It seems that once you have enough zeros and commas in your bank account you also become a newly minted life-guru. Check out any sufficiently rich persons social media profile and they will wax poetically about how to be “successful.”
Here’s what’s always bothered me about those posts: they never once define what success actually is.
Now, we can guess that their version of success is to end up like them, rich. Fly in private jets. Buy fancy cars. Live in expensive homes. But to what end? You have all this fancy shit…but what did it cost you? And I’m not talking about the actual price, I’m talking about what the real cost of this so-called “success” was.
There’s a great story about John Lennon where his class was given an assignment to write about what they wanted to be when they grew up. John Lennon wrote “happy.” His teacher told him he didn’t understand the assignment. He replied, “you don’t understand life.”
We give the rich so much admiration for their accumulation of wealth; and believe that said accumulation translates into them understanding life. But they don’t.
You see, it is up to each of us to define our own version of success and stay true to that.
For me? I’m more John Lennon than Jack Ma. I’m not sacrificing everything that’s important to me in order to chase riches. If I never fly on a private jet? I’m OK with that. If I never become a multi-millionaire? Fine.
The other night a man told me that his father, who now has dementia, was an all-star athlete in his day. But this man could only count one time in which his dad ever played catch with him. He only has one voicemail in which his father said “I love you.” They never shot hoops together.
Now, what if I told you this dad was “successful?” He made a lot of money and was rich. But in pursuing his success, he didn’t have time to play catch with his kid. Does that change your feelings about this story? Do you now think "well, the father was crushing it to support his family!" His now-grown son didn't care about the money...he cared about playing catch with his dad.
Every action we take in life has a price. Every activity, a cost.
Don’t get me wrong…I want to do great work. I want to contribute in a meaningful way, build important things and continually challenge myself and learn. But not to the detriment of my other responsibilities, like being a father or a husband. A friend. A son. Or ignore my responsibilities to myself.
“Their” definition of success costs too much for me. While they are busy changing the world, they often miss out on living. While building empires, they skip out on building their families.
This isn’t about “settling.” This isn’t telling you to coast or just punch a clock to get a paycheck. It’s about knowing what your definition of success is and more importantly the cost you’re willing to pay for that success.
Just know that later in life, you’ll be forced to look at yourself in the mirror and live with what’s staring back at you.
One of my favorite quotes says:
Life is like a coin. You can spend it however you want…but you can only spend it once.
So, my question to you is this…what’s your version of success and what are you willing to pay for it?
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