Are you Successful?
#MakingBetterDecisions, #Goals, #focusonwhatmatters, #Wealth, #Careers
“Do not be proud of wealth, people, relations and friends, or youth. All these are snatched by time in the blink of an eye. Giving up this illusory world, know and attain the Supreme.” — Adi Shankaracharya
This was a topic I started to write on a few months ago but put it on abeyance as I found a more pressing topic to write on. A few encounters this week with a couple of close friends made me revisit this topic. So, my series on “Career success” will start next week.
I currently consider myself retired from corporate life (financial independence is still a few years away, though). At 48, most of my friends are generally between aged 35 to 60. As a direct implication of this, I often end up catching up with folks who are seriously contemplating retirement within the next few years or have recently retired. I ended up catching up with two such friends. Inevitably our discussions eventually meandered into the topic of what successful lives mean. Did we have successful lives thus far?
When I think of successful people, a number of popular personalities come to mind. Few examples: Swami Vivekananda, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Narendra Modi, Tom Brady, Lebron James, Charlie Munger, Parag Parikh, Mohnish Pabrai, Michael Jordan Shane Warne, Verghese Kurian, APJ Abdul Kalam, Albert Einstein etc. I am guessing that such names as these are generally considered good examples of success by many others too. So, there clearly is a general broad-based understanding of what success means. I think we generally attribute the meaning of “success” to people who have achieved something extraordinary in their lives. In other words, people who multiplied the impact from their talent by applying it persistently, in the face of adversity, in creating extraordinary value for themselves and for others. While earlier examples are of people who created significant value, when we think of successful people, we also think of more regular people around us who may have amassed significant material value in their lives — like money, career, etc. Pertinently, success is generally associated with a measure of “material” possessions.
I see a few issues with this way of looking at success. There are way too many people out there who despite achieving material comforts in their lives, think of themselves as not very successful. A few of their classmates from school may have amassed significantly more material wealth, few classmates from college may have climbed much higher in their career paths, few of their neighbours or relatives may have put up their children in “foreign” universities that cost a fortune. I have actually seen people not feeling successful upon making comparisons with such cases.
Perhaps as an unintended side-effect of modern capitalism, no matter how materially rich lives we already live, we are conditioned to believe that bigger title at work, more money at disposal, bigger company to lead or run etc is the definition of success. The eternal pursuit of “more” is celebrated. Given that there will always be someone who has more, no matter how much money or fame one already has, with this understanding one will always be left hollow.
“Two rules for a peaceful life: Depression in failure should never go to heart, and ego in success should never go to the brain. ” — APJ Abdul Kalam
I view success as a state in which one is at peace with himself or herself. Being at peace with oneself does not mean one is always happy. Given that “happy” and “sad” are emotions, happiness and sadness will ebb and flow throughout one’s life. In the face of this constant flux of emotions, a successful person is generally at peace with herself.
I imagine that Roger Federer will not be as good as Ronaldo in football. I can’t imagine Sachin Tendular to be anywhere as good as Eulid Kipchoge in running. Does this mean that Federer and Sachin are not successful?
Success necessarily means different things to different people. It is essentially a “personal” idea. I don’t think that success in life should be measured on an objective scale. Success should be measured on an individually subjective scale. This means there could be as many definitions of success as there are people. Then it follows that there is probably not much sense in looking for validation from others when it comes to assessing success in one’s life. If not anything else, this is at least liberating.
“Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live.” — Anne Sweeney
While I define success in non-material terms, pursuing “non-material” ideals becomes a whole lot easier if one is not lacking in material possessions. I do not want to imply that reducing ambition or aspiration is a way to success. To maintain vitality in life, one should try to become the best version of themselves. This can only happen if one is ambitious. I do believe that ambition is a necessary precondition for successful life — but only that ambition which is driven by one’s specific conditions and factors and not the one that is thrust upon them by others or society.
Bottomline
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” — Maya Angelou
I do strongly believe that most of us are independently successful. In the world we live in, money is a very important component on the way to success. However, for most of us, it is not the pursuit of money that gives meaning but it is what we can do with that money which gives meaning. The most valuable thing that money can buy is time. It is not very surprising that most people who have autonomy over their time tend to be peaceful with themselves and people whose time is controlled by others seem to be most agitated. It is important to not equate success with the pursuit of more material possessions but with non-material peace that one can achieve with the use of the material possessions for oneself and for others.
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Thanks for taking time to read this. In this newsletter, I share my learnings that could help you improve your decisions and make meaningful progress on your goals and desires. I share stuff that I have personally experienced or experimented with. If you find this newsletter worthwhile, please do share it with others — of course, only if you do not mind it.
A bit on my background
I worked in India and the USA with most of my work experience with large global organizations. My last corporate role was the Head of Technology for “Treasury and Trade Management Solutions” for Citigroup South Asia cluster. At Citi, I set up from my Business Unit and grew it from a team size of 1 to over 1900 Citi employees in a span of eight years.
I quit Citi in 2021 to focus exclusively on my interest area of improving decision making. In the last 2 years, I studied this topic closely and developed a training course to systematically improve decision making ability. I’m also an Investment Advisor (RIA) registered with the Securities and the Exchange Board of India (SEBI). As an RIA, I analyze and prepare financial plans to help people achieve their financial goals.
I have done MBA in Strategy and Finance from Carlson School of Management at University of Minnesota and B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.
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