Last week, I held my Seize the Day event in Liverpool and, as part of the evening, we asked everyone in the room to make a commitment to themselves.

We gave each person a postcard and asked them to write down something they were going to do. It could be something they wanted to change, something they had been putting off, or simply a promise they wanted to make to themselves. We collected the postcards at the end of the night and, in a few weeks, we’ll post them back. By then, the buzz of the event will have worn off, everyone will have gone back to normal life, and hopefully that postcard landing on the doormat will remind them of what they promised themselves that evening.

As I was looking through them afterwards, one caught my attention. There was no name on it, so I have absolutely no idea who wrote it, but the commitment was just four words:

“Become a better person.”

It was probably one of the simplest commitments we received, but it was also the one that made me think the most.

What Does It Mean to Be a Better Person?

The truth is, I have no idea what the person who wrote that postcard meant by it, and I don’t want to guess.

They might have had something very specific in mind, or it might have been a much broader feeling that they could do better in certain areas of their life. Whatever was behind it belongs to them.

What interested me was the question it raised: what does becoming a better person actually mean?

We’re very good at setting goals that can be measured. We want to grow a business to a certain turnover, lose a certain amount of weight, buy a particular house, earn more money or reach the next stage in our career. There’s a number, a target, or a moment when we can say, “I did it” (until we inevitably change our goalposts!).

Becoming a better person is much harder to measure, but I’d argue that it matters far more than most of the things we spend our lives chasing.

I’m ambitious and always have been. I believe in setting goals, working hard and wanting more from life, and I certainly don’t think there is anything wrong with financial success. But the older I get, the more I think success should also make us ask what sort of person we are becoming along the way.

There isn’t much point in building a successful business if everybody who works with you thinks you’re a nightmare. There’s not much value in having all the money in the world if the people closest to you never get your time. You can be incredibly knowledgeable, but if you’re unwilling to share any of that knowledge with somebody who could benefit from it, what are you really doing with it?

Success and personal growth aren't necessarily the same thing.

Sometimes It’s the Small Things

When we hear the words “become a better person”, it’s easy to make them sound grander than they need to be. I don’t think it requires some enormous transformation of character.

For me, much of it comes down to the small decisions we make when nobody is keeping score.

Do you do what you said you'd do? Do you admit it when you’ve got something wrong rather than looking for somebody else to blame? Do you give people your attention when they’re speaking to you? Are you useful to people without immediately wondering what you might get back in return?

It can also mean looking after yourself properly, because I've learned that you are not much use to anybody else if you continually neglect your own health and wellbeing. It can mean being more patient, listening more, learning something new, making the phone call you've been putting off or simply making more time for the people who matter.

A Different Way of Measuring Progress

We naturally compare ourselves with other people, particularly now that we have a window into everybody else’s lives through social media. We see somebody else’s business growing, their new house, their holiday, their promotion or whatever else they have chosen to share, and it becomes very easy to use somebody else's life as a comparison to our own. We’re all guilty of wanting to keep up with the Joneses.

I’m not convinced that’s a particularly useful way to measure progress. A much better question might be whether you are becoming a better version of yourself.

Think about the person you were five or ten years ago. Hopefully you know more now, but have you also become more patient? Are you better at listening? Do you handle setbacks differently? Have you become more generous with your time or knowledge? Are you better at admitting when you're wrong? Do the people around you get a better version of you today than they did back then?

Those are difficult questions because there’s nowhere to hide in the answers.

People who have taken part in my mentorship sessions will know how much I admire Jocko Willink, and I talk a lot about taking ownership, and I think this is part of it. Taking ownership isn’t just about your business or your circumstances; it also means accepting responsibility for the person you are becoming.

You Never Finish

One of the principles I believe strongly in is constant growth. No matter how much experience you have or how successful you become, there should always be something left to learn.

I think the same applies to becoming a better person. There isn't a finish line where you suddenly decide you've cracked it and can stop trying. Life will keep presenting you with situations that test your patience, judgement, generosity and character, and sometimes you'll handle them well and sometimes you won't.

The important thing is whether you're prepared to reflect on those moments and learn from them.

Some of the biggest lessons in my own life have come from getting things wrong. Experience is useful, but only if you're prepared to be honest about what that experience is trying to teach you. If you make the same mistake repeatedly and always find somebody else to blame for it, you're not really growing.

That’s why those four words on the postcard stayed with me.

Who do I want to become?

The answer won't fit neatly into a spreadsheet, and you probably won't be able to put a deadline against it, but it might just be one of the most important commitments you ever make to yourself.

Could Mentorship Help?

Sometimes we know exactly what we want to change, but we don't know how to get from where we are now to where we want to be. Other times, what we really need is somebody with experience to ask the right questions, challenge our thinking and help us see the things we might not be able to see for ourselves.

That is one of the reasons we've created the MSO Foundation CIC.

Through the Foundation, I will be offering free mentorship to people who could genuinely benefit from my experience. There is no course to buy at the end of it and no expectation that somebody needs to arrive with a perfectly formed business plan or a list of impressive achievements. It's about identifying people with business minds who have potential and ambition, and giving them access to guidance that might help them take the next step.

Perhaps that's you. Or perhaps, as you've been reading this, somebody else has come to mind.

If you know someone who would benefit from mentorship, particularly somebody who might never put themselves forward, I'd encourage you to recommend them to the MSO Foundation. Tell us who they are, why you think mentorship could make a difference to them and what you see in them that perhaps they don't yet see in themselves.

And if it is you, don't wait; get in touch today.