What does success mean to you? (Part 1)
What does success mean to the already enormously successful? and what should and shouldn't it mean to us?
So, what does success really mean to you?
It’s a big question!
It’s also too big a subject to handle within just one article…
In this first piece (Part 1), I want to examine what I’ve learned from the many extraordinarily successful people that I have met over the last several years, when putting together our book, A Few Wise Words, and to whom I have asked this very question.
In my next article (Part 2), we will explore what success might look like for those who are still striving to achieve it…
What should success mean to them? And, perhaps, just as importantly, what it shouldn’t.
But first, let’s begin with some empirical views and perspectives from those who already know about significant success.
How extraordinarily successful people may look at their own success…
I have spent many years exploring, professionally, the lives of high-profile individuals that most would consider to be extremely successful.
From billionaire entrepreneurs to Olympic champions, I’ve been privileged to spend a good deal of time talking with them in person and in-depth about their lives.
I wanted to learn more about their journeys and exactly what they believe they did to become so enormously successful in life.
My mission has been to share their experiences, their wisdom, and most valuable advice with others - most especially our young people - to help them make the most of their own journeys, too.
One question I have always asked is, ‘What does success mean personally to you?’
But before we start, this first article represents a distillation of views gathered from the many luminaries I have met. Needless to say, their responses will be more reflective, given that they have already achieved considerable success in life. More regular folk, who may still be striving to make something good of their lives, or who may be near the start of their journey, will naturally have a more forward-looking and aspirational perception of success.
Second, all of the people I have met are not just extraordinarily successful, but they are also known for ‘giving back’. We have never been interested in talking with those who may be successful, but who care far less about others than they do about themselves.
Third, one would normally expect there to be a difference in the views about success between, perhaps, an entrepreneur and an artist, or a spiritual leader and an athlete…
Nevertheless, from all of the conversations I have had, there were certain aspects, values, and principles consistently voiced from across the wide range of occupations.
These are the most significant ones, most regularly expressed to me:
Winning
From those whose careers may be at the sharp end of competition, such as for sportspeople and entrepreneurs, the concept of ‘winning’ would often be central to their definition of success.
While an athlete might typically set their sights on winning an Olympic gold medal, for example, their journey to get there would naturally involve winning at all the competitions and the many qualifying stages required along the way.
Often, this might mean winning against themselves, too - striving to beat their previous ‘personal-best time’, for example, or recovering well from the personal setbacks and failures they will inevitably have to face during their careers.
For an entrepreneur, it may be about winning the next deal or conquering the next big challenge, and once again, being able to overcome failures. But success will usually be hard-earned over multiple stages, through a flow of deals and milestones.
I remember Zak Brown, former racing driver and now CEO of McLaren Racing, once telling me:
“While success for me has always been about winning and then winning more, it’s also about growing.
Because real success has to be viewed over the long term, not just fleeting moments of success.
It has to be based on continuous improvement, each and every day.”
Zak Brown – Leader of McLaren Racing and its hugely successful Formula One team
Wealth
One of the most fascinating things for me is how low a priority ‘creating personal wealth’ has often been for many of the successful people I have met. The only regular exception to this may be entrepreneurs who will necessarily focus on building the capital resources required to leverage and deploy when building their businesses.
Wealth creation is often seen as incidental and a natural reward for becoming exceptional at what they do. It seems rarely to be a principal goal (aside perhaps from saving and investing prudently, out of income, over time).
Many have expressed to me that those who are preoccupied only with creating wealth or pursuing an affluent lifestyle, as their main goal, are actually far less likely to achieve the success they desire, simply because they are focusing, fundamentally, on the wrong things!
Not one of the extraordinarily successful people I have met over the years has ever said to me, ‘My primary goal was to become a millionaire.’
For truly successful people, wealth is most often perceived as a likely consequence of excelling in their careers and working really hard, creating something of real value, while enjoying some good fortune along the way, too.
The closest they might usually think in terms of creating wealth is a practical desire to become financially independent and to be able to enjoy a good life.
Good Fortune
Everyone I have met will have expressed, at some stage, just how lucky they believe they have been and often, how blessed they feel for their success.
Most recognise that good fortune, serendipity and sometimes ‘catching the wave’ are amongst the most important factors behind success.
Virtually everyone will have also referred to certain moments in their lives when something incredibly significant happened for them, a particular piece of good fortune, that will have enabled them to make a big leap up to the next level.
But while good luck will always have a huge role to play, the ‘art of becoming successful’ is in knowing what you need to do to make your own luck in the first place.
Striving to be your best
I have met many, especially in the Arts, who have expressed that their primary focus has always been simply to be the very best they can possibly be at whatever they are doing right now, and not necessarily based on any goal, future milestones or targets.
A similar principle often applies (surprisingly) in Sports. There are talented sportspeople everywhere, but the ones that most often succeed are those who combine their talents with a relentless, obsessive, and utterly determined quest to improve their individual performance every single day.
