What constitutes success?

obviously it's quantified by what others think of you - never mind what you want for yourself/what you enjoy - always remember: it's other peoples' opinions that really matter in life

By no means am I part of the successful cohort - as I am a recent graduate, unemployed and beginning my path toward "success" - but I've been trying to add opinion to topics, so I'm not simply "using" the forum for Information.

What constitutes success is totally dependent upon your own definition of success ---> which IMO is totally and subjectively dependent upon your environment or where your from, which is the stance your taking, correct? I'm a firm believer that your a product of your environment in the sense that although you are totally free to change your circumstances, it is no doubt ingrained in your character, morals, personality, outlooks on life/society everything.

I think that it is hard to ignore the abstract opinion especially as society is constantly changing but also constantly the same in many ways. People change over time - and I think that what you are exposed to early on will have a huge effect on the decisions you make and shape your outlook so much so that your decisions subconsciously stem from those experiences and ultimately decide the people who you surround yourself with. At different times in your life, the importance of the company you keep relative to their influence or ability to impact your decisions and ideas, will change.

Personally, my goals and ideas about success changed rapidly from the end of high school through college and I look back now and see that as my idea of success in terms of my goals and what I wanted changed, so did the people who I desired to be around. For me I got sick and tired of hanging with my "lax bros" all day playing FIFA (don't get me wrong these people are still my brothers and I am guilty of wanting the new PS4/GTA5) more and more each day to the point where it made me a little bit disgusted that they didn't have a similar progression. So as your ideas on success change I think you tend to migrate towards people who share at least similar or common goals that will resonate with your idea of success.

I guess in a way you really can't avoid being concerned with the abstract because you tend to have concern for the abstract on a smaller scale anyway. Ultimately I think that success is measured relative to your own definition and to those more directly around you and your peers at a given point in time. For the plumber, he is without a doubt a success - someone who is a plumber wouldn't measure their own success against Bill Gates or Elon Musk - they hang their hat on totally different things.

An American investment banker was taking a much-needed vacation in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. The boat had several large, fresh fish in it.

The investment banker was impressed by the quality of the fish and asked the Mexican how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.” The banker then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican fisherman replied he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman replied, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos: I have a full and busy life, senor.”

The investment banker scoffed, “I am an Ivy League MBA, and I could help you. You could spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats until eventually you would have a whole fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to the middleman you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You could control the product, processing and distribution.”

Then he added, “Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City where you would run your growing enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then?” asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You could make millions.”

“Millions, senor? Then what?”

To which the investment banker replied, “Then you would retire. You could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

I would say that success is the level of achieving one's goals with regards to one's potential, meaning that success is relative, rather than absolute. Ceteris paribus, it is much easier to be successful if you are born and bred in a rich family, with your life pretty much set up for success, than if you are born poor and are on the brink of "extinction".

To make a familiar analogy -- In finance no one asks you how you performed in terms of $. You won't say: "I made $10 MM", because it would obviously be different if you started out with $100K or if you started out with $1bn... What people would most be interested in was how you performed %-wise.

Thus, I would argue that if one started off from absolutely nothing, and made something of him/herself (e.g. from born homeless to a financier in New York), one would then be more successful than someone who started off as a son/daughter of a magnate and just inherited a multi-billion dollar company. Now, an important distinction: The magnate's offspring would obviously be more powerful, but the self-made financier would be more successful.

Disclaimer: Just my $0.02.

Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be

See my sign off for further details.

Depends on the person.

I find it interesting that the OP's question what defines success: (a) how you measure up against people from your background or (b) how you compare to the broader population? I think that in and of itself (without passing judgement) says a lot about the mentality with which he lives his life; i.e., success only exists is on a relative basis.

I think there is a broad spectrum. 1. There are people that don't even bother asking that question because they're not concerned with success, period. 2. There are people who would be more concerned with what does success "look" like. I.e., they're more concerned with possessing the semblances of success, whether they are in fact successful or not. 3. There are people who wonder how have a quantum of success adequate to be considered "successful". 4. There are people satisfied by doing well for themselves... the example OP gave of an underprivileged person having success relative to his peers but not outside of the scope of his peers. 5. There are people in the 2nd example he gave of being successful relative to all other people, regardless of where you come from. 6. Then there is the person who considers success on an absolute basis. Accomplishment is only limited by the realm of the possible and not by what may or may not already have been accomplished by others. (obviously a much rarer breed)

I probably view other people through the lens of #4. I'd be fairly impressed by someone that came from the projects of Saint Louis and went on to graduate from college and have a well paying job. Meanwhile I'd be much less impressed by the son of a wealthy family who went to college and went on to work in private wealth management at a firm that makes money managing his family's money. Its dependent on the resources they've had available to them.

But I'd consider success for myself somewhere in between 5 and 6.

