What is Success?

Monday Morning Pep Talk

Money. Power. Fame. Lives in service to others. Giving back. Are career success and personal success two totally different paths or are they intertwined? 

The January 2015 issue of Essence magazine surveyed readers on their definition of success. The top 7 answers were:

• Living a happy life
• Having financial independence
• Being spiritually fulfilled
• Having no debt
• Being able to afford things important to you
• Having a successful career
• Being in a fulfilling relationship

Defining success is one of those elusive ideals similar to defining happiness, love or pleasure. Each one of us have a different answer and our answers change through the lifecycle. I worked with an executive (early 40s at the time) who faced a life-threatening disease and after surviving made health a priority, almost an obsession. Prior to that, his focus was work—sometimes more than 70 hours a week. Billionaires Bill Gates, Warren Buffett along with 125+ others including former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, movie director George Lucas and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have entered into the “Giving Pledge.” The pledge is a commitment to contribute most of their millions or in some cases billions to charity. 

When you enter the term “the most successful person in America” into one popular search engine, the first result is The Richest People in America at forbes.com. Of course search engines are hard-wired with SEOs (search engine optimization, keywords, labels or tags). However, the third entry is about fame. Is success all about Keeping Up with the Kardashians? 

Psychologists have a theory, don’t they always? It is called Social Comparison Theory. Here’s how it works. You look at others lives whether you know them personally or from your favorite guilty-pleasure-TV show, social media or hear about the person from a friend. Then you make a judgment about the quality of your life either based on an upward comparison—people who appear to have it better than you: more attractive, fancy cars, Louboutin shoes, more influence, 20 sports channels—whatever. Downward comparisons are people you observe and they seem to have it worse than you- still driving the Pinto hatchback, you get it. This theory basically says others define our success because we stack our lives up against friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers or celebrities and make evaluations. 

Tony Robbins has the Ultimate Success Formula and a 35 minute YouTube called, “The Keys to Massive Success.” Then, there’s the Ted Talk by Richard St. John, it is only 3 minutes. However, he doesn’t define success; St. John just tells what 8 concepts lead to success. Spoiler Alert: Passion, Hard Work, Focus, Push Yourself, Serve Others, Have Ideas, Persist and Get Good at What You Do. Success Magazine’s tagline is “What Achievers Read.” It appears that while success is personally defined and changes throughout our lives—it is also a multi-billion industry with books, magazines, life coaches and reality TV to help us all figure it out.

So this week we all have the same 168 hours to pursue our version of success, no matter how you define it. Enjoy!

Success in Autumn

“When we are young, we learn. When we are old, we understand.”

--Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

Re-imagine the Spring of Youth giving way to the Summer of Adulthood and an inevitable decline in Autumn and Winter. What if, the longer life spans we enjoy in the 21^st century are a gift of extra time to accomplish goals resting silently inside our hearts? No one knew that you always wanted to learn to play the keyboard or learn Spanish or visit Yosemite. Now that studies are predicting lifespans of ninety years as nearly average; we are challenged to find excuses to not live our dreams.

In her book, In Our Prime: The Invention of Middle Age, Pat Cohen offers a reason to believe middle age careers can be extended. “Generation X has nearly 30 million fewer members than the 78 million strong baby boom generation. Even though many from this group will work past 65, there will still be fewer employees overall,” according to Cohen’s research. It sounds like great news, but what is the best course of action to take while waiting for the business world to beat a path to the door of the 50, 60 and 70+ worker? Remember this:

·         Reid Hoffman founded LinkedIn at age 35. (Old by Silicon Valley standards)

·         Col. Harland Sanders founded Kentucky Fried Chicken  at age 65

·         Grandma Moses began painting at age 78 (she painted 25 paintings after turning 100 years old)

·         Diana Nyad swam from 110 miles Cuba to Miami in 53 hours at age 64 on her fifth attempt

·         Henry Kaiser established Kaiser Permanente w/ a business partner at age 63

Most of these people lived in America at a time when the average life expectancy was closer to 70. Could the fact that I listed above were engaged in work of their calling give them additional years to make the impact they desired? What is your calling? What is the project you are so passionate about, that you lose track of time?

There is a lot of information online about jobs, careers and callings. Time slows down so a person may discover which phase they are experiencing: a job, a career or a calling. There is no right or wrong answer and each serves a purpose. It is  going to vary for each of individual. As a mid-career professional, just know your best ideas may still be inside of you and like Reid, Col. Sanders, Grandma Moses, Diana and Henry--your greatest accomplishments in life may be realized in your autumn years.