For example, Korda and Molloy both disassociate morality from success, and substitute instead a philosophy which celebrates the end result of personal success ("me-centered") with less regard as to how it was achieved.
All three motivational writers, however, emphasize the relative nature of success. Peale writes, "Do not be awestruck by other people and try to copy them. Nobody can be you as efficiently as YOU can" (16), thus downplaying unrealistic comparisons with those who may achieve more than you. In his chapter on success and failure as opposite sides of the same coin, John T. Molloy states, "a success is a person who has achieved his goals in life" (5). Michael Korda offers that a definition of success is difficult, but that "success is relative; not everybody wants to put together a four-billion dollar conglomerate, or become President of the United States, or win the Nobel Peace Prize" (4-5). He goes on to advise success seekers to first aim at modest realistic goals before tackling the Presid...