I've been thinking a lot lately about what success looks like. I'm officially middle-aged now, and like so many elder millennials, I'm wrestling with the ennui, frustration, and discouragement of being neither young nor old, neither purely foolish nor especially wise. The philosophical questions I had to study at school are mattering more to me now than they did when I had the energy of a 24-year old in her first grown-up up job with the federal government.
Then, I wanted to do big things, be a mover and shaker, climb a ladder, and achieve something prestigious.
Now, I want to do meaningful things, be a nurturer, climb the right ladder, and achieve something worthy of respect and dignity.
I'm not especially interested in the tech billionaire or the 25-year old social media sensation. The answer of how to make it to the top is a bit obvious. It's an equation that boils down to a few things: a healthy dose of natural talent or charisma, ambition, hard work, a bit of luck, and the ability/privilege to pursue a singular goal to the exclusion of all else. The component parts of the equation will vary if you're talking about an athlete, politician, CEO, or celebrity figure. But the overall puzzle is usually made of those same pieces. It's simply not an interesting question.
I don't care about making billions. I don't care about disruption for the sake of disruption. I'm far more interested in how to be an impactful member of my society from exactly where I am with nothing but hard work and average intelligence. It's a more gritty and intriguing puzzle to me than how to make a lot of money or do something lofty and illustrious.
I'm interested in how the average person can be happy and professionally fulfilled from right where they are. I'm interested in stories of people with perhaps (perhaps!) less natural talent, but also with less privilege and arguably more resilience. I'd rather hear about how a musician kept creating music after they stopped winning Grammy awards. Tell me about the person who finishes 4th at the Olympics instead of the gold medalist. I want to know how the executive who retired as SVP got to where she was, not the executive who retired as CEO. Let's talk about the teacher who stayed in the same classroom for 30 years, not the hotshot superintendent.
By my estimation, I suspect those other accomplishments take greater balance to achieve. More emotional intelligence, more respect, more appreciation for nuance, more acceptance, more tenacity. Almost certainly, better mental health. I don't know how the 4th place Olympic finisher got there; it's surely some of the same path as the gold medalist, but with a more impressive determination to keep going. They probably didn't have the motivation, reward, and recognition that came from being at the top. To my mind and my experience, it seems much more impressive to keep pursuing goals when there aren't as many prestigious accolades involved.
A former business coach once asked me how I defined success. I've come to see it as the adage of "working hard at work worth doing."
If you have integrity, I want to work for you.
If your product is exceptional, I want to work for you.
If your customer service is exceptional, I want to work for you.
If you have a productive balance between competitive drive and emotional intelligence, I want to work for you.
If you listen to your employees, I want to work for you.
If you embrace failure as an essential part of learning, I want to work for you.
If you care about efficiency, I want to work for you.
If you have an open mind, I want to work for you.
If you value transparency, I want to work for you.
If you don't have any use for a "yes man," I want to work for you.
If you will trust me to do my job and hold me to a high standard, I want to work for you.
If you value hard work and grit, I want to work for you.
If you don't tolerate bullies or hostility, I want to work for you.
If you are strategic about goals rather than obsessive, I want to work for you.
If you are humble enough to learn from your faults, I want to work for you.
If you share praise with those around you, I want to work for you.
I don't care about all the rest. I really don't. The industry, location, and function don't matter to me as much as any of the other things. I want to work on things that are impactful with high-caliber professionals, and the rest is just gravy.
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