DECIDE UPON YOUR TRUE DREAMS The Measure Of Success.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)(IBD'S 10 SECRETS TO SUCCESS)

Byline: Robin Grugal

2 Most people define success as achieving some level of excellence -- doing something very well that others can't, and being rewarded for it.

"This works for a while," said Jim Warner, author of "Aspirations of Greatness." "But absent a service/giveback component and (strong interpersonal connections), this often leads to lost passion, flatness, been-there-done-that or boredom."

Warner knows firsthand. By age 37, he'd built a profitable, $20 million-a-year software company with 200 employees. But he suffered burnout and sold it in 1992. He's seen the story repeated time and again while counseling some 500 other business leaders, most of them members of the Young Presidents' Organization.

He surveyed 200 chief executives, asking them to identify issues in their lives that needed addressing. Some 42% revealed that their "life had become a treadmill," 33% admitted to having a "flat, listless marriage," 31% said they had "no life significance or fulfillment" and 28% said their problem was "choosing work over family."

Their goals had left them empty, overworked and asking, "Is this all there is?"

"True fulfillment comes from intimate relationships, not wealth and belongings," Warner says. "True goals in life should be about fulfillment, passion, peace and connection." He offers this goal-setting food for thought: