Success: what IS it really?
A Philosophical Definition
Hello,
We all think we know what success is, but there is surprisingly little theoretical framework around it.
You can study economics, psychology, business, even management, but there is no discipline of success as such. It seems too big, too generic, to be pinned down.
And yet, if there were certain principles of success – and I mean principles, not simply methods – would you not want to know what they are?
The motivational and personal development industry has tried to identify “success secrets”, yet it has little theoretical or scientific credibility. Having written a guide to the genre, 50 Success Classics, even I admit this.
The psychology discipline studies how and why people succeed in certain contexts (e.g. sports, education). Psychology also sheds light on how traits such as conscientiousness, extroversion/introversion, openness, grit, and confidence play out in the success equation.
Psychology doesn’t attempt to define what success is in the first place, because this would veer into philosophy.
Yet surely no-one can explain success without discussing its philosophical and metaphysical elements. Things such values, virtues, and character, even “destiny” and “karma” - are these not as important to consider as goals, motivation, and habits?
Where we are at
The question, “How do people succeed?” has only been partially answered.
The question, “What is success?” is hardly ever asked.
The personal development or success field today is what Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions referred to as “pre-discipline” or “pre-science”. That is, it has insights, strategies, tips, and methods galore, but no body of accepted knowledge or theory, no “paradigm” on which most of the practitioners agree.
Yet personal development, psychology, philosophy, and metaphysics could be combined into a theory of success that incorporates psychological-scientific concepts such as personality and motivation, philosophical ideas such as virtue and character, and apparently mystical-religious ideas such as fate or destiny.
Towards this end, in this newsletter I will offer a new definition of success.
Before that, I want to address the conventional wisdom around causes of success.
Not causes
The two popular “causes” of success involve: 1) Conditions/environment; and 2) Strategies.
Conditions
Success is seen as the result of lucky environment, in the sense of having been born into the right family, in the right era, in the right country.
We can call this theory of fortunate conditions or environment the “Malcolm Gladwell theory”, after the arguments made in his book Outliers: The Story of Success (which I will soon be critiquing in depth). In his defense, Gladwell also says that not having the right conditions can be a motivation to succeed.
Conditions are often associated with success, but they in no way determine it. If they did, you would expect two people of very similar background to turn out roughly the same – and they usually do not. If conditions were decisive, you would expect everyone with favorable ones to turn out successfully - and they do not.
Strategies
Success is seen to be caused by behaviors or skills, in terms of (for instance) working hard, getting a good education, becoming a good negotiator or public speaker, or acing interviews to get top jobs.
Such strategies are often associated with success, but again are not direct causes of it. They may be what you need to achieve a specific goal, but alone are not enough for you to be judged genuinely successful. For example, Jeffrey Skilling of Enron Corporation had all the strategic elements mentioned above, yet most people do not judge him “a success” in terms of his life as a whole.
Indeed, a person can do everything right to achieve success via smart “moves” but be tripped up at the final hurdle by who they are. We call this their character (in the Western tradition) or their karma (in the Eastern).
I hold that character/karma is more powerful than either “conditions” or “strategies” in the achievement of genuine success.
One person asks another to marry them not because of what that person can do for them (in terms of conditions or strategies), but because of who they are. A person is hired, or we invest in their enterprise, because we believe in them, beyond the background, skills, experience, or plans they have.
Conditions or strategies may be contributors to, or correlated with, success - of course they are. But they do not possess the causality we ascribe to them. Conditions or strategies we think cause success may not be as important as hidden factors that are moral or metaphysical in nature.
Defining success
We assume that we have a piercing ability to recognize success in the form of truth, quality, freedom, and beauty. We think we can distinguish these things from what is simply more visible, what has been bought, what is merely a show of strength. But as social, visual animals, we tend to focus on signs of success.
Points are awarded - for example - for a college education, a nice house in a good suburb, money in the bank, a solid career. Special bonus points are awarded for higher visibility or recognition in terms of influence, fame, or significant wealth.
I call these attributes of apparent success “success-as-success” (signs taken at face value).
The problem with focusing on signs is that it does not give us a full picture. For instance, we may be surprised that despite such good conditions and successful strategies a person can still lack peace, happiness, freedom and stability. You may hear the person themselves say, “I got what I wanted, but not what I needed”.
As time tends to reveal all things, including whether something or someone is genuinely successful or not, here’s an alternative understanding of success:
Achievement that time is yet to bear out as being truly valuable, either to the experiencer or to society, is apparent success, i.e. success-as-success.
Achievement that possesses or expresses truth (quality, freedom, beauty, love), and that time has borne out as valuable, is success-as-truth.
This definition (success-as-truth) may look like an attack on the currently esteemed. In fact, it simply represents the wish to be more rigorous about what is often taken for success.
