Does Success Really Exist?

I have been thinking about something lately that sounds like a strange question for someone writing a blog called The Rise of the Tycoon.

Does success really exist?

I don't mean whether people accomplish things. Of course they do. Businesses grow. Careers advance. People make money, buy homes, build companies, travel the world and achieve things they once thought were impossible. Dreams do come true, and I have lived long enough to see some of my own dreams become reality.

What I am beginning to question is something else.

Is there really a point in life when we finally arrive at this place called success and say, "This is it. I made it. I am successful now"?

Because the older I get, the more I notice something strange.

Every time we arrive somewhere we once desperately wanted to be, it doesn't take very long before we start looking somewhere else.

The Finish Line Keeps Moving

Think about your own life.

There was probably a time when simply getting a job felt like success. You wanted to earn your own money, pay your own bills and no longer depend on anyone else.

Then you got the job.

After a while, having a job was no longer enough. You wanted a better salary. A promotion. A better position. Maybe your own office.

Then perhaps you started thinking about business.

You imagined how wonderful it would be to become your own boss. No more asking permission. No more working to make somebody else rich. You would build something of your own.

Then you started the business and discovered that being your own boss actually means having customers, employees, suppliers, landlords, banks and government agencies who somehow all became your bosses.

Welcome to entrepreneurship.

Still, you continue.

You get your first customers. Then you want a hundred customers. You make your first million, and suddenly one million doesn't feel like very much. You open your first branch, and before the paint is dry you're already thinking about the second.

At some point, I started wondering: Where exactly is success in all of this?

Was it the first job? The promotion? The first million? The first business? The tenth million? The house? The car? The number of employees?

Or have we created a finish line that moves every time we get close to it?

Maybe Success Is Always Somewhere Else

One of the problems with success is that we usually measure it by looking at other people.

You can be perfectly happy with your business until you meet someone with a bigger one. You can feel proud of your house until you visit somebody else's house. You can celebrate earning your first million until you discover that someone younger than you just made a hundred million.

Suddenly, what felt like success yesterday starts feeling strangely ordinary today.

Social media has made this even more interesting. Every day we are given a front-row seat to other people's achievements. Someone is opening another branch. Someone bought a new car. Someone is travelling in Europe. Someone raised millions for a startup. Someone is receiving an award. Someone is standing beside a swimming pool telling us how to become financially free.

Meanwhile, you are sitting at home trying to remember whether you paid the electric bill.

Comparison has a remarkable ability to turn blessings into disappointments.

The problem is that there will always be someone ahead of us in something. If success means having more than the next person, then very few people will ever feel successful for very long.

So Who Is More Successful?

Imagine two people.

One builds a company worth hundreds of millions. He works constantly. He has properties, employees, investments and all the visible evidence of achievement. People admire him. Business magazines want his story.

But he barely sees his family. His children grew up while he was working. His health is deteriorating. He sleeps badly. He trusts very few people, and despite everything he owns, he rarely feels at peace.

Now imagine another person.

He owns a small business. Nobody writes about him. He will probably never appear on the cover of a magazine. His income is comfortable but nowhere near spectacular.

But he has enough. He eats dinner with his family. His children know him. He sleeps peacefully. He has time for friends. He helps people when he can. He wakes up grateful for another day.

Which one is successful?

I don't know.

And perhaps that's the point.

We have spent so much time trying to become successful that maybe we never stopped to define what success actually means.

Money Matters — Let's Not Pretend It Doesn't

Whenever people start talking philosophically about success, there is a temptation to say that money doesn't matter.

I don't believe that.

Money matters.

Try telling someone who cannot afford medicine that money doesn't matter. Tell a parent struggling to pay tuition that money isn't important. Tell an entrepreneur with employees waiting for their salaries that money is just a number.

Money solves real problems.

Financial success gives us choices. It gives us security. It allows us to take care of our families, create opportunities, help other people and sometimes simply sleep better at night.

There is nothing wrong with wanting more money. There is nothing wrong with building wealth. This blog is called The Rise of the Tycoon, after all. I'm hardly going to tell you to throw away your ambitions and live under a mango tree.

Although on particularly stressful business days, the mango tree does sound attractive.

The danger is not money.

The danger is believing that a certain amount of money will finally settle the question of whether our life has been successful.

Because there will always be another number.

Maybe Success Has an Expiration Date

Something else bothers me about the traditional idea of success.

