Our youngest son graduated from High School this week. His graduation is symbolic of a new start on his journey to adulthood. For my husband and I, it also marks a new beginning. For the first time in 21 years, we will no longer have children around our home.

The world has changed significantly over the past 21 years. However, one thing has remained the same. Every generation wants the next one to succeed! But what does success look like, how does someone obtain it and how will we measure it?

Is success based solely on money? Or, is success measured as having a great career? Our health? A wonderful family and friends? Living a life filled with integrity?

Maybe it’s a combination of all the above mixed with the twist and turns life throws our way. The falls, scrapes and failures that help us reflect, take a step back and maybe even teach us to start over.

So, what is the ultimate rule of success? Learn to embrace change. This is a lesson many businesses and individuals have learned the hard way in the last few years.

“You know that uncertainty you feel today? It never goes away. The question is, do you know how to make uncertainty your friend?” That’s what David Brooks, a New York Times Op-Ed columnist, told graduates at the Wake Forest University commencement address in 2007.

Regardless of your situation in life or business, you must learn to face the continual evolution of equipment, technology, information, people and policy changes. The minute you stop learning to adapt and change, you will fall behind!

In the last 21 years or so my husband and I have learned that life here on Earth moves too quickly. How we live, adapt and grow are what really matter. Go run your life and business embracing change with the thought that inevitably it will lead to something good. Something even better!

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