And we think we know just what it means: money, status, fame, and power.

But take a look in the dictionary and things start to look, thankfully, a lot more complicated.

Because success is, in truth, rather more neutral and less value-laden than we tend to assume.

It just means doing anything well, excelling at something, and that might encompass a lot of different activities.

Running 100 meters, for sure, selling your app for a lot of money, okay.

But also stranger, less-heralded things like listening a lot, very attentively, to a child,

or being extremely kind to strangers, or filling your mind with interesting ideas and associations,

or knowing just when to put an arm around someone when it's too much for them.

People who triumph here are also big success stories.

No one can be successful at everything, whatever they tell us, it's almost impossible to succeed with a career and with a family,

or with popularity and integrity, there are always sacrifices.

It's great to be successful.

It's even better to make sure you followed your own distinctive and, not necessarily, always obvious path to the success that can truly fulfill you.