How to define your own success
[Music]
it’s
very unique to each of us but my simple
definition of success is
when you know what you want from life
and you’re actively pursuing it
let me say this again when you know what
you want from life
and you’re actively pursuing it let me
unpack the first part of this definition
a little bit
how do you even figure out what you want
from life it was josh billings who said
it is not only the most difficult thing
to know oneself but the most
inconvenient one too
your definition of success needs to
start with a deep understanding of who
you
are what your anchor in life is what are
you willing to sacrifice and for what
and as you think about this i would urge
you to ask three questions for yourself
number one what are the skills and
capabilities that you bring to
bring to life what is the value that you
bring to the world and not just today
what could it be
it’s not possible for the world to hold
a meeting and decide your value
that decision is yours you have to start
there number two
what does your peak look like leave lots
of room for
improvisation because we will learn we
will pivot we will change
we’ll all wander through lives but
having some sense of a not star will
give you direction
and number three what is the unique
outcome that makes
most sense for you in your life decide
your matrix
very very carefully and don’t just lived
on borrowed or social goals
it may very well change with the phase
you’re in life and as you evolve in life
but you have to be conscious and
specific about it otherwise you’re
trying to do everything for everybody
including yourself and in most cases
that leads to disappointment
i’ve seen many people in life many many
people in life who’ve lived their lives
climbing the ladder of success and once
they’ve reached the top
only to find that the ladder is leaning
towards the wrong wall
or in the case of this picture not
leaning anywhere at all
don’t be that person
so once you have a sense of what success
really means for you and what your
authentic and unique outcomes are and
what your matrix are
how do you make it happen is there
really a formula for success
and in full disclosure this formula that
i’m going to give you
is my nerdy take at what it takes to be
successful in life
i don’t recommend this is the only way
to do it but this seems to work for me
and i want to share it with all of you
success equals a growth mindset
purposeful engagement in learning the
depth and breadth of your relationships
constantly simplifying your life through
principles and habits
and having the courage to keep showing
up even when it hurts
all of this raised to the power of luck
now let me unpack each of these five
elements for you
growth mindset it starts with a growth
mindset and the fundamental premise of
the growth mindset is
that nothing is fixed nothing is carbon
in stone
who you are your intelligence your
learning capacity
your identity your emotions all of these
can be and need to be worked on all the
time
so be careful of the identity that
you’re developing and the stories that
you tell yourself
about what you’re capable of the key
here is the desire to evolve
and to get better every day this desire
is probably humanity’s most pervasive
driving force
but at times we do completely forget it
if you constantly remind yourself
life is growth an ongoing success can be
as meaningless as ongoing lack of
success
if you’re not constantly striving and
struggling for some goal worthy of you
and stretching yourself every day
purposeful engagement in learning now
you might argue that you know everything
that is there is that is there to know
about learning
but my submission today is that learning
is really misunderstood
the illusion of competence in learning
is more common than you and i think
i’m gonna give you my three ingredients
for real learning that worked for me
the first ingredient is focus in a world
full of distractions focus and
purposeful engagement is must for any
kind of learning
the question i ask myself every day is
that am i getting better at my craft
am i really getting better at my craft
and this really helps
me be a lot more purposeful a lot more
precise
and focused on what my learning needs
are focus is important because we only
see what we aim at
and the rest of the world which is
pretty much most of it is hidden
be careful what you’re really aiming at
because that’s all you’re seeing
number two a learning loop and this is
where deliberate practice really comes
in
learning is not about an odd book here
and there learning typically starts with
an experience
and by the way the more dramatic the
more diverse the experience it is the
better it is
you then move on to reflection this is
when you step back and think about what
you’ve learned
and you need to make the time and space
for it next comes abstraction which is
your ability to synthesize
and get to the real lesson or the so
what this is when you move in your mind
from hacks and
simple ideas to principles and mental
models
and then the fourth is action when you
really test your learning
and unless you constantly test the
nitrate on your thinking and you’re
learning
you’re not really learning the third
ingredient for learning
is zero intellectual insecurity zero
intellectual insecurity this is the
toughest one
the difference between sounding smart
and being smart
is i don’t know some of the sharpest
