Success to significance

- One of the things that drives people to be self-serving is that they think that their self-worth is a function of how much money they make, the recognition they get for their efforts, and their power and status. Let me tell you, there's nothing wrong with making good money. There's nothing wrong with getting recognized for your efforts. There's nothing wrong with that power and status. But if that's who you think you are and your self-worth is tied up there, the only way you can maintain your self-worth is to get more of those. That's why you get people, even when they lay off thousands of people, they want a big bonus and all that, because it's all about them and they need to accumulate more money and all. And to me, that's about success, and they miss significance because the opposite of making money is generosity, the opposite of recognition is service, and the opposite of power and statuses is loving relationships. And a powerful story about that is, we lost our house in a fire in 2007. And I had just finished a book by John Ortberg on Thursday, and I leave a morning message for everybody every day, and the title of the book was "At the End of the Game It All Goes Back in the Box" and this has a really lot of things to say about the difference between these two. And his grandmother was an incredible Monopoly player when he was young. And at the end of the game, she'd have everything. She had Broadway, she'd have Park Place, he had nothing. And she would get this grin on her face. And she'd say, "John, someday you're going to learn "how to play the game." And one summer, when he was about 13, this kid moved next door who was an incredible Monopoly player. And he practiced with this kid every single day 'cause he knew his grandmother was coming in September. And when Grandma came, he ran in the house, gave her a hug and a kiss and said, "Grandma, how about a Monopoly game?" And her face lit up. She said, "Let's go, John." But he was ready for her this time. And he came out of the shoot and he wiped his grandmother out. He said it was the greatest day of his life. And his grandmother said, "You know, John, "now you know how to play the game. "Let me teach you a lesson about life. "It all goes back in the box." He said, "What do you mean?" "Everything you bought, every thing you accumulated and all. "And if your life is all about how much money you make, "and your recognition your power, baby, when you die, "it all goes back in the box." How many people want on their tombstone their net worth, you know? They don't want that. They want to know something where they've made a difference and that's what about significance. And she said, "The only thing you're going to save, John, "at the end of life is your soul, and that's where you store "who you love and who loves you." If you focus on success, who you are, you're never going to reach significance.