Success

For many people, there’s a race to obtain some measure of success. When I lived in China, I was shocked at how hard students would study in order to get good grades and one day get high marks on ‘the test’ – their final test that would give them the number/score required to get into ‘good’ university.

Students would wake up at 5am in order to study before they went to school. After school, many students would spend time with a tutor before studying until midnight. They’d repeat this process every single day until they graudated high school. It seemed like an exhausting pace to keep up with – and it was.

When I burst into the “E-scene” – entrepreneur scene ‘ I remember the feeling of every conference, hackathon and venture pitch I ever went into; you could cut the feeling of ‘wanted success’ in the air with a knife. I remember working out of incubators, fractional offices and coffeeshops with fellow entrepreneurs who all wanted the same thing.

Success.

When I lived in Los Angeles, I’d frequent the house of a man who hosted frequent parties for those in the ‘e-scene’. Tucked away in the hills of Bel Air, the home was as extraordinary as the people who flocked there on the weekends. Instead of young entrepreneurs chasing their dreams in incubators, the house was host to countless people who had already ‘made it’, wiht barely enough room on the streets for the Ferrari’s, Lambhorginis and Mclarens that roared in every night there was a party.

When I worked in Silicone Valley, there was a different flavor of this success-chasing. Venture-backed startups were filled with smart, fast-thinking employees (myself included) that worked hard to make it to unicorn status. It wasn’t the junior leage, as I saw in Ohio; it was the real deal, with hundreds of millions of dollars being invested in companies to help them reach their goal of market domination.

Throughout all of it, I ground my axe like the rest of them. I worked ridiculously long hours, popped Adderal and Modafinil like they were Sweet Tarts, and had more sleepless nights than restful ones. To some degree, those sleepless nights paid off because they helped me develop skill-sets and knowledge that would have been impossible to learn if I hit the snooze button.

Those ‘grind years’ paid off for me, though it took nearly two decades for them to pay off in a measurable way.

I think back to the days where I wanted success in a financial measure. I didn’t just want it; I craved it. It drove me to the point where I pushed my limits beyond what was healthy, and I eventually wound up in the office of a cardiolgist, who told me that if I didn’t stop drinking two pots of coffee a day, I wouldn’t have a long life.

That shocked me, but it didn’t truly stop that pace at which I drove myself. Rather, I just turned things down a notch.

A few years ago, I remember washing the dishes and thinking about the way that I’ve measured my life success – which was almost enitrely though a financial lens. Letting my imagination run wild, I asked myself how I would feel if I doubled, tripled or even 10x’d my income. It didn’t take long to realize that I’d still feel the same way I did in that moment; chasing the elusive ‘more’ that never lets you hang onto it for more than a second or two.

“What if you changed your version of success” I heard a voice say – I’ll attribute it to God.

“Instead of viewing yourself through a financial lens, what if you viewed yourself through the filter of values?”

Am I honest? Am I loyal? Am I generous? Do I have my priorities straight? Am I a good man, Dad, brother and son?

insteaed of having a spreadsheet-based approach to success, I now saw it through a spectrum of values. In that moment, I realized one important thing:

I could get a passing A+ grade that day, and every day that I lived up to the level of my values.

I slept like a baby that night.

Today, I view success in a different way than I did in my 20’s. It’s no longer about grinding hard to reach an IPO or cash out my businesses for millions of dollars. Rather, it’s to live every day in a manner where I do the things I love, with the people I love, on the timeline and schedule that I want.

To me, that’s more than enough.

As for money? No amount of it has ever brought me joy, nor do I anticipate that more than what I have will somehow change how it makes me feel. Money can’t buy a content heart, but it can sure distract you from all of the things in life that bring you joy.

From a dollars and cents perspective, I’ve reached the life[style] that I’ve always dreamed of; there are two cars in the garage (and one of them is a Porsche) a beautiful home, more than enough toys and electronics to keep me occupied, and a home full of musical instruments that I love to play. However, I also have control of my time – and that gives me the space and freedom to enjoy all of these things, far more than if I worked in finance on Wall Street.

Instead of 60-80 hour weeks, I now have to work less than 15-20. That, in and of itself, is an accomplishment because it’s representative of the difference between ‘working hard’ and ‘working smart’.

My greatest sense of accomplishment comes when Atlas whispers into my ear before falling asleep: “I love you.” while knowing that I have been able to provide him with an incredible day, as he did tonight.

Life is short. It’s gone in the blink of an eye and someday each of us will have to look back at the way we lived the heartbeats we were given. When that day comes, I don’t want to look back and have regrets that I missed out on the greatest treasures in life (in this case, Atlas) in exchange for things that could be bought with the cheapest commodity of all; money.