people i’ve known and i’ve worked with
use this phrase i don’t know all the
time and that shows humility and that
shows zero intellectual insecurity
remember it is impossible to get better
and look better at the same time
a mountaineer friend once told me are
you climbing the mountain to see the
world or for the world to see you
relationships let me tell you another
story and this is a personal story
one of my mentors many many years back
asked me to write down the
list of 10 relationships the 10 people
that that matter most to me
and the exact phrase my mentor used at
that time was who would you call punit
when you’re in real trouble
real trouble write down those ten names
so i took a piece of paper and
i wrote down the ten names that was easy
he then asked me to say listen draw two
columns against those ten names and
write two things against each of them
number one when was the last time you
meaningfully engaged with them
number two how are you adding value to
their lives
number one when was the last time you
purposefully and meaningfully engaged
with them and number two
how are you adding value to their lives
believe me this was a classic looking at
the mirror exercise
and i did not like what i saw out of the
10 in my list
there were only three that i was really
engaged with
and for one of them i was consciously
and proactively
adding value the irony here is
these are people these were the people
the 10 people who mattered most to me
and i would urge you to do i urge all of
you to do this exercise
it’s a great barometer for the depth of
your relationships and where you really
need to invest
the other thing that really matters
about relationships is the breadth of
your relationships
it’s not just the numbers right it’s the
diversity of your relationships
are you able to step out of your eco
chamber right and are you able to
have conversations with people who are
who have a fundamentally different view
of life people who will challenge you
people who will point out the blind
spots
as scott fitzgerald said the test of
intelligence is the ability to hold two
opposing ideas in your mind at the same
time
and still remain the ability to function
it’s really important to step out of
your echo chamber and have
have relationships and conversations and
and and these interactions with people
who are
thinking about life very differently
because that’s what makes you reflect
and think so have more serendipity in
who you meet
and how who you build relationships with
you’ll be surprised how spending time
with people outside your eco chamber
will stretch and stimulate your thinking
simplifying life now before i get to the
how on simplification of life
let me explain why why do you even need
to simplify your life why does it matter
our brains have severe limitations and
most of the time we don’t even realize
these limitations
our brains also indulge in this desire
of ours to see the world as black and
white
as and we excel at telling ourselves the
narrative of being in control because
quite honestly not being in control is
is uncomfortable as kids we loved
hearing stories
as adults we loved believing in them no
surprises i started this talk today with
a story
also given how life is becoming more and
more interesting and dynamic every day
some would argue it’s getting more and
more complex every day you need to be
able to focus your energy and mental
space on things that truly matter
are you going to use your mind to think
or are you going to use that as a
warehouse of facts
that’s a call you have to take now let’s
talk about
the how simplifying your life and to me
the toolkit has two parts
it starts with principles principles are
macro level beliefs
that guide hundreds of decisions for you
they allow you to live your life
according to your values
literally based on what you value in
life they’re not a roadmap or a plan or
a checklist
but they’re almost like a personal
constitution or a compass
i’ll give you a couple of examples to
bring this to life one of my personal
principles is frugality
but not on experiences frugality but not
on experiences
in other words i value and spend on
experiences over possessions
now this has dramatically simplified the
decisions i take when it comes to
thinking about buying the next new shiny
object it could be the next car it could
be the next gadget
and it really simplifies my thinking
because my principle is clear and
and this is what my value is at work one
of my work principles is
believe in myself but remember it is not
about you
and this is really helpful for me in two
ways number one
it allows me in fact it pushes me to
trust my gut
not second guess the decisions i take
not be tentative
feel entitled to the time and space i
have but the same time
as i continuously remind myself it is
not about me and i don’t need to take
things personally
it’s a big burden off my shoulders so
frame your own principles
and again you can frame them for your
work your personal life
they will evolve over time it’s a
nitration it’s a journey but please pay
attention to the things and the
decisions in life that make you most
uncomfortable
that’s where your principles will emerge
from don’t just lift and shift somebody
else’s principles
you can borrow ideas but you cannot
borrow conviction this has to come from
within
the other toolkit the other part of the
toolkit of simplifying life is habits
and one thing i’ve learned in 20 years
