The Secrets of Success
It's simple, really.
Last week, I had the great pleasure of being interviewed for one of my favorite podcasts.
At one point during our conversation, the host, Paco, called me a successful writer, and I reflexively made a face that I can only describe as the expression I’d make if the dog pooped while we were stuck on a plane that’d been sitting on the tarmac for hours, only after I’d been forced to pay an exorbitant bag check fee that maxed out my credit card and threatened the rest of our trip — a mixture of disbelief, disgust, panic, and the slightest hope that at any moment I might wake up and discover it was all a dream.
I scoured the internet to find the best approximation and here it is:
No sooner had it happened than I felt irritated by my reaction. A woman diminishing her own accomplishments. How sad. How tired. How socially unproductive.
“How many books have you written?” Paco prompted.
“Thirteen,” I said, sheepishly, like I’d just admitted to taking the last cookie from the jar.
“Okay, so can we agree that you are a successful writer?”
Yes.
But.
As I’ve reflected on what lurks behind the face (which admittedly includes decades of shame and a nagging belief that love and work are mutually exclusive), I landed upon a truth. It feels irresponsible to wear the badge of success as bestowed by someone else, because I don’t know what their definition of success is. It may not match my own. It may not match reality. In fact, it likely doesn’t.
The trick of the internet is that plenty of people appear successful, in that they project to have attained some level of fame, fortune, or fulfillment. Yet their private reality may tell another story.
In my experience, success is a fleeting state, a moving target. Much like happiness, it’s wonderful when it visits, but it’s got other places to be. It ebbs and flows. It shape-shifts, as do we.
While I admit to having glimpsed it, I wouldn’t apply that word to this particular juncture. I am in a season of trying, of readjusting, of figuring things out. I’m revising my definition of success and taking steps toward realizing it.
It is — I am — a work in progress.
*
No matter who we are, no matter what season of life or sphere of work we find ourselves in, it is worth defining what “success” means to us. Not the dictionary definition, nor the societal one. Not what our family or traditions instilled in us. But what we, individually, believe it to be.
Is it financial security? Personal fulfillment? Social or environmental impact? Critical acclaim? Commercial achievement? Emotional resonance? Some form of flexibility or freedom?
Once we’ve landed on a meaning, it behooves us to revisit and revise it on a regular basis as we, and our circumstances, change.
*
For the first decade of my career, I saw success as a shiny golden ring of someone else’s devising. It was a name-brand definition, tied to legacy corporations and capitalist striving. If ever someone asked after what I “did,” I wanted my answer to be met with a nod of approval, or at least a look of recognition. It would be years before I considered that personal fulfillment or societal impact could play just as vital a role.
You may have encountered the rule of “good, fast, cheap,” which dictates that you can only have two out of three.
In my experience, the creative work equivalent is “love, glory, money,” where love equals personal fulfillment or alignment with one’s values, glory means the ability to own or otherwise receive credit for your work, and money is fair pay. I made a handy visual:
In best-case scenarios, a job or gig may offer two of these, but rarely does it boast all three. (I’d like to think it’s possible for someone out there, but I have yet to experience it.) My highest earning years have typically compromised my values, left me spiritually depleted, or revolved around work that fulfilled me but that I could not publicly claim (i.e. ghostwriting).
Over the last year, I’ve prioritized work that bears my name and feeds my soul. (Like this letter you’re reading.) While it fulfills me, it does not (yet) support me. I hope that eventually, it will. Though it may align with the definition of success I hold for my humanity, I’d be lying if I said this phase of my career feels particularly successful.
I’ve had many conversations with friends and acquaintances who make “good money” yet feel haunted that their efforts do not positively contribute to society or the world at large. Meanwhile, I love what I do but want to plunge my head in the sand whenever I am confronted with my “numbers.”
Who is successful? Both? Neither? And who gets to decide?
“How would you define success?” I asked one friend with a lucrative job in the financial services industry.
“Success, to me, would mean having time to spend with the people I love, and the freedom to pursue the things I am passionate about.”
“Do you feel that you’re successful?”
“By that definition, no.”
*
I love to run. I do it for my mental health, but a close second is for the metaphors, which apply to so many parts of life.
Training plans often center around an A goal, a B goal, and a C goal. To grossly oversimplify, one’s A goal might be to run a race at the speed of sound, their B goal might be to run at a comfortable pace, and their C goal might be to run the race, period.
Multiple goals mean multiple chances to succeed, and multiple blueprints to adjust one’s strategy and mindset depending on the variables of that particular race day.
We don’t always get what we want. It doesn’t always look the way we hope or anticipate. But success can come in many forms.
*
In my ruminations on success, I’ll often return to these words (long attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson but actually by Bessie Anderson Stanley):
“To laugh often and much. To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded.”
And while this definition of success resonates within me, it does not match the scaffolding so often erected around me.
“I laughed often and much” does not go very far when paying a bill or applying for a mortgage. But that laughter can keep us going when we’re running on fumes and there’s no one to help and we’re left wondering why we pursued this silly dream in the first place.
In the end, I don’t actually care much for success. I care for bravery and gumption, authenticity and connection, vulnerability and truth.
I came, I saw, I tried.
I laughed.