Most people will continue to see and define success as they have always done. In the meantime there will be individual conversions to success-as-truth. Such conversions are often the subject of novels and films. For example, in the typical romantic comedy an ambitious city guy or girl is forced to go to a remote rural location because of work, and falls in love with a local. He or she realizes the hollowness of their city life (success-as-success). Then comes a moment when they experience a Kuhnian shift to seeing the more meaningful live they could have (success-as-truth).
The point is not that cities or ambition are bad, rather that defective concepts have a price. For the protagonist, there is a need for increasingly contorted attempts to match the world they have built with who they are “deep down”.
Historically, shifts from success-as-success to success-as-truth are preceded by a “dark night of the soul”. Emerging into the light, a person feels a massive increase in peace of mind, freedom, happiness, and meaning.
When a paradigm is replaced by another, Thomas Kuhn said, reality itself seems to change: “What were ducks in the scientist’s world before the revolution are rabbits afterwards.”
What’s the opposite of success?
When you are living your highest truth - doing what you feel born to do, creating some noble thing, fighting a cause, or fulfilling a duty you believe in - you are successful.
If you have tried to do something toward these ends, but haven’t achieved it yet, you are not a failure.
The entrepreneurial cliché is that there is no stigma to failing; it is one step on the path to success. This is true partly because courage is needed, and courage is a form of truth (indeed, it is the one thing that can never be faked). Therefore, failure is very much on the spectrum of success.
The opposite of success is not failure, it is living a lie.
“Living a lie” means you have got far away from a personal philosophy or good image of yourself.
You can have apparent success (success-as-success), but if your outward achievements have nothing to do with your true self you are living a lie.
Truth in Time
We should always allow some time to elapse, for time discloses the truth.
– Seneca, Moral Essays: De Ira
Genuine success (success-as-truth) differs from apparent success in that it involves time. Because truth is always revealed in time, genuine success - or lack of it - is also revealed.
A celebrity or politician uses their fame and power to take advantage of people sexually, or has been taking bribes for years. Until the point at which revelations are made, the life of the celebrity or politician is a picture of success. They are adulated or respected for the talents and efforts which made them well-known. The esteem snowballs simply because they are prominent.
Yet esteem is very different to the weighing action of history. When it is discovered that the “name” is not the kind of person we thought they were, biographies are hastily rewritten. The great producer is now a sexual predator; the politician is disgraced.
A person does not have to commit a crime for judgments to be recast. It may just be that individuals who basked in the spotlight for decades turn out to have little real legacy. Interviews with colleagues reveal them to have been, to use a phrase of Gendun Rinpoche’s, “self-cherishing”. It seems there is nothing they really stood for, and they did not grow in any moral sense. In crafting a “much-loved” personage, their benefit to others was limited.
In contrast, success-as-truth sometimes requires us to do things that might reduce public estimation in order to achieve something.
Indeed, a “failure” can (after death) be revealed as having a nobility of intention and act that now shines across time.
Success-as-truth = more certain success
Finally, a note on why success-as-truth is not only right, but intelligent.
Within success-as-success, measures of achievement tend to be not only shallower, but involve shorter timeframes. Achievement seems complicated and hard to obtain. We are never sure that what we are doing will “work” or if we will “win”.
In success-as-truth, we are not so worried about timeframes so long as what we are doing brings about, or expresses, truth in the form of quality, freedom, beauty, or love.
When we feel certain that what we are doing has worth and meaning, it instils confidence. Whatever the tangible results, we feel that we cannot lose since we are on a track that’s consciously chosen.
Yet this internal alignment makes us more likely to create or build something that’s genuinely valuable to others. That, ironically, makes the symbols of success-as-success (money, recognition, influence) flow to us. The universe loves truth, and rewards it.
Conclusion
Success is always about truth.
What is not truth cannot be successful.
Conditions or strategies are only partial causes of success. Moral or metaphysical factors are arguably more important.
Success comes from a wish to be a vehicle for truth (or its proxies freedom, quality, beauty, love).
The opposite of success is not failure. It is living a lie.
Truth is always revealed in time, therefore success-as-truth makes success more certain.
Thank you and very best wishes,
Tom
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Tom Butler-Bowdon
Author of the 50 Classics series (click to find out more)
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The "Fake it Till You Make It" platitude has helped a lot of folks in changing their path, modeling themselves after the best, and aiming for excellence.
While I don't like the "Fake It" moniker, sometimes people must go beyond their comfort zone, get past fear, and try to go to the next level.
Whether you are modeling yourself after a successful person, or you simply want to become something great one day, the act of pretending or pre-dreaming is an important facet to visualization and innovation. Quantum leaps are made many times when a person can truly see themselves accomplishing the objective. The dream becomes a belief!, and the power of belief is magical.
Yes, be authentic. Yes, be yourself, but also, become who you are meant to be and allow your authentic best to manifest itself.