At the International Young Communications Entrepreneur’s forum in London, earlier this year, I was asked a simple question by Sir Chris Powell (the founder of DDB London & Worldwide), “How will you know when you’re successful?”

The question had me stumped. I gold-fished my way through the answer but the question stayed with me.

“How does one know when one is successful?”

100 more clients? 20 offices? Global product? Networks? million followers on twitter? A boat? private planes? Two divorces and three alimonies?

What?

How was I to know when I was successful? Would there be a sign or waving flags at the finish line? An invisible red tape that I could chest proudly? The problem is an enterprise is not a 100 metre run, it’s not even a marathon, more often than not its an entrepreneur’s lifetime. It’s a long enough time to get lost chasing short term goals and lose sight of the ‘big picture’.

The question had me thinking and prompted me to take another look at what we were doing and where we were headed.

To imagine ‘success’. What it would look, taste, smell, feel like!

The answer came to me as i prepared a case-study presentation for the National Entrepreneurship Network. I went through the entire story of how Phonethics was set-up, how our office got sealed off in Delhi, how folks did good and bad by us and how we went from a -40L to a 2Cr+ set-up in 15 months. It struck me that the journey is the reward! The very attempt to strike out, to do something different, challenge the status quo, create is an extremely powerful emotion! (the money helps and frankly there’s more of it chasing you when you no longer chase it)

I’m proud of this journey and of our goals, thankful to my co-travellers and the entire eco-system and determined to never confuse ’success’ with ‘intent”