Maybe that’s enough.
I get it. I really do. There are a zillion newsletters I want to subscribe to, but I simply cannot afford it. And everywhere I turn, another writer is hawking a subscription like something out of Newsies.
But without subscribers, this space cannot exist.
If you are one of the 11,000+ people who regularly opens these letters but has never contributed, please consider coming to the other side of the paywall. (If just 1% of you made the leap, it would make a meaningful difference in my life.) It’s a warm and wonderful community and I am so grateful for every member.
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Thank you so much for reading, and for your support.
Card of the Week
Here is this week’s card for the collective, as well as some thoughts to carry into the days ahead. As most modern readers will tell you, the tarot is not about fortunetelling, nor is it about neat, definitive answers. The cards are simply one path to reflection, a way of better knowing ourselves and others through universal themes. If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.
For much of my life, I bought into a narrative around feeling “settled.”
One day, the story went, everything would work itself out. One day, everything would click into place.
I now understand this is as elusive a myth as “happily ever after.” There is happiness. There is comfort. But as long as we live, there will be change and movement. That’s just how it goes.
The Eight of Wands is a curious card. Traditionally, it shows eight wands suspended in midair, following what appears to be a swift trajectory. Where did they come from? What set them in motion? Where are they headed? No one knows.
These mysterious sticks going nowhere leave a lot of room for interpretation. They may make you feel unsettled. They may make you feel excited. That is very much the point.
On the surface, this card is about movement. It carries the message that change can happen quickly. Progress can surprise you.
This is true; it can. But the more interesting question is about how we deal with uncertainty. How can we feel grounded while suspended in midair?
As I pondered this week’s card, I was reminded of a memorable dining experience.
It was dinnertime at a busy restaurant. At one point during the meal, a server lost his footing while rushing across the dining room. He managed to catch himself before falling, but his tray was not so lucky. It sailed through the air, sending multiple entrées flying. Glass shattered, ice cubes skittered, silverware clattered to a deafening halt.
The room went silent, watching the debacle unfold. I braced myself for an epic meltdown — the manager screaming, the server dissolving into an embarrassed puddle amid the spilled soup. We sat, rapt, as he erupted into the biggest, most joyful laugh I’d ever heard. He laughed and laughed, until eventually, everyone joined him.
Much like the server, there is a lot we can’t control or predict. But our reactions may have more power than we know.
Humans have a tendency to think in absolutes. From the time we are children, we are taught to identify opposites. Good and evil. Hot and cold. High and low. Success and failure.
By this logic, “settled” and “in motion” may seem like opposing states. But when examined through another lens, they are actually complementary, part of the same process. So, by this measure, are “comfort” and “risk.” You needn’t exclusively pursue one or the other.
The flying wands understand that change can be disorienting. It can be hard to feel grounded when everything is up in the air. But even when you can’t make contact, the ground is always there.
Above all else, this card teaches us that leaping and landing are not opposites. They are inextricably linked. There is always a leap before we land. Even when we are suspended, midair, in a state of not-quite-knowing, the ground is waiting, solid and certain, beneath us.
We won’t know how it settles until it settles. And even then, there is always room for surprises.
Love - Glory - Money. I'll be thinking about that for a long time! How many of my favorite novels *really* get all 3? I guess we'd have to ask the authors to know! I also think "glory" is so interesting. Receiving credit matters, for sure, but credit from whom. I remember listening to an interview with an HBO TV writer on a big time show (I forget who it was or which show!). But she said, "My parents have never seen the show. They don't have HBO, so." And it really gave me pause. I am convinced my children will hardly care if I publish book. I mean they won't care AT ALL at their current ages, but even as an adults. Will they care? Hard to say. But don't I care about what they think of me more than a high profile book critic? Listen, I know the allegedly "feminist" response: your children care if you have a career! You are modeling a successful career! But I've been a SAHM for the past 4.5 years, writing when I can. And I'll tell you this, even at the risk of sounding anti-feminist: My children care if *I* pick them up from preschool everyday and *I* put them to bed EVERY night. They do. And I do it. Literally 99 percent of the time. And that is what they care about right now. And I get annoyed when people think that doesn't matter. It does. I think caregiving work isn't any more or less valuable than a career pursuit. ANYWAY, that was a very tangential mini rant, sorry, Caroline. haha. Now I have to go off and define success AND glory for myself. Thanks for the thought provoking essay. :) xo.
I am getting a lot of messages about focusing on what I can control, and leaving the rest. Thank you.
Also, I totally get where you’re coming from with the success thing. I had a job for 15 years that enabled me to be financially stable and more, and to make some great friends, but the company itself lost its humanity, and I was constantly told I was focused on the wrong things, despite the fact that I and my team were very successful in managing the horseshit we were tasked with. When I was unceremoniously laid off last summer, it was a blow, but I needed to be gone. They weren’t going to change… and they chose to jettison me. They suffered for it, so the joke was on them, but while I’d like to make that kind of money again, I must have a work culture that is positive and affirming. So, I’m starting my own genealogy business, because I love information and I love connecting people. Website should be up by the end of the week. (And I’m saying that here to keep myself accountable!!)
Also, in reading that quote, it seems fairly obvious that a woman wrote it, not a man.