A colleague of mine was recently part of a panel of “successful” people and interviewed on what success was for them. I pondered what my answers would be if I had been invited.
Success is such a subjective topic. For me it goes far beyond financial success, although that is a piece. But so many people have money and are miserable. I don’t consider them successful.
At a recent family dinner I asked my teenage children if they thought of me as successful, and without hesitation they answered yes. I then asked them what was behind that answer. They picked a couple of the things I’ve accomplished in my life. It makes me feel good to be seen as successful by my children.
I told them that I agreed, I do consider myself as successful, but for some different reasons. I then shared with them this list of why I think so:
- Success is being with the one true love of my life for over 25 years and feeling the last 5 years were our best years. That is a sliding window that will always remain true.
- Success is having good relationships with my children and not repeating the mistakes of my parents.
- Success is the freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want, and having a quality problem of trying to figure out what that could be.
- Success is exercising and eating healthy in service of long term health.
- Success is drawing satisfaction from having impact on others, knowing I make a difference both directly to the people around me and the people beyond that.
- Success is living “successfully underemployed” as I have for over 25 years.
- Success is having financial security that means I don’t live precariously and can handle all but the greatest life catastrophes.
- Success is being debt free, no mortgage, and the peace of living that way.
- Success is feeling passion and purpose, doing things I find fun.
- Success is being satisfied with what I have and not comparing myself with what someone else has.
- Success is feeling a level of peace in my life, controlling the things I have control over and letting go of the rest.
- Success is knowing that I wouldn’t trade the life I have in this moment for anything.
- Success is feeling gratitude for the little and big things, but especially the little things.
- Success is knowing that “more” is no longer the answer to “What do I want?”
- Success is meeting the terms of the game I’ve set out to play, and looking for new games to play.
- Success is looking back at the last 6 years of my life, writing a list of what I’ve done, and knowing that list is exactly what it needed to be, and anything else was simply not important enough to me.
Looking through the above, it’s interesting to note that the successes I list aren’t the same as my accomplishments in life (the measurable sales, metrics, quantitative results, or even a net worth). My list above is the culmination of my life on this planet, and learning over time what is truly important to me.
If you were invited to be a panelist on the subject of success, what would your definition of it be? How would you know you’ve achieved it?
