How would you define success?
Is it having wealth?
Is it being happy?
Webster’s dictionary has three definitions:
SUCCESS:
1 obsolete : outcome, result
2 a : degree or measure of succeeding, b :favorable or desired outcome; also : the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence
3 : one that succeeds
[YAWN]
Of course, the definition of success has many meanings to different people for different reasons. It's not so easily defined.
However, society typically tells us that 'success' entails winning. In fact, from an early age, we're inundated with messages of what 'success' is and is not. We're taught the world is the way it is and our job in this world is to live our life inside this box that society tells us is a 'successful' life.
I remember my first college classes, the Professor asked everyone what kind of career we would like to have. He went around the room listening to each 'perfect' answer (which sounded like they were already applying for their new job) and my answer was simple, "I just want to do something that makes me happy and has meaning." The class broke out into a roaring laugh that went on until the Professor calmed things down. I was so confused by this, why would happiness be a novel idea and laughable? A few people added that 'everyone' wanted to be happy in what they did for a living but this wasn't the reality of 'life'.
Has anything changed? The majority of people I've met throughout life repeat this mantra - 'it's a job', 'it pays the bills' - but few will say that they are 'happy' with what they do for a living. And then there are others that I've witnessed taking this idea of success to the next level - stepping over others to reach that expectation.
Is this success? I wonder... Might it be more important to understand your reason for 'being' first?
How many people can even answer this question given that they are exhausted, sometimes working 2 or 3 jobs, with very little free-time to even contemplate such a question, "What is your reason for being?" And of those that take the boxed version of success as the end goal, no matter the collateral damage to others, what do they really have that doesn't require more and more and more?
WHAT IF...We've had it wrong this entire time!
What if, we are meant to find our reason for being and apply it to our lives - to improve the world around us, add something to it, leave something meaningful behind. It's obvious to me, that if there were more of this, the world would be better for it. As well, we as individuals, would be better for it because we would have purpose/meaning. We're not robots and we're not meant to be crammed into boxes. No wonder there is an epidemic of unhappiness despite so many 'success' stories.
Why settle for the 'boxed' version of success? Haven't we reached that threshold of 'this isn't working' yet? Why not try something that is a departure from the ordinary - something that activates our passion and changes the world?!
If we can find what makes us come alive and believe in that, taking the risk of stepping out of our comfort zone of ordinary, life will meet us half way. I truly believe that!
One of the major obstacles to finding our own passion and success is Fear
I think that what prevents people from trying something new is too often 'fear'. It is almost as if we are afraid of our own success (or failure). We have not spent much time evaluating our inner terrain/dreams/passions - nor do we know how to implement this in our lives. Many of us resist trying things because we think we won't be good at them (even though we've never given ourselves the opportunity to try them) - we've not taken the risks to find out, to fail, to get back up again in order to learn this skill. We are too wrapped up in 'success' without even considering that success often times comes on the heels of many failures.
I fall into this category as well. I am absolutely petrified every time I hit that 'post' button. It's not comfortable for me putting myself out there like that. I am exceedingly self-aware of failing with something that means a lot to me (writing) and yet it has also been these moments of putting myself out there and feeling that foreboding fear of failure that has created moments of deeply moving exhilaration because I did take that chance. "Maybe wow...maybe I can do this!"
Did you know there is a name for that?
Fear of failure (also called "atychiphobia") is when we allow fear to stop us from doing what we would like to do.
However, the experiences and wisdom we gain while attempting something new is crucial to our survival and ability to grow as individuals and society as a whole.
Some famous failures:
WD-40
The name comes from the fact that the formula represents the 40th attempt to create a degreaser and rust protection solvent.
Source
Bubble Wrap
Engineers Marc Chavannes and Al Fielding created bubble wrap in 1960 in an attempt to create a trendy new textured wallpaper - it failed at being a wallpaper but succeeded in a use for packaging IBM computers
Source
Pacemaker
Pacemakers used to be huge – the size of televisions. Then Wilson Greatbach made a mistake that revolutionized medicine. When building a heart rhythm recording device, he pulled out the wrong sized resistor and plugged it into the circuit. When it was installed he realized it sounded like a human heartbeat. With some work, he miniaturized the device to two cubic inches. The result was an implantable pacemaker, which has since saved thousands of lives.
