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Raymond Wang Professor Meaghan Rand ENGL 1103 29 October 2013

What is the definition of the word success?

Success is a vague word, it can have many meanings depending on who and when its used. There are many factors that can change what success might mean, let it be fame, social status, etc. People say that success is their happiness in life and as long as they have friends or family, they already have success while others claim that success is money and if theyre rich then theyre finally successful. There are many types of success in many different environment, all depending on the factors. This paper will cover all the ways success is defined by many factors. It will also cover the different types of success there is. As stated in the previous paragraph, success may be different from person to person. This paragraph will talk about how social class can affect the success of students in the classroom environment. As stated from in the following quote, Pupils from professional backgrounds are significantly more likely to enter higher education than those from unskilled backgrounds. (Dickinson), the background of a student can affect their performance in school. A student who came from a wealth family will have a greater advantage in school than one whos of a poor family. The wealthy student will most likely have previous education and theyre able to receive help from their parents or a tutor that their parent provides for them while the poor student may not have the

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money to afford a tutor and their parents are more likely too busy working to help them with school work. That will affect the students success in school because the student who receives more help will most likely perform better. This also brings to mind that the poor students might not be able to buy the textbooks, or other school material require to have a good education. For that reason, wealth and social status has a big impact on a students success in school. Being successful in a school environment is different from those of corporations and occupations, in school, to be successful, they need to do good in school and to get good grades but to obtain that success, they need to be armed with the resources that will allow them to reach that goal. If the student doesnt have the resources or the support, they wont become successful. Another factor is gender, gender can affect what a person views as success and how they view how much success they have. For men success is providing for their family, they view themselves as caregivers and to be successful, they believe that they have to be economically stable, the more goods a male provides for his familys material well-being, the more successful (that is, masculine) he is (Doyle). Success as viewed by men is wealth and social status, they want to have the economic means to sustain their families, therefore theyre focused more on their jobs and keeping the job. Theyre led to believe that having a job is more important than having time for their families. Another factor is social status, social status is important because they want to be seen as the head of the family, they want people to know that he is the head and he provides for the family. All of this ties in with the masculinity, a man who can provide a stable life for his family and protect them from hardship is viewed as more masculine than those who couldnt. In the other hand, women dont view wealth and status as

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importantly than men for success. Instead they view personal relationships and emotional status as success. They view being happy in life and having everyone around them to be happy as their most important element of being successful. More women choose that having time for family is more of a priority than men, More women than men saw having enough time for family and friends as a priority (70% of women versus 58% of men). Unlike the mens view on success, women tend to be less materialistic. In the past womens success were based on their relationships with their families, they were expected to care for their family with the money that the men provides for them. They were expected to stay home and care for the children, provide love and nurture to their families. These were the predefined roles that women were expected to fill but many things has changed since the days where women are expected to stay home. Women are now taking jobs and working much like instead of staying home and caring for the family all the time but its only viewed as an addition to what theyre expected to do. Their role to provide care for the family and to be a mom to her children are still present. For women, success leans more towards being emotional successful in their personal relationships, they define their success in life as being happy and having strong relationships with her families and friends while the men define that success is money and social standings. They believe that success means that they have a good job with a income that will sustain themselves and their families. However there are times where men can view personal relationships and family as more important than wealth and success and vice versa, most of the data comes from surveys and research.

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Businesses and corporations have their own view of success, their views of success is going to be much different from original people but with a few similarities. As stated by Michael Alter, there are five ways a business define success, profit, growing customer base, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and finally the owners own satisfaction. One of the strongest ways theyre similar to original people is that they believe that profit is a number one and that profit is very important to them. Like the men as stated in the previous paragraph, both believe that wealth and profit is very important to them and they use it to measure how successful they are. However a businesss view of profit and income is going to be much bigger than the average person of the common world. Big corporations like Google, Microsoft, etc, will see profits in the millions while the common man will only see in the thousands. The other three definition of success by businesses, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and owners satisfaction, in a way ties in with what women defined as success. They want to have good relations with their employees, and customers because without them, the business would fail without them. Having a good customer, business relationship will allow them to grow their customer base so they can expand their reach to more people, more people means there will be more customers to sell their products and services to which leads to them getting a bigger profit than if they had a small customer base. All of this ties in yet again with how business view success as making a good profit and being wealthy. So having a good customer relationship will lead to bigger profit which ties in with wealth being their most important element of success. However to achieve that big customer base, they would need employees to help them sell their products and to expand their business and stores to more areas. They need

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the employees to do their job and satisfied employees do a better job which leads to a bigger profit for the owner. This means that being successful would mean that the corporation would have to be successful in their relationships with their customers and their employees before they start making money. However the most important satisfaction that a business should be concerned about is the business owners own satisfaction but it is often overlooked because he or she is very motivated and focused on their jobs and their goals to make money that they often dont take the time to consider their own satisfaction. This brings into mind, is the owner successful if they just happy with the money that theyre making and not the business that they built from ground up? Success can be defined in so many ways, and can be affected in so many ways however they all fall into six different categories. As stated in "Six Types Of Success", the six types of success includes puritan who works hard to prove themselves, materialistic is focus on luxury and status, power (control) who wants to gain control over other people, spiritual is one who doesnt want materialistic gains but instead spiritual rewards, contributor who just wants to make the world a better place for other people, and finally escapist who thinks life is just a big adventure and chooses to have fun. In "Six Types Of Success", Midson, said Each person probably cannot fit neatly into one category, rather we will each be a blend of a few of them. That is true because no one can fit into one type, a puritan will be proving themselves by gaining control and wealth, while the spiritualist might run into escapist and contributor. There are many combinations of the six types of success that we can come up with but each one is going to be different from someone elses. Dont let others force you to believe

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what they view as success is the success that you should have because its not what you believe success is, its what they believe the definition of success is, there is no one size fits all for success. Success comes in many forms and shapes, there is never a true definition of success. Success is something that changes based on how you live your life and what type of goals you set for yourself. However success can be affected by factors in the environment that surrounds you like gender, wealth and social status. They will affect what you believe success is but its still you who chooses what success is going to be for you. What you view success to be will be different from the person next to you at the moment, it will be different from your parents, your siblings and your friends. Therefore there is no true definition of success, success is what you make it to be, it will change shapes and forms as you go with your life. Success is based on your experiences and as you live your life, what you experience will change who you are and that will change what you think success is.

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Dickinson, Sarah. "How Does Social Class Affect Educational Attainment." By Sarah Dickinson. Educationspace360., 3 Aug. 2009. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. Doyle, James A. The Male Experience. Dubuque, IA: W.C. Brown, 1983. Print. Dyke, Lorraine S., and Steven A. Murphy. "How we define success: a qualitative study of what matters most to women and men." Sex Roles 55.5-6 (2006): 357-371. "Five Ways to Measure Success in Your Business." 5 Ways to Measure Success in Your Business. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. "Six Types Of Success." NZ Health and Wealth Report. N.p., 26 Jan. 2009. Web. 28 Oct. 2013