Most people say they want success, but when you ask them what success means you get wildly different responses. We recently asked some of the best and brightest in our community to tell us about how they define success and have shared their responses below.

Cache Castelow | Nonprofit, “GoalGetIt | Vision Workshops” Vision Board Coach

Everyone defines success differently right? For myself, I define success as being present in your accomplishments. Understanding there’s life outside of just being, “content”. I like to look back to see how far I’ve come in my professional, personal and private life, the overshadow of goals I’ve reached and how often am I feeding my mind, body, spirit and soul. I also define success as learning the essence of a, “balance-lifestyle” while also striving for the next. In one scale, I can define success by completing all my weekly goals at the end of the week and on another scale I can find success by successfully conquering my weekly routine. I’ve always liked the idea of being utterly successful. I got my first job at 14 years old, and from there I just loved the idea of moving up in the corporate ladder. Granted, I still do, after all, collectively most of us seek to make more money, have a career we love, and make a change in this world. Read more>>

Allie Giambalvo | Artist & Wildlife Biologist

Success is defined differently by each individual. To me, success is manifesting a thought or an idea into a finished product created layer by layer. It is having an idea of what I want to put onto a canvas and not getting discouraged if it isn’t how I’ve imagined it in my mind. Success is not giving up when things get difficult, and painting through the awkward stages. It’s in learning to appreciate each part of the process equally, from selecting new supplies to cleaning my pallet and brushes. Each day I devote time to a piece I am working on and watch the colors evolve into something different. I find beauty and wonder in the process. One of the keys to personal artistic success is to find subjects for your art that come from what makes you happy and what is important in your life. For me, these subjects range from botany and nature to friends, music, and memories. Read more>>

Kody Kohlman | Filmmaker and Photographer

Success is a really hard one to measure for me. I think in America, it’s often correlated with your financial well being and productivity, but I’ve been trying hard to restructure that in my own life. As a kid and even in to my early to mid twenties, money was the last thing on my mind. I was focused solely on doing the things that I loved and figured out the money aspect after. As an adult, I’ve noticed it harder and harder for me to stay in that mindset. Responsibilities come and additional pressure is self-imposed, but at the end of the day, success is still what you make it. Working to get back to success being a life well lived over monetary gain isn’t an easy task, but one I am finding to be very worthwhile. I’ve realized that the more I stress over financials, the lower my happiness is. I think the reason this is often used as a measure of success is because we can analyze it directly by the numbers. Read more>>