of working is there are no defining
moments of blinding insights
that will transform me what will make me
better
is small consistent improvements on a
daily basis so be
conscious about your daily habits are
they taking you in the direction of the
person you want to be
just show up this is the discipline of
not selling yourself short
and not giving up even if it hurts
and even when giving up seems easy and
the convenient thing to do
we give up and fire ourselves even
before somebody else can
for several reasons i’ll give you a
couple number one because
number one we give up because we are our
own worst critics
the greatest human weakness today is
self-replication
selling ourselves short the other reason
we give up is we hate operating in
uncertainty
it is surprising but you and i will
choose unhappiness over uncertainty
in several moments in life we will
choose unhappiness over uncertainty
that’s how terrified we are of of not
knowing where we are going
one thing i’m trying to learn every day
is the ability to be comfortable with
being uncomfortable
and this is a really really important
superpower for me
successful people are just like the rest
of us the big difference is they keep
showing up
in spite of the pain the uncertainty the
fears the self-talk the self-deprecation
they keep showing up they don’t give up
and i would suggest two things
to keep showing up in life and maintain
forward momentum number one
it is really important to not believe
everything you think
don’t believe everything you think who
are you beyond the stories in your head
what are the five stories you’ve been
telling yourself about yourself since
your childhood
write these down are these really true
number two action cures fear
next time you experience fear steady
yourself isolate your fear
pin it down and then take action
and finally remember it’s not just
enough to show up you have to show up
well
being enthusiastic is worth 25 iq points
it truly is
so life it up in everything you do your
handshake your smile your talk
believe me it will be noticed and will
make a difference
and success truly can be a flywheel as
each of these five components i’ve
spoken about
starting with a growth mindset
purposeful engagement in learning
relationships with the depth and the
breadth of it simplifying your life
constantly through principles and habits
and just showing up even when it hurts
all of these five
work as a virtual cycle and help you
build forward momentum
and as the flywheel spins up you’re
increasing the opportunities and the
surface area you have
for two things for learning which is
what you know and relationships which is
who you know
very early in my life one of my mentors
told me it is very difficult to fail in
life
if you do two things only two things
constantly learn new things
and build relationships and this
flywheel helps you do that
so that’s my simple formula for success
and i call it the success flywheel
how can we forget luck if you remember
my formula it was all of these five
things raised to the power of luck
i do believe luck has a disproportionate
impact on life but your life is too
important to be left to chance
there’s a way you can work your way
towards being luckier in life
and that’s where the success flywheel
comes in it helps you continuously
increase your luck surface area
and be prepared to get lucky if you’re
well prepared to be lucky
perhaps luck is more likely to find you
let me tell you one last story and this
is about joseph heller who’s the author
of the famous book catch 22 which many
of us have read
joseph was at a party once uh this was a
party being hosted by a billionaire
hedge fund manager
and somebody in the party got joseph and
said to him
do you know the host of the party which
is a hedge fund manager has made
more money in a single day yesterday
than you mr heller
have made with the earnings of your
wildly popular book catch 22.
hello paused for a minute and responded
he said yes but i have something
he will never have enough
i love this word enough most of us will
never feel successful enough or loved
enough or rich enough or fit enough
you can pick your category and the
highest we have on this heronic
treadmill will only last a day or two
it is always good to remind ourselves
that life isn’t fun without a sense of
enough
life isn’t fun without a sense of enough
i’ve used metaphors of
success and life being a ladder or a
mountain
but life isn’t a mountain which has a
summit it’s not a game with a final
score
life is an endless process of
self-discovery you can’t make joy and
happiness a goal
it has to be a practice it’s a choice
it’s a muscle that you develop and
exercise
every day going back to the elephant in
the room i’m sorry not the elephant in
the room
but the elephant in the camp you have to
think about this
right you can’t let your limiting
beliefs hold you back
from aiming high in life growing every
day but at the same time
you can’t let these beliefs these
limiting beliefs hold you back
from experiencing life and life is to be
found in the present moment
not in the future or the past it was
ariana huffington who said life is a
dance between making it happen and
letting it happen
and i hope and i really hope i made you
think a little differently today about
both these dances
i wish you all the best may you have the
courage
to define what you really want from life
actively pursue it
and never stop growing thank you
you