Latest / The Talent Brief / Success According to Who?
Transcript
- Jeff Ganter: Welcome back to the Talent Brief. This week's topic actually hit me a little harder than I expected. The more I sat with it, the more I realized this isn't just something I've been hearing from other people. It's something I've been asking myself. Lately, I've been noticing a pattern. People tell me about the promotion, the business that they've built, the title they've worked years to earn, the goals they've finally reached. From the outside, everything looks exactly as it's was supposed to. Then somewhere in the conver conversation, they'll quietly say, I thought I'd feel different. That sentence has been sitting with me. Not because I think they're questioning their success. I think they're questioning why it doesn't feel like success. And if I'm honest, I've been wrestling with that question myself. After more than 21 years of building a company I'm incredibly proud of, I found myself asking something I never expected. If I've achieved the version of success I spent years working toward, why do I feel pulled towards something completely different? That wasn't failure. That was a signal. It made me wonder if I've been asking ourselves the wrong question all along. Instead of asking am I successful? Maybe we need to be asking successful according to who? When we're young, we're handed all kinds of definitions. Success means getting good grades, landing the right job, buying the house, climbing the ladder, working harder than everyone else, staying busy, being indispensable. Some of those ideas come from our families. Some come from our society. Some come from our careers. Some come from social media. And none of them are necessarily wrong. But somewhere along the way, I think many of us stop asking whether those definitions actually belong to us. We inherit a definition of success long before we've ever asked to define it for ourselves, and maybe that's because identity forms long before awareness does. The roles we play, the expectations we carry, the version of ourselves we learn to become. It all quietly shapes what we believe success is supposed to look like. That's an interesting distinction. Because inheriting success and inheriting someone else's definition of success aren't the same. I've been noticing people with impressive careers who quietly feel disconnected. I've also been noticing people with far less status who seem deeply fulfilled. The difference rarely seems to be what they've accomplished. It often comes down to whether the life they're building actually reflects what they value. It's where signal versus scripts keeps showing up for me. The script says, keep climbing. The signal quietly asks, Is this even the ladder you wanted? Those are two very different conversations. Sometimes the signal isn't burnout. Sometimes it isn't frustration. Sometimes it's simply that quiet realization that you've arrived somewhere everyone else celebrates. While you're left wondering why it doesn't feel the way you imagined, that doesn't n necessarily mean you haven't succeeded. It might simply mean you've outgrown someone else's definition. The older I get, the more I believe success isn't something we discover once and keep forever. I think our definition evolves as we evolve. The career that mattered at 30 may not matter at sixty. The priorities that once drove us may no longer fit the life we're trying to create. And that's okay. I'm living that right now. I'm not walking away from what I've built. It's too personal. I'm walking towards something that feels more aligned with who I am today. Those are two very different things. Maybe success isn't about reaching a finish line. Maybe it's about having the courage to redefine it as your identity evolves. Okay, one last signal. The next time you find yourself chasing another milestone, pause. Ask yourself one simple question. If no one else had ever defined success for you, what would your version look like? Because the answer to that question may reveal far more about who you are. than anything you've ever achieved. Until next time, I'm your host, Jeff Cantor. Trust the signal, question the script. See you soon. Bye.