Becoming the best version you can possibly be of yourself, while pushing yourself to the limits of your talents, hard work, creative thinking and perseverance, is an imperative for any successful individual.
But it’s the very act of improving and being your best, and achieving these things as you grow, that can fuel a deep sense of fulfilment too.
I remember talking about this with the incomparable Stephen Fry, the hugely popular TV and film personality, and author:
“I expect that my own views about success have nothing to do with how the world might normally regard success to be. For me, it’s something completely internal.
The closest English word that I can think of that describes success is perhaps ‘fulfilment’, and ‘happiness’ is of course a word that comes close to being contained within fulfilment too.
Fulfilment obviously denotes a sense of satisfaction, but for me it has more to do with a sense of personal contentment and a feeling that one may have come close to achieving the things that either in an objective sense, you feel you were put on this earth to achieve (through your genes, or through your opportunities), or through a personal sense of ambition.
Fulfilment comes from achieving the best you can be in the fields in which you have striven to be good.”
Stephen Fry – actor, comedian, presenter and best-selling author
Curiosity and growth
No one will ever find success in life unless they are genuinely curious. It will simply never happen for them.
Being curious, wanting to learn more, and even exploring deeply what others have done to become successful in their fields will be the desire of most high achievers.
Education and one’s schooling are important. However, self-education and acquiring the additional knowledge required to grow, fundamentally, are also essential.
But one has, of course, to invest time and effort to learn. It takes work. Growth also comes from pushing yourself out of your comfort zone: One needs to get out there and mix with others in order to develop those all-important soft skills.
Everyone needs to be curious about the extent of their own capabilities so that they can set their goals realistically, yet ambitiously.
I have met many hugely successful individuals, quite late in their lives too, who still have a strong desire to learn more, who read a lot, and who believe passionately in continuous self-education and self-improvement throughout life.
Balance and Health
Many have said to me that one measure of success, for them, is in how they have achieved a balance in their lives. They have managed to find a good equilibrium between spending time with their families and friends while still functioning as a driven and successful individual with all of its demands.
But most also admit that it is impossible to achieve that balance all of the time. When younger, the needle tends to be shifted far more in the direction of hard work and commitment. Working long hours and having to sacrifice those other key components (family, social life, relaxation, and outside interests) is often a necessary price to pay in the early days for their future success.
Ultimately, however, it's about being able to achieve that balance whenever one can, albeit mostly somewhat later on in life. But it will still always be a juggling act.
Being mindful of health and mental well-being is also on the ‘to-do list’ of most successful people. One of the ways to find the energy and focus to be successful is to ruthlessly build in time for exercise and relaxation, to include a good diet and healthy practices, as well as mindfulness, meditation and other helpful spiritual activities.
Making an impact
Most of the extraordinarily successful people that I’ve met have talked about how their perception of what success means to them has naturally evolved over time.
To begin with, their focus is on building their careers in a selfish, focused, and undistracted way. It’s about becoming their best and pushing ahead, hard, at a personal level first.
But as they get older and more mature, and as their careers start to develop and they become more successful, their focus begins to shift toward a desire to make an impact. It’s the impact they make on their colleagues, their team, the organisation or profession they work within, the people they serve and on the wider world.
In time, as their power, influence and wealth may grow, it’s about how they can use these things to help make the world a better place and what they can do to ‘give back’.
This is often fuelled by a recognition of how fortunate they have been and almost an obligation to contribute something back in return. But it is also a sense of fulfilment in knowing that they are using their resources to help others in a very positive way.
Many will use their wealth in charitable or philanthropic ways. Some will use their authority and influence to ‘speak directly’ to an audience they can help, by sharing their wisdom. Others will seek to develop political influence as a means to positively impact the wider world.
Legacy and recognition
While for some I have met, recognition and awards are less important, most would like to feel that they will be remembered for the great things they have done, the success they have had, and the impact they have made on everyone around them.
For many, this means what they have also been able to deliver to their family, their loved ones, and friends, while knowing that future generations will respect and appreciate them for what they have achieved and for their legacy.
Values and setting an example
With success comes responsibility. Leaders know how much their decisions and their example can influence and impact others. Leading by example includes displaying a strong moral compass, ethical behaviour and compassion.
It all revolves around sound values, and the wider world will often look up to those who are successful for guidance on how to behave.
Successful people will often, therefore, become role models. They will also be under the spotlight and often media scrutiny. Being values-led in how they conduct themselves has often been expressed to me as being a central and guiding principle.
However, some of the decisions they might have to make may be controversial at times. Obligations to follow certain principles may also be viewed negatively by others. A classic example may be a CEO’s obligation to prioritise the interests of shareholders.
In competitive areas, there will be winners, but there will also be losers. An entrepreneur might be very aggressive in beating their competitors, but this means that others will often get hurt, too.
Decisions that may be in the best interests of some may negatively affect others, of course. It’s a moral dilemma for many leaders, but being values-led is most often seen as being the safest way to navigate such potentially tricky waters!
Passion – a principal source for all success!
