Ask 100 people for a definition of success, and chances are, you’ll get 100 different answers. Many will be variations on similar themes. wealth and its trappings define success for some. A high-ranking position in their career field signal success for others. Some will mention their large families including many grandchildren. Others will describe houses on the beach, in the mountains or atop Fifth Avenue buildings in New York City. A few might relay stories of fulfillment through volunteer work or giving to charity.

Baby Boomers Vs Generation X and Y

Each generation defines itself by its definition of success. For men and women that grew up during the Great Depression and then survived World War II, starting a family, keeping house and maintaining relationships with friends and neighbors were the ultimate goals. Societal norms of decorum and privacy influenced their children, who grew up during the 1970s when free love became the new standard of success. Breaking the bonds of societal norms meant that you had “made it.” The 1980s and 1990s were marked by excess in everything. Boomers and their children defined success in the most materialistic of ways. Big houses, fancy cars, big hair, and flashy jewelry were the new status symbols. Everyone worked hard and played even harder. With the turn of the last century, many have begun to reflect on the true nature of success.

Dropping Out and Heading Up

Today, amidst over-packed schedules, SAT score obsessing parents, and badge-of-honor college acceptance letters, some are pausing to reflect on what they truly want out of life and how to get it. Rather than staying on the part hamster wheel, part Stairmaster of the corporate ladder, many are re-assessing, re-organizing and dropping out of the median flow. They are forging their own paths. To these people, success is a state of mind, and to achieve it, one must know where one is going. They know they have achieved success when they realize self-actualization, the highest state of being on Maslows’s Hierarchy of Needs. At this state, one experiences creativity, morality, acceptance, spontaneity, and being all that one can be.

The following are stories of success in this vein. They are stories of real people who overcame odds, re-arranged their lives, and headed in the direction that made the most sense to them, internally, and beyond the reach of the judgments of others.

The World’s Oldest First Grader

Alferd Williams, 70, was featured recently in People Magazine and had a trip to the Oprah Winfrey Show. What is Alferd’s claim to fame? He is one of the world’s oldest first graders. He grew up as the son of sharecroppers in Tennessee. Needing “all hands on deck” to grow and harvest cotton, Alferd never learned to read. While caring for a neighbor’s children, walking them back and forth to school in 2006, he happened upon schoolteacher Alesia Hamilton. She discovered that he could not read and asked him if he would like help from a local literacy agency. He wanted to learn from her, and together they arranged for that to happen. Alferd has served as a volunteer in Hamilton’s first grade class since 2007, helping and learning along with the children. During several interviews over the past few months, Williams has described an entire new world opening up to him since learning to read. He enjoys going to the grocery store and selecting his own food, knowing that he will like what he chooses, or at least knows what it is.

Alferd is not a corporate CEO. Nor will he cure cancer. But he has found success. He has started to achieve something that he always wanted to achieve, and has inspired others. One foot in front of the other, one word at a time, he has achieved success.

Three Cups of Tea

Greg Mortenson did not begin his life with the goal to change the lives of thousands of women in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He began his life in Minnesota. The son of missionaries, he grew up on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, served in the military and attended the University of South Dakota. In 1993, spurred by the untimely death of his sister, Mortenson embarked on a climb of Pakistan’s K2 mountain, the second highest mountain in the world. He did not make it to the top, experiencing bitter defeat for what was supposed to be a climb in tribute for his sister. He left his group during the descent and ended up, ill, in a small village of Pakistan. The villagers nursed him back to health. While there, he discovered that the children of the village had no school, books or teachers. He left, promising to return and build a school.

Upon returning to the United States, Mortenson began his fundraising quest. Nobody took him seriously until school children from Wisconsin donated $623 in pennies to his cause. He sold everything he had, raising only $2,000, and went back to Pakistan to begin his project. Mortenson has succeeded where almost every other American has been unable to. In the areas of the world where Americans are feared and hated, he has built over 50 schools that teach 24,000 students a year. He began his life wandering around. He discovered a purpose and followed it against every obstacle thrown in his path. He has achieved success. Not because his book about his experiences Three Cups of Tea is an international best seller. He has achieved success because he felt conviction to help a cause, inspired others to join him and has elevated the lives of thousands of people.

Worlds Apart, yet United in Vision

Alferd Williams and Greg Mortenson could not be more different, yet they each have achieved a level of success that most would only dream of. Each happened upon a life-changing opportunity, embraced it, became it and ran with it. Each has made a difference in their own life and has touched the life of others. Neither is on the Fortune 500 list and neither lives in a penthouse on Fifth Avenue, but each has achieved a level of success that permeates every level of being and extends to the world beyond.

You Define Your Own Success

Today success is the act of forging your own path, discovering the world, and finding meaning in unique, personal endeavors. Success is not necessarily achievement of a pre-ordained, planned path of success. Greatness can be found by stepping off the beaten path and choosing your own way. Success for an individual is as they define it, and nothing else.