The Problem with Success

I can see myself already starting to lose credibility with many readers just as they read the title of this post.  I can hear many ask, “What’s wrong with being successful, isn’t that The American Dream”?  I want to make to make it clear up front that I’m not implying success in and of itself is a bad thing, I just want to show that there’s a problem with it.

My question to you is this: Do you gauge all or part of your self worth based on how successful you are?  Does your success define you?

I think we would all have to admit that at some point in our lives we define our value and our worth by our ability to be successful.  The inherent issue with this is simple.  If my self worth is based on my success then it has to also be true for me to believe that I’m worth more as a person than someone who is less successful than myself.  There’s also a danger of starting look down on others who have not prospered as we have.  Of course, we don’t consciously think about this but if we look deep down we’re all trying to prove at sometime or another that we’re not bums. But someone has to be the bum, right?

Sometimes I think to myself “I’m so lucky to have landed in the IT sector where there are endless opportunities for success!”.  But how fortunate am I really if I haven’t learned to truly value others around me inside and outside of my career.  I can only be a great addition to my team at work and to my family at home when I have true concern and understanding for others whom I interact with who may be higher or lower than me in terms of achievement. 

So how do we truly value others?  We have to begin by realizing that we haven’t necessarily earned our success. Those of us who are quick learners did not earn that ability, we were just born with it and we should be ever thankful for it.  There are many other examples but I won’t get into it here.  The main point is, if we realize that we should be thankful for at least part of our success and that we did not earn it, then we’ll be at least a little humbled and start to show more compassion towards others. 

Now for the drum roll.  How does all of this affect our ability to perform? In short, it’s how the strongest most productive teams are built. I had the fortunate opportunity to take part in a day of leadership training this week provided by a highly esteemed and highly effective consultant group which helped inspire me to write this post.  The main focus was on team building and how important it is to value your team members and customers.  I wanted to take it another level and show that we can’t truly value others if we define ourselves purely on our success.  Success can be addictive and even harmful just like any other addiction.  It can cost you your health and your family if left unchecked. It can even cost you your integrity if you start making decisions that hurt others in order to get ahead. So make sure to invest in others and humble yourself in your career.  You may be a Rock Star but you didn’t get there by yourself and most likely you were born with gifts and talents that you didn’t earn so give back some of your success to those you live and work with.

And to take it even another step higher, I also believe there’s a great opportunity for businesses to give back and invest more in our communities.  If businesses really value their teams, their customers, and their people then they’ll value their city too.  There’s been a mass exodus over the past century from our cities towards suburbia and I have to admit I’ve done this as well.  Instead of trying to run away from poverty in our cities let’s work together with our businesses to make our cities a better place to live.