Latest / ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence / What Does Success Mean To You? | 2022 Recap

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What Does Success Mean To You? | 2022 Recap · ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_05: Doing what what's right for yourself and and make making the decisions that uh are gonna uh help yourself, help your family, and when you're an engineer, you can also help society, which is really a neat neat thing to be part of.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um you can be on the cutting edge of of new technologies, or you can be there fixing old technologies, and and I I think you know that can bring a great deal of personal satisfaction.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_05: The idea of just learning something new.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say it's uh it's really about just helping others and building good relationships.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at the end of the day, I don't want to be defined by how many data sets I run through uh or how many people I convince to buy a product.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's not it.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's really how we learn collectively as people and how we share that information to help the next generation.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: I tell people this, I am not a a self-made professional.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh everything I've learned has been at the benefit and the insights of other people.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and Pete Fader, he's mentioned several times in the book because we met more than a decade ago, where for no reason, except for just his approach, he's he's just a brilliant teacher, was like, I will help you learn this stuff.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're not a student of mine, you're you're a professional, but I just I want to teach you.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I've brought that to say, well, I'm happy to teach the next generation of people that come through.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: And when I look at that model, it just seems like a more satisfying way to go through life, to say, here's what we're learning, especially now at a time where we're connected at a greater depth at any point in human history, than how much information we can share and how greatly we can accelerate the next generation to say, we've tried, we failed, these were mistakes, but these were learnings.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I look at success, I don't think I'll ever be able to quantify it, to say these are how many people I impacted, nor would I want to, but just to say that I spent a majority of my time, you know, learning these lessons and then sharing them with the next generation to make them their own and do some more big things with.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_08: I think um being happy, right, and uh with whatever one has done, and um a good night's sleep.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_08: I think that's being successful because I think a person who's got the right conscience uh will will be able to sleep when he knows he's given it 100%.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_08: So that's success to me is funny.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_06: What does the word success mean?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_06: I well, you know, I think success is uh varies by by each person, each person has a measure of success.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_06: Uh but I think uh success is basically what do you want to achieve and how close are you to getting there, right?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_06: And so if you want to achieve building a big business, that's great.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_06: If you want to actually uh build a nonprofit and and provide lots of values to many consumers and people around the world, that's great.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_06: That's kind of your objective.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_06: Uh and so each each one of us has to define kind of what what they want to achieve.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_06: Um and success is how how closer are you getting to that?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_06: Um first you need to know where you want to be, right?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_06: There's this uh nice saying that I love to uh about uh Alice in Wonderland, the children's book.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_06: And uh Alice sees kind of uh um one of the you know this this this big rabbit in the woods, and Alice and Alice says, you know, uh which path should I take?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_06: Because there's many paths.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_06: And basically the rabbit says, uh, so where do you want to go?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_06: And she says, Well, I don't know.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_06: And the rabbit says, Well, then you can take any path.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_06: Any path will get you there.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_06: If you don't know where you're going, any path will take you there.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_06: So you need to know where you're going because or else you can't make decisions on which path, which route to take.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_06: Right?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_06: So I'd say that's you know, success is driving towards that end goal that you have in mind.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: The word successful, you know, sort of um means uh that you should be able to make a difference somewhere.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: Success is a it's hard to be rapid if I were that question.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: Success is an amorphous concept, but so quickly I'll say uh success is uh you know, uh obviously enough money to to support your family, live a decent life, but it is more importantly, it is about fulfilling your purpose in life and doing doing um um you know uh what you love to do in a way that gives you enough material success to live by.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I don't know.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh uh that's a very um uh question which will have different answers depending upon when you ask a person during the career or during their life.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: But as of now, I would say that as long as I can I continue to do what I want to do in my life, and uh um I get uh uh I mean I get the resources and uh things like that done.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm uh as long as I can do that, I'm very happy.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: And that is what a success is about because I have identified my passion, identified it, I am able to pursue it and continue doing it and excel at it.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_07: Um I I think now I do think that uh you know one should have uh my views are more uh you know kind of aligned towards trying to have a balance in life, not just professional success, but you know, things like family, things like society.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, I I think when when you are like at a certain age bracket and you look back at your life, you should be able to say that okay, you know, I did justice to different parts.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_07: That is not the way I used to think 10 years ago, honestly, where I was knee-deep in uh in running the startup.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_07: But I I think that's a change that I've seen in myself.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um I think it's really um the satisfaction of doing something difficult but important, and doing it in an ethical way with people that I care about.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So success is a combination of things.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: People will often say, well, it's not about the money.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, money is still very important.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you that.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I often say, I've tried rich, I've tried poor, let me tell you, rich is better.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not something where even just becoming rich allows you to stay rich because there's expenses and other things and people adjust over time.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So money is still important.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Traditional markets of success, like reputation, are still important.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Those are absolutely essential things that you should try to achieve, and you should not feel ashamed of saying, I want money, I want people to respect me, I want fame.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Those are all things it's okay to want, but they are not the most important things to want, right?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because our study of human psychology tells us that, in fact, the very wealthy tend to be less happy than the rest of us.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not just sour grapes, right?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: The incidence of divorce, the incidence of substance abuse, all these things rise dramatically.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: There was a study that was done just of people who are private jet owners.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the rates of all these negative things was enormously higher for them.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's true whether they were male or female, by the way.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: The women who were extremely wealthy were also just as likely to get divorced, have substance abuse problems.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes people blame this on men.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not true.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is a product of the environment.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's important to remember what actually makes people happy, and what actually makes people happy are a couple of specific things.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: These are drawn from a great book called Why We Do What We Do by Edward Decchi, who's an academic writing in the field of psychology, and this is really a book about motivation.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what the book says is that there are extrinsic motivations I just described.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be rich, I want to be famous, and then there are intrinsic motivations.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the intrinsic motivations are the ones where if you follow these motivations, you will be happier, you will be more productive, you will be uh more uh more of a help to the people around you.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's because the key intrinsic motivations are to have good relationships with the people you care about, to experience personal growth, ongoing personal growth, however you define it, and to be a part of something bigger by giving back to the community of people around you.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And these are things that are non-competitive.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: All of us can do all those various things, right?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: When we say rich and famous, it's always a question of being relatively rich or relatively famous.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be richer than the other people.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be famous.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there's studies that show that people would rather be twice as rich as their neighbors and yet than be half as rich and yet, you know, be much, much richer on an absolute scale.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a comparison.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe it was Theod Roosevelt who said comparison is the thief of joy.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: In contrast, the intrinsic motivations I'm talking about, you're not competing to say my relationships, my loved ones are better than your relationships with your loved ones.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: All you care about is that you have good relationships.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Your personal growth is like, I'm growing faster.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm growing relative to myself.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm giving back and taking part in something.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so those intrinsic motivations are so important.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I think when you want to define success, success means all the traditional markers of success, but the ones that will bring you true happiness and make you a better member of society are those intrinsic motivations, which again are good relationships with the people you care about, a sense of ongoing personal growth, and giving back and being a part of something bigger than yourself.