OK. I know what you are thinking… He’s banging that drum again! 🙂
I make no apologies!
Virtually every single extraordinarily successful individual I have ever met has always talked about their passion for what they do, or have done, and how important they believe passion is for anyone to become truly successful in life.
Indeed, many have expressed that unless you can reveal your passion for something, you are far less likely to become truly successful in life. It really is that simple.
All of them will ultimately have found something along their career path that they genuinely loved doing. And, as you will know by now - if you have been reading my recent ‘passion’ articles 😃 - finding something we truly love doing is precisely when and how we reveal our passion, in the first place!
Passion is invariably responsible for catalysing a whole range of attributes that naturally become major contributors to anyone’s success. It becomes a powerful resource for us all.
You can find out more about just how important passion is by starting here:
Article: Passion (Part 1)
It’s not about ‘the money’
While it remains popular to measure the scale of someone’s success in financial terms, many of the luminaries I have talked to have said that success should not always be measured by how much money they might earn.
Sir Keith Mills, the extraordinarily successful and celebrated businessman, illustrated this perfectly to me once when talking about his sister, who had been a primary school teacher for the whole of her career.
Teaching is not the best-paid occupation, of course, but it was something that she loved doing, was passionate about, and was very good at, too. She taught and encouraged countless young children to help them in the early stages of their journey. They loved her, and she received a huge amount of praise, over many years, for the work she did to help them. She retired happy and content with what she had done with her life.
Her life, therefore, must surely be considered a success.
The incredible journey
Life, for all of us, is a journey. But for anyone who has already achieved real success in their lives, you can safely bet your house on the fact that, alongside the highs, they will also have experienced many lows and deeply challenging moments along the way.
Success always has to be hard-earned. It is rarely an easy path. One major source of satisfaction and fulfilment in later years is being able to reflect on how one managed to push through and win against the odds at times, while often overcoming huge obstacles and surviving big failures, too. These experiences are invariably seen to be an integral part of success.
However, while ultimate success may be an ambition, for most, this may still sit some years ahead. It is always fundamentally important to enjoy the amazing journey that will eventually take you there.
Even if fortune doesn’t smile on you and you fail to reach your goals, if you have pursued something you love doing and have enjoyed every step of the journey along the way, your life will already be far richer than most.
It’s the journey that is as important as reaching the goal itself.
Lifestyle
Needless to say, with success and its associated financial rewards, the ability to enjoy a good lifestyle becomes a given.
It’s one of the real perks of success.
There is little point in listing here all the ways in which successful people may enjoy their lives, since the ‘trappings’ of success are obvious and varied.
Nonetheless, some successful individuals will still live relatively modest lives, while others choose to live theirs more opulently. It will always be down to the individual and what motivates them.
Happiness
We all want to be happy. We know how to do the things that make us happy, of course. That’s easy. But to reach a constant, long-term, and enduring state of happiness, satisfaction and contentment in our lives is a lot harder to achieve.
While happiness can be a goal, it is a complex emotion and often unpredictable. We may think we know now what will make us happy, but we may well discover later that something else altogether will make us even happier still. And sometimes, we might want to pursue short-term happiness, but this might be at the expense of long-term fulfilment.
Long-term happiness, and that sense of fulfilment, comes most often (as described in Stephen Fry’s quote earlier) from achieving the things that we set out to do in life, successfully. It comes from realising our full potential and reflecting on the positive impact that we have made on others.
One of the best ways to increase the chances of achieving long-term happiness is to strive to find something we can love doing in our careers. Once again, that is the key to unlocking our passion - arguably the most essential driver for ultimate success.
Dame Katherine Grainger, one of the UK’s most successful female Olympic athletes, puts this beautifully into words in her chapter in A Few Wise Words:
‘I still tend to come back to viewing success fundamentally as being happy, because when you find purpose and passion, when you can find contentment and fulfilment in something you love doing, that’s where I believe you can find real success in life.’
Dame Katherine Grainger DBE – Gold medal-winning Olympic rower
So, this first part of the article provides a practical perspective on what success may mean from those who have already enjoyed great success.
In Part 2, we will look at what success might mean for regular individuals who are still striving to make their dreams come true.
What should they focus on from today in order to achieve their success?
We will also consider the mistakes that many will make in their desire to become successful. These are the things (often counterintuitively) that are more likely to limit their eventual success, may lead to disappointment, and should be avoided at all costs!
Please feel free to tell me what success really means to you, in the comments below. I would love to know, and to hear from you! 😊
For me, success means a better work-life balance. I know this is cliche, but I have worked very hard for all of my life. I am not looking for pity. I am looking for success to allow me to take some time away from work.
Success is subjective and hard to define because it is so personal. I had a successful career, in some circles I would be regarded as wealthy and I am certain very happy. I don’t feel successful in myself though and I do put that down to passion.
My career was a job not a vocation like the CEO’s sister had in teaching. Now I am a life coach and writing on Substack, I feel more aligned and passionate about what I am doing. This, to me feels more like the road to success.