Everything we achieve eventually becomes yesterday's achievement.

The award gathers dust. The new car becomes an old car. The beautiful house eventually needs repairs. The position you worked so hard to get will someday belong to someone else.

Even the company you spend decades building may eventually be managed by people who never knew the sacrifices it took to create it.

That doesn't make achievement meaningless. It simply puts achievement in perspective.

We spend enormous amounts of our lives collecting things, titles and accomplishments that we cannot permanently keep.

And yet we sometimes sacrifice things that cannot easily be replaced — time, health, relationships, peace — in order to acquire them.

Perhaps the question shouldn't only be, "What am I building?"

Maybe we should also ask, "What is this building doing to me?"

I Still Want More

I want to be clear about something.

I am not writing this because I have suddenly lost my ambition.

I still want to build.

I still want to create businesses, make investments, explore opportunities, earn more, learn more and see how far I can go.

There are still things I want to accomplish. There are still ideas in my head that refuse to leave me alone.

I don't think ambition is the enemy of contentment.

But I am beginning to understand that ambition becomes dangerous when we require achievement to give us permission to appreciate our lives.

There has to be a way to say, "Thank You, God, for what I have," while still saying, "Let me see what else I can do with what You have given me."

Gratitude and ambition do not have to fight each other.

Perhaps they were always meant to walk together.

Maybe Success Is Not a Place

Maybe that is where my thinking about success is changing.

Perhaps success is not somewhere we arrive.

Maybe it is not a particular amount in the bank. Maybe it isn't a company size, a job title, a house, a car or the number of people who know our name.

Perhaps success is something much more personal.

Maybe it is being able to provide for the people you love. Maybe it is having enough freedom to decide how you spend your time. Maybe it is building something that creates jobs for other people. Maybe it is being able to help your parents while they are still here. Maybe it is raising children who still want to sit beside you when they are adults. Maybe it is sleeping peacefully at night. Maybe it is surviving something you once thought would destroy you. Maybe success is simply becoming a better person than you were yesterday.

And perhaps that is why defining success for somebody else is almost impossible.

The life that looks ordinary to one person may be the exact life another person is praying for.

What Does God Call Success?

This is where the question becomes more personal for me.

I sometimes wonder whether God is impressed by the same things that impress us.

We count revenue. Properties. Companies. Titles. Followers. Awards. Investments. Achievements.

We like things that can be measured because numbers make comparison easy.

But perhaps some of the most important things in life cannot be placed on a spreadsheet.

How many people did you help? How many people became better because they met you? Did your family feel loved? Were you honest when dishonesty would have been easier? Did you forgive? Did you keep your faith when life stopped making sense? Did success make you more generous or simply more proud? Did you become richer while becoming poorer in everything else?

I don't know exactly how God measures a successful life.

But I suspect His accounting system is very different from ours.

The Rise of the Tycoon

Perhaps that is why this question matters to me so much.

I called this journey The Rise of the Tycoon because I believe in building wealth. I believe in entrepreneurship. I believe in financial independence, creating businesses and becoming better at what we do.

I still believe all of that.

But maybe the rise of a tycoon is not simply the story of someone becoming richer.

Maybe it is the story of someone becoming wiser.

Maybe there is no final version of the tycoon. Maybe there isn't a magical morning when we wake up, look at our bank account and receive an official notification from the universe saying, "Congratulations. You are now successful."

Maybe we just keep building, learning, failing, succeeding, losing, gaining, loving, forgiving and becoming.

And perhaps that is enough.

So, Does Success Really Exist?

I think accomplishments exist.

I think progress exists.

I think wealth exists. Growth exists. Achievement exists. Purpose exists.

But success?

I'm no longer sure it is a destination.

Maybe success is simply our name for those moments when the life we are living becomes aligned with the life we believe is worth living.

And that definition may change as we change.

The things I considered success twenty years ago are not necessarily the things I consider success today. I suspect twenty years from now — God willing — I may look back at what I am writing now and realize I still had much to learn.

That's okay.

Perhaps life was never about finally arriving.

Perhaps it was always about becoming.

Someday, every business we built, every property we owned, every title we carried and every amount we accumulated will belong to somebody else.

And when that day comes, perhaps the most important question will not be:

"How successful were you?"

Maybe the better question will be:

"What did you do with what you were given?"

For now, I think that's a question worth building a life around.

Angelo R. Villamejor
The Rise of the Tycoon