“Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value”
Albert Einstein 💡
I wonder what my sassy lil niece, Flora, aged 4 going on 24, would have to say about that..
💵 What does success mean to you?
💵 How important is money to you?
💵 To what extent does it feed your happiness?
💵 Are wealthy folk you know happier in their lives or careers?
💵 Or are the happier people you know content with less?
Or like some of my smart successful clients, do you feel trapped in the corporate cage – on a big salary with a big house and mortgage, maybe private school fees to pay but not loving your job and feeling unable to shift paths cos of those liabilities?
If you relate to that, you may associate money more with entrapment than freedom.
Or like the protagonist in Robin Sharma’s superb bestseller: ‘The Monk Who Sold his Ferarri’, maybe you identify with the lawyer whose work nearly killed him and woke him up to a different way of living entirely?
This all begs the question, what does success and income really mean to you and what’s the relationship between the two?
Is baby Flora on to something above?
Afterall, studies on the relationship between income and happiness show that while money generally increases wellbeing, the ‘minimum’ amount required to reach peak emotional happiness is generally identified around $60k – $95k annually and thereafter happiness can go either way.
Of course (came out as ‘of curse’ 🤔), few things in life are black and white – for instance, let’s say you sell a business for £4million, you may think you’re rich for life or it’s a nice nest egg to have – but if you then have a large mortgage to pay, four children at a fee paying school, pricey holidays, lots of meals out and say a child with special needs or health requirements, that pot can be both valuable and also quite disposable fast.
And what if the folk earning that nearly keel over scaling a business with investors to answer to and strained mental health that make them a less present parent and partner?
What does success look like then?
Is it more about net income – what’s left when we minus the costs and expenses, whether actual or emotional, than our gross salary in the first instance?
For example, when I was in law I noticed I was playing to leading strengths and interests but I felt much less connected to my emotions and had v little time to feed wider values like fun, wellbeing, love and family. The latter concerned me greatly deep down and ended up being key to my decision to leave.
In other words, the net income seemed disproportionately low to me once I’d minused the expenses.
I also noticed, though not true for everyone, long hours meant higher divorce rates around me and greater internal imbalance.
Now working as a coach with many high flyers, I often see the trappings of outer success – the six figure salaries and LinkedIn profiles that wow and may leave others feeling ‘less than’ – but im privy to the sometimes shadow side of that ‘success’ and the cost it sometimes comes at – such as high level stress, lack of work life balance and disconnection from values and higher purpose.
This often shows up in clients wanting to shift paths in a way that maintains income but with greater work life balance and making more of a difference in some way – relatively unsurprising given these are two commonly held regrets of the dying when not sufficiently met in life according to Bronnie Ware, palliative nurse and bestselling author of “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying”.
But it’s not black and white.
My dad was a successful entrepreneur who was always home by 6pm, had few wrinkles, nice cars and plenty of family time.
Again, it’s a question of intentional life design and moving in accordance with deeper values you must meet for true fulfilment.
Most people I work with have never truly considered what those deeper drivers may be – why would we if we’re never asked.. and they only get hints of misalign from helpful emotional signals like frustration, burnout or boredom before we talk.
However, they initially often don’t know how to get deeper clarity on those feelings, how to make changes or how to do so in a strategic way that meets other values like the need for a good income and the wider realities of adult life.
So I ask again, what does success really mean to you?
Whose lives or careers do you envy and why?
And do you truly long for more of that or is it more ego than truth?
We’re all different in this respect – and, for some, it’s only on the deathbed that they get true perspective on what really mattered, as Steve Jobs did:
“In the end, wealth is only a fact of life I am accustomed to. Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter. Treasure love for your family, love for your friends. Treat yourself well. Cherish others”.