Source
Obviously, failure can be a direct path to success. Why not embrace it as part of the process of learning. Why not plunge in and start experimenting with those things that ignite your passions and curiosity, creativity?!
If you were to make a list of all the most famous 'successful' people they would all have a few common denominators: Passion, many failures and creativity
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct arising from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the object it loves. - Carl Jung
Success can come at any age!
Child's Play:
16-year-old, Daniel Burd, saw a need to solve the problem of the build-up of plastics in dumps and the ocean and set out to find an answer and succeeded. This would later be duplicated many times over by others.
Source
A 17-year-old from San Diego, California, solved a problem that has plagued scientists for years: More easily turning algae into fuel
Source
Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin and composing from the age of 5
Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13
Source
Later in life - It's never too late!
Rodney Dangerfield is remembered as a legendary comedian, but he didn't catch a break until he made a hit appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" at age 46.
Charles Darwin spent most of his life as a naturalist who kept to himself, but in 1859 at age 50 his "On the Origin of Species" changed the scientific community forever.
Grandma Moses was a famous painter but never painted until she was 78!
Henry Ford was 45 when he created the revolutionary Model T car in 1908.
Richard Adams didn't realize his success until later in life after years working as a British civil servant. After telling his daughter a story about a rabbit, she insisted that he write it down and "Watership Down" was published and became a literary children's classic.
Peter Mark Roget had a passion for making lists and orderly language throughout his life. Well after he retired from his scientific/mechanical career, he began a book which would organize words by their their definition and the first 'thesaurus was born'. He was 61 years old when he did this!
These are just a few examples of what an individual's passion can do when acted upon - channeling that inner guidance that propelled their reason for being. They may have been successful in their previous endeavors, but it was the success of bringing forth their passions that added something meaningful to the world (and themselves). See the difference?
I think that if you can look back on your life, you'll find that familiar chord of passion/curiosity/wonderment has always been there - from the very beginning. Why not dust it off and take a chance in believing in it? After all, nothing is ever going to change by playing it safe by never trying.
Let's re-think Success and transcend it into something unlimited - capable of changing the world
Living from a place of purpose and meaning.
If you consider for a moment that everything around you and that is happening in the world is a product of people no smarter than you playing out their role of the ordinary (with the extraordinary mixed in), you realize that 'we' can do so much more if 'everyone' tapped into that extraordinary, passion-driven, purposeful part of ourselves. How amazing this world would be, how phenomenal the changes and the speed to which we could achieve AMAZING!
Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value. Look around at how people want to get more out of life than they put in. A man of value will give more than he receives. Be creative, but make sure that what you create is not a curse for mankind. Albert Einstein
One such person that I'd like to highlight as an example of this kind of transcendent success and change is Manoj Bhargava's story. Another late bloomer, after retirement he made billions marketing an energy drink. His wealth grew so quickly (success?) that he didn't know what to do with his new found wealth. Instead of using his success to live in luxury, attain power, he chose to look around him to the things that he could do to improve life for those that couldn't afford the basic necessities. This wasn't a disconnected philanthropic venture, but a connected one. He visited villages in India and asked them what they needed. They didn't require handouts, they required clean water, electricity, agricultural help. Bhargava set out to create a lab in Michigan with a number of mechanics and engineers, scientists to invent equipment that could produce clean water, desalinate water, produce electricity with little cost, improve the soil in areas where over-farming had depleted the nutrient-makeup of the soil. He also came up with the idea of finding organizations that were actually already making a difference in these villages (needing only the funds to continue their work) and he invested in them. In fact, Mr. Bhargava gives away 90% of his wealth to improve the lives of others, to give them the tools to succeed in life. This has not only helped those in India, but his inventions are now being used all over the world. How amazing is that?!
Manoj Bhargava's called Billions in Change:
Full video documentary: 
In a lot of ways, I look at Steemit as a tiny microcosm of this - a platform to which to launch our passions and creativity/ideas in a community that embraces it.
So how do we tap into our innate AMAZING selves in order to transcend the world and find meaning and purpose in our own lives?
