But is there a system for success, you ask? My answer is, “yes, of course…there are thousands of them.” Your local library is full of self-help books that speak about success systems. Indeed, Amazon notes over 70,000 books that touch on the word. Billions of dollars are spent…invested…every year on the subject.

But before you embark on your journey, you must first define what YOU consider success to be?” Success for one individual may not be even considered such by another. Each of us needs to have our own definition. Is success educational achievement? Raising a family? Having money to burn? Living in prime real estate? Putting food on the table? Being in control of your calendar? Each of us should have our own definition.

Regardless of your specific definition of success, there is a mind-set that is mission critical to your journey. You see, it is the very, very rare person that sets out to achieve a goal and hits the proverbial homerun on their first “at bat.” Yes, our news media aggrandizes those unique individuals, the one in a million who achieve notable success, seemingly without super-human effort. The lucky. The chosen. These individuals are as rare as hen’s teeth. Consider….Walt Disney…who went bankrupt in 1923 on his way to starting what has become a $20 billion dollar enterprise. Or Serena and Venus Williams who fought the challenges of poverty, racism and environment in Compton, California to record over 30 grand-slam wins. Or Jim Carrey, who spent time homeless before he became a successful comedienne and actor. Indeed, ask anyone whom you perceive to be successful, and they’ll share their real story.

As a student of the subject, by observation, there appear two fundamental strategies to success. Apply these and your chances of coming up a winner increase exponentially.

The first is the strategy of continuous improvement. In everything you do. Whether you sell pencils on the street corner or lead a ten-million-dollar optometry practice, continuous improvement is your lifeblood. Your current product is just that…it’s what you sell. It’s generic. It’s the tangible thing. The next level of product development is to understand what’s expected. What benefits and features of your product are expected by your consumers? In order to stay in business, you certainly have to deliver the expected. But how do you take it up a notch? You do so by delivering the unexpected…that which is memorable? The waiter who brought you a free dessert to try out. The gas station owner who washed your car window while you pumped the gas.

The optometrist who gave each patient a carnation on their way out the door. Those individuals, consciously or unconsciously, developed augmentations to their product that deliver an unexpected value. Finally, what’s possible? What could you add to your product/service experience that could become an augmentation? What would deliver the unexpected and separate you from the pack?

So, the simple formula is to dream of potential products/services. Distill down the ideas to implement an augmentation. Over time these will end up as expected…and then they’ll evolve to become generic. Look backwards at your practice’ development and you’ll identify the pattern.

The second strategy can be easily summed up in the words of Calvin Coolidge. “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Continuous Improvement and Persistence. Regardless of your goals, it’s these two strategies that will nurture your success. You can’t have one without the other and you can’t be successful without both.

Are you finding yourself struggling? Are you tired and weary? Are you feeling challenged to figure out “what’s next?” At Cleinman Performance Partners, our mission to help our clients both recognize and realize all their possibilities. We can help you as we have hundreds of optometrist owners. To start, invest a few minutes in a no-obligation chat about where you are and where you’d like to be. Call us today.