Ask the next person you meet one question: what is your goal? What are you working towards? Listen to what they say first, unprompted, because the order is the tell: whether they speak to success or significance first shows you which road they are walking. Jess learned this from a new friend who led with serving other mothers instead of her podcast or her keynotes. This tool runs the test the way the episode teaches it: paste what they said, count the pronouns, note the other three signals, and get a read on which road they are walking. Run it on the next three new people you meet.
Who did you meet?
What did they say?
Paste or type their answer to "What is your goal?" Word for word if you can. The counter listens for pronouns the way the episode teaches: success answers stay in first person, I hit, I scaled, I build, I want, I will. Significance answers drift into the we's, them, they's pretty quickly, without being asked.
First person: 0. Others-focused: 0.
No clear pronoun lean yet.
What did you hear?
The goal statement is the entry point. Your signal is what they say after, unprompted. Note the three signals below.
1. What got measured?
Success people report numbers. Significance people report changes in others' lives, even when a number could make a better headline. What did this answer lead with?
2. What is the timeline?
Success-anchored answers tend to have deadlines attached. Significance-focused goals tend to be open-ended, the kind of thing somebody builds toward without a clearly defined finish line.
3. What would it mean if they got there?
The fallback question. If the first answer is fuzzy, ask it. Success-anchored people describe a feeling about themselves. Significance-anchored people describe a difference in the world or in someone else's life.
0 of 3 signals noted.
Your three-person log
The action from the episode: the next three people that are new to you. Log each read as you run it.
0 of 3 people logged.
No reads logged yet. Run the check above, then log it here.
The S test tells you which conversation you are starting. It does not decide proximity. Run your proximity audit on what you heard before you decide how close somebody earns to you.
FAQ
What is the S Test?
It is one question, asked when you meet somebody new: what is your goal? What are you working towards? The goal statement is the entry point, and your signal is what they say after, unprompted. You listen for which of the two S words they speak to first, success or significance. Jess calls it a faster way to find out which road somebody is actually walking, before you invest six months into them and find out the hard way.
What is the difference between success and significance?
Success is a self-metric. It is where your feet are planted, the goals you are personally setting for yourself or those immediately around you. Significance is an external metric. It is the impact you are having on others, something outside of your own ecosystem. John Maxwell put language on it in a keynote, and Jess has used it ever since. The relationship runs one direction. If you are seeking significance, success will follow when you get there. If you are chasing success, there is a big possibility you will never be significant at all.
What are the three roads?
In High Road Leadership, Maxwell maps three roads people walk. The low road is where people focus solely on personal gain and leave broken relationships behind. The middle road is where people play it safe and meet expectations without aspiring to bigger things. The high road is where leaders prioritize others and strive to make a lasting impact. Jess says most people are somewhere in the low to middle range and do not even realize it. The S test tells you which road the person in front of you is actually walking.
What do I listen for after they answer?
Four things. Pronouns: success answers stay predominantly in first person, I hit, I scaled, I build, I want, I will, while significance answers drift into the we's, them, they's pretty quickly without being asked. What gets measured: success people report numbers, significance people report changes in others' lives, even when a number could make a better headline. Timeline: success-anchored answers tend to have deadlines attached, significance-focused goals tend to be open-ended. And the fallback: ask what it would mean to them if they got there. Success-anchored people describe a feeling about themselves. Significance-anchored people describe a difference in the world or in someone else's life.
What if they say "legacy"?
Go deeper. Legacy is a buzzword that keeps showing up in these conversations, and Jess learned to ask more questions around it, because not everybody views legacy the same way. When somebody names legacy as their outcome, it could land on either side of the spectrum. A success-focused legacy talks a lot about generational wealth. A significance-focused legacy talks in impact language. Ask what they mean by it before you decide which road they are walking.
Does a success answer mean I write them off?
No. Jess is direct about this: "It's not a verdict on somebody's character. It's how you decide whether to keep investing in the conversation." Somebody answering from success might be the exact right person for a specific transaction, a skill exchange, or a door they could open. They just do not automatically get proximity to who you are and everything you are building. That is reserved for the people whose direction compounds your significance goal. And it cuts both ways: a significance answer does not immediately put somebody in your inner circle either. The S test tells you somebody's orientation. The proximity audit tells you how close that orientation earns them to you.
Go deeper
In Episode 25, Jess tells the story of the new friend from the Pink Skirt Summit attendee group chat who had all the same things she did, a podcast, keynotes, and a business of her own, and led with none of it. She led with serving other mothers in service-based businesses, and that order made Jess lean into the conversation. The episode names Maxwell's distinction between success and significance, walks the three roads from High Road Leadership, and teaches the four signals to listen for. Jess also tells the Tony Robbins and Alex Hormozi interview story, as she heard it: Robbins feeding 42 million people across 37 years through his foundation, the moonshot to feed a billion people in ten years that he hit in eight, and the shift from push motivation to pull motivation, duty versus the desire to serve. Hormozi admitted, as Jess tells it, that he could write a two million dollar check and the only thing he would feel the next morning is two million lighter. The episode closes with Jess naming her own significance goal: the Children's Heart Foundation, the research that has saved her son Thomas's life, and the Team Thomas the Titan walk. The tool above runs the S test for you. The episode tells you why the first answer matters more than the resume.
Listen to Ep 25: The Question That Tells You Who's Actually Building Something (And Who Just Thinks They Are)
Book referenced: High Road Leadership by John Maxwell
"The moonshot, the significance goal, the desire to impact, that's what actually matters. And that's what will be remembered long after they're gone."
Related
- Episode 33: Build A Personal Board of Directors: The Seat Swap The proximity decision, up close. Once the S test tells you somebody's direction, the board is how you decide who earns a seat close to you, and the seat swap is the text that starts it.
- Episode 31: Before You Buy the Membership (Check These Three Things) Proximity is one of the three legs. What real proximity looks like, and the four corners of connection, before you pay for a room.
- Episode 32: The Advice Wasn't Wrong. (Your Conditions Were Different.) After the S test tells you about the person, run the check on the advice itself: time, body, and environment, before you adopt it.
Big Ideas Made Simple is a weekly podcast for entrepreneurs and fast thinkers building a business around who they are and how they operate. Hosted by Jess Webber. New episodes Mondays at bigideasmadesimple.captivate.fm.
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