The New York Times’ “Success” section brings together a wide range of articles that focus on how people define success. These articles cover everything from how to achieve financial security to how to succeed as an entrepreneur. The success news in this section is meant to inspire, ignite curiosity, and spark conversations. The goal of a successful article is to make us think differently about our own definition of success and how to achieve it.
One of the best quotes on success comes from Sara Blakely, the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. She says “if you aren’t willing to fail, you aren’t trying.” This relates to the idea that you have to be fully engaged in what you do for maximum success. If you love it, you will probably be able to push through obstacles that would otherwise derail you.
In his work with colleagues, Dashun Wang has also found that success often comes down to learning from failure, rather than just innate ability. The most successful scientists he has observed are those who learn from setbacks and use the lessons to improve on their previous attempts. For example, they might recognize which parts of a failed invention actually worked and keep those. Or they might understand which sections of a rejected application to keep and which to rewrite.
Another important metric of success is loyalty. For a business, this can be measured in many ways, including the number of repeat customers or the average time spent on the website. The goal of any business is to create a long-term relationship with their customers, and this can be achieved by providing quality content, offering discounts on products, and by analyzing user data.
Success Academy, the nation’s largest charter school network, is considering opening schools outside of New York City. This is a significant change in strategy for the organization, which has only operated schools in NYC since its founding. Its decision is a nod to research that shows 97% of young adults who follow the “success sequence”—graduating high school, finding full-time employment and getting married before having children—don’t experience poverty in adulthood.