Defining Success

This is the written script of Halftime, episode 49 of the Makers of Sport® podcast. Halftime was a short show on the off weeks between interviews where I wrote and read on topics in professionalism, entrepreneurship and business for creatives in sport. The episode aired August 17, 2015; the audio is on SoundCloud and the show notes live at makersofsport.com. The show's opening and closing announcements are trimmed here.

Success. What does it mean to you? Is it fame? It is wealth? Or is it simply taking care of your bills with maybe a little left over all while you get to work on things you care about.

In today’s day and age, we are constantly berated with the word success on social media, television and in our daily personal lives. People are obsessed with success. The problem is, typically people do not know what success even means. Success is subjective. There is not real measurable data or hard line that states what exactly it is.

Matt Stevens, the illustrator behind the Nike Airmax 100 project mentioned in Episode 15 of the podcast that you have to “define what success is to you, so that you know when you have reached it”. I believe that is a good way to view the word success. We each have different goals in our lives. We each have different circumstances and situations that we live with. What is successful to you might not be successful to me and vice versa.

“Define what success is to you, so that you know when you have reached it.”

In the U.S. we have become inundated with wealth, fame and power. We see guys like Donald Trump on television with his billions and model wives or professional athletes and their cars, endorsement deals and huge houses. TMZ fills our Facebook feed or television with tales both good and bad about the rich and famous. There was even once a show called Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. And I am certainly fan of the new HBO series Ballers where status, wealth, women and football reign supreme.

By these standards, we are brainwashed to believe success is fast & expensive cars, multiple mansions and plenty of love partners of you preference to choose from at will. The odd thing though is that even though we live in the most affluent and safest times in the history of human life, many of us still tend to miserable or depressed.

Author Jim Rubens writes in his book OverSuccess that success is both a good and bad thing. That we has humans strive to have internal satisfaction from producing something of value and being recognized by people close to us for achieving a goal or mastering something difficult. The unhealthy aspect of success is that when we pathologically pursue or fixated on unattainable goals in relation to what an ordinary individual can achieve. More wealth, fame, power and outward beauty are not things that are easily attainable, yet somehow our obsession to for them is great.

Part of the reasoning behind this is our ability to selectively share on social networks such as Instagram and Facebook the happiness of our lives. Movie stars and professional athletes alike give us regular joes a glimpse into their glamorous lives daily. One cannot run from seeing these things in this modern era of Internet sharing. Even if you try, someone will share something about the Kardashians, Donald Trump or some other wealthy person in your social feeds because they too are obsessed with their allegedly successful lives.

Setting goals are great. They are good for morale and good for you to try to achieve something. But we must be realistic in setting goals. For example, how many of us that work in sports really wanted to play in the NFL when we were kids? Or wanted to be a famous musician? Probably most of us in some way, shape or fashion. But setting a goal to do one of those things and not have something to fall back on is setting yourself up for failure. How many NBA players don’t make in the league but did not pay attention in school or build on their other interests? Our bodies are fragile things. When the knee gives out or the natural abilities of speed and quickness are just not up to par with the elite, they had nothing else because they gave their lives for their dream and end up broke, sick, in jail or even in some cases committing suicide.

We should all set goals into our lives. But those goals should be attainable and reachable. Things such as achieving all As in school, getting a job with a sports organization or learning some extra skill such as web development. These goals have a clear end and once they are reached, you can always modify and add new goals.

When I in high school, my dream was to design sneakers for Nike. If I had never modified that goal, I’d never be where I am today and would have been set up for failure. I knew that I was not interested in relocating to Portland, Oregon, a must for a Nike sneaker designer, I knew that I was not attending a college that had an industrial design program, the typical degree for a sneaker designer. So I ended up discovering graphic design, modifying my goals and finding new loves like podcasting and sports design. I didn’t know about these things when I was in high school (one because podcasting didn’t even exist yet). Setting your sights on one goal is limiting yourself.

Money and fame are another thing always associated with success. I do not believe success and fame to be mutually exclusive. We as the creative industry tend to have an unhealthy obsession with fame. Everyone seems to want to be designer famous. They want to be known, they want their work to known. They want to be invited to speak at conferences or to show up on podcasts or blog articles. They to have the most liked post on Dribbble or Behance.

I promise you that no one outside of the design cares about your work. Even if you are creating for the biggest college football or NFL program in the sport. Ask any general person on the street to name a famous designer and their answers are l likely to be some fashion designer or maybe even Steve Jobs. Not even Johnny Ive, the actual designer of Apple products gets general recognition from Regular Joe on the street.

If we had a clear look into the bank accounts of some of these so-called famous designers, I bet we’d get a better view on how empty and fraudulent success as it regards to fame really is. There is no question, that there are designers making millions (such as the best designers at Nike or Google), but those are equivalent to the Michael Jordans of this industry. Working for some top-notch sports team does not solely mean you are successful, and especially not wealthy.

Success is a mindset. It is something we create. And it is different for each of us. I consider myself successful. Am I designer famous? No. Am I wealthy? No. Am I an influencer? No, maybe a small one in a very niche community if any at all. But I do consider myself successful on my measuring stick. Because early on in my career, I defined success for me as being able to support a family while doing what I love. I wanted to own a house, have minimal to no debt and be able to give my wife the opportunity to stay home when our kids are young, all while not working at a place I hate, but rather running my own business and being in charge of my own time. Success for me is about quality of life and flexibility of time all while covering my fixed costs.

I have achieved this. Does this mean I’m done? No way. This just means that I set newer goals and try to achieve those goals. There are varying degrees of success in my opinion. I have achieved the most basic success I can professionally. But there are individual successes within the projects I create. For example, is achieving New & Noteworthy in the iTunes Store amongst of 100s of thousands of podcasts – something this podcast has done – something to consider successful? I believe so. But the podcast makes no money if my measuring stick were only about dollars than this show is an utter failure. Stop trying to package success up in some box like it’s a tangible thing. It is not. It is flexible. It is different for each of us and should be specific to the individual.

To reiterate what Matt Stevens said in Episode 15, define what success is to you and you alone, so that YOU know when you have achieved it. Your success is your’s to own and define. No one else’s.