As I stated earlier, I think it's been right under our noses all along. It's always been within us and played out in the stories of some of the most famous success stories. 'We' are the AMAZING by way of our passions/creativity.
Something that most creatives can relate to, 'being in the flow', is at the heart of this. It's that non-cluttered state we reach when we are fully absorbed in the moment of creativity. It can also occur in a moment of immense inspiration. The mind becomes quiet and we are merely living in the moment. That's it!
I have been fascinated lately with a project called, The Flow Genome Project Source. It is basically a project that has studied and successfully implemented ways in which to reach full human potential by way of tapping into that 'creative flow state'. Something that we've known very little about and something that many self-help books have written about but not to the extent of understanding what creates this unlimited flow state of creativity. This goes well beyond conventional thinking into the realm of 'unlimited' potential and creativity - something that I believe human beings are quite good at which AI could never duplicate.
Interestingly enough,
the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders took 12 professional rappers and ran them through an fMRI machine. While their brains were being scanned, the artists listened to an 8-bar instrumental track and were asked to rap -- first memorized lyrics and then their own, unrehearsed rhymes. That is, what academics call "spontaneous lyrical improvisation...what they noticed was that during freestyle, there were significant changes in the pre-frontal cortex...The areas implicated in processes like organization and drive were marked by an increase in activity, while those parts responsible for close self-monitoring and editing were deactivated. In this context, the authors explain, "self-generated action is freed from the conventional constraints of supervisory attention and executive control," allowing sudden insights, seemingly unbidden, to emerge."
And in fact, the researchers believe that when they're freestyling, the artists are actually occupying an altered state of mind. A closer look at their brain activity reveals that an entire, unique network emerges during the process, one in which motivation, language, emotion, motor function, sensory processing and the representation of the artists' subject experience all interact in unusual ways to create the flow state.
"Here, the researchers called special attention to increased activity that was observed in the part of the brain associated with the inner self, the subjective perspective unmediated by outside stimuli. That improvisation is the expression of an artist's musical voice, they argue, further strengthens these associations. It raises the question: Could this mean that we're most genuine during the first stage of the creative process, later to be mediated during the revision stage by outside constraints?"
"There are moments when one feels free from one's own identification with human limitations and inadequacies. At such moments one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet, gazing in amazement at the cold yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable; life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor destiny; only Being." Albert Einstein
According to Steven Kotler, Director of the Flow Genome Project, if you have trouble finding what your passion is, there are 4 steps that can help in making this determination and turning on that 'flow state': Source
Step One: Make A List
- Write 25 things that you are curious about (detailed)
Step Two: Hunt for Intersections
- Look for places where these 25 ideas intersect
- You want to look for places where three or four items on your curiosity list intersect
- Whenever we recognize a pattern, the brain releases a tiny squirt of the neurochemical dopamine and, for cultivating passion, this is a very big deal.
Step Three: Play
- Identifying that overlap, play in that space for a little while. Devote 10 or 20 minutes a day to listening to lectures, watching videos, reading articles, books, whatever, on the topic. Feed those curiosities a little bit at a time, but feed them on a daily basis.
Step Three: Go Public (Steemit!)
- The thing about cultivating real passion is it’s not just enough to locate those spots where multiple curiosities intersect. Sure, those are spots with lots of energy. Sure, playing in that arena will help with cultivation, but to really seal the deal you need some “public successes” in the area.
- We humans are social creatures and adding social reinforcement to your passion is key.
Step Four: Turning Passion Into Purpose
- Write down a list of 15 massive problems you would love to see solved. And by massive I mean something everyone has to deal with. Another of the points made in Bold is that the world’s biggest problems are the world’s biggest business opportunities.
- Look for places where your passion intersects with a grand, global challenge. A place where your passion is a solution to some giant problem.
- Suddenly, you’re looking at both a golden business opportunity and a way to use your new found passion to do some real good in the world. Now you have a real deal Massively Transformative Purpose.
If I were asked again today what kind of career I would like to have, I would have the same simple answer, "I just want to do something that makes me happy and has meaning."
I think this is probably one of the items on my 'passion list' - one of the most important items. This is the kind of thing that gives me chill bumps just thinking about it - seeing human potential and creativity transcend the world into something AMAZING.