What Makes A Successful Book Circle?

I kicked off a new book circle today with a group of leaders, and when I turned the questions back to me, one person asked:

"What will success be for you at the end of this?"

I said something along the lines of: "90% of you are still here and want to come back each session." I went on to talk about the fact that engagement was most important to me, and that each of the participants would get something different from the book and the experience, so it was challenging for me to give concrete "success metrics."

In reflecting on that response, though, I want a do-over.

I think in our world, we define so much of our success on a final number, a final objective, a final skill-set achieved.

Yet, those are often based on too many external factors, many of which are out of our control.

I am not saying that those metrics don't matter, because they can, but I think that they can't be the only measure of success.

When my mom was bed-ridden earlier this year, she would lie in bed and look down the hall at the wedding photos of all of us 5 kids.

She called it her "Wall of Fame."

If you look at some of the metrics of my parent's parenting, you'll see things like:

• 5 healthy children
• 13 healthy grandchildren
• No divorce (rare in this day and age)
• No mental health issues
• No debilitating addictions
• Etc...

So does that mean that my parents were "successful" parents? If one of the 5 of us had gotten a divorce, does that mean that they were any less successful?

Can one really measure success based on other people's choices?

When I was coaching full-time, I would often have clients come to me for one issue, but then through our work together, end up resolving a completely different challenge that they didn't even know was there.

Yet the coaching was still successful.

All of this rambling leads me to this thought:

👉 Success is in the eye of the beholder, and it reveals itself through the process, not beforehand.

Do you agree? Share your thoughts ⬇️ below...

Originally posted on LinkedIn with comments.

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