But honestly I think astronomically successful people don't even bother themselves with these types of questions.. ie what is personal success. I think the Steve Jobs and Elon Musks of the world want to change the world for the better and they are remarkably tuned in to driving innovation to accomplish this. Success for them is having that project, cause, idea reach fruition. Which is an absolute perspective. I don't think Steve Jobs would have been happy having made it to step 6 before failing and disappearing into oblivion just because everyone before him only made it to step 4.

I just want to echo many of the sentiments in this thread. I think for success one has to look inward. My old boss was a a real hitter (helicopter to midtown commute everyday)...he was one of the most unhappy people I knew, despite having more cash then he could reasonably spend and all the right social positions.

I think as long as you aren't leaching off others, meaning you pay more in taxes then you take out...AND you do whatever the fuck makes you the most happy...you are a true success. If that is a shithole apartment and playing XBox all day...cheers to you. You are the only one that lives your life. If you gain immense pleasure from that, you are more successful than 99.9% of the population.

From the viewpoint of our only reason for our existence, success is the ability to go home every night and lay pipe in a dime slam piece. If that's what your idea of a plumber is, sign me up.

All that matters is your own definition of success. The individual determines whether him or herself is "successful." Personally I would never deem myself a success because I would become complacent.

I'm going to be completely honest and state that success isn't something I've quite figured out yet.

In my opinion, you always measure the degree of success by looking at the capabilities someone has. If you have very limited capabilities but you still manage to get a decent job (such as plumber), do well, and you can keep up your family, you're reasonably successful. If you're a smart guy who had to become a plumber because you dropped out of college due to an excessive use of alcohol or laziness, you're a loser. Success is often relative in my opinion.

Doing what suits your interest. If you wake up and like what you're doing, you're successful. Not much else to it.

success is having a goal and achieving it...simple as that.

When the big wheel starts to spin, you can never know the odds... If you don't play you'll never win...

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill

http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/how-do-you-judge-success

similar thread here if you wanted to check past responses

Being the person your dog thinks you are, not your cat.

I think the primordial essence of success is simply defined as being able to meet goals.

Now the 'controversy' comes from the fact that this is dependant on 'whose' goals they are.

I personally believe that having 'personal' goals and meeting them will make you feel personally successful (biologically you'll get a hit of dopamine+ serotonin), whilst if you meet the goals of others, i.e. it becomes a competitive pursuit, then that also can be seen as success, but that now you are exposed to others expectations (this hit of hormones is then based on your perception of other people's perception of whether you are able to meet their set goals). Then finally there's the 'universally' successful, and that is simply being competitive with the common thought of the day (i.e. success in the dark ages vs success now is different).

I've found success is a personal matter, it all depends on our own ambitions, goals, and personal bias. I know friends of mine who are teachers making 47k a year, married, looking at starting a family at the age of 24. I also know people in their early 30s who are single, no intention of getting married any time soon, put a lot more time into their jobs and make a much higher wage. Both are happy and live productive lives and I would define them as successful because of that despite their vastly different incomes and careers.

Is the guy that never gets married and ends up kicking the bucket with no family or friends but is worth $100 million more successful than the blue collar worker who passes surrounded by his wife, kids, and grandkids? I don't think that's a questions that has a definitive answer. I think we all have our own personal definitions of what success is.

I just wanna throw endless monkey shit for starting this debate... Its a "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" / "grass is always greener...." debate where there there is no right answer and its all relative

Good to see Marcus posting again, I need to buy credits to SB that first response. On Marcus's list, I try to be #4, but I too find myself ultimately at 5/6.

Truly successful people probably tune out a lot of this noise. I'm not there yet.

"Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming." - John Wooden

I'm not convinced yet that we technically live in a world with objective absolutes. People view everything differently than one another based on how we view and interact with the world. As discussed above this is due to a host of social and economic factors relate to your development.

I think you need to hit a critical mass in regards to people's individual subjective opinions on an issue to create an 'objective' fact. When enough people view something the same way, it can be thought of as part of our objective reality (only a fraction of the population will see it differently).

Defining success as your relative position to others is intellectually lazy. It doesn't require you to really examine yourself and your beliefs, figure out what drives you. It's much easier to make take comparables with variables that are easily defined and promoted by our culture as important.

Charlie Sheen is the definition of success.

Success is not what you accomplish, its what you overcome - Ja Rule

lol

The term success is so widely used in today's society, we have really lost the true definition of success. Success as it seems to be is widely associated with money, fame, prestige, and approval. The latter being he most obvious as “fitting in” is clearly essential to not only live, but thrive and grow successful in society. I mean who doesn't think that neurosurgeon pulling up in a Porsche in a multi-million dollar home with a Harvard degree hanging in his office, is the epitome of successful. Or that boxer who fought his way to the top, and continues to dominate with nights being spent with beautiful Brazilian models, closets full of Italian leather, and silk ties, and a garage loaded with Ferraris, and Lamborghinis at his disposal to satisfy the need to be thrilled.

But is this really who we are aiming to be?

This shell of a human being that's sole purpose is to obtain these materialistic objects, that will one day no doubt be nothing more than floating matter in space, that one day we won't be anything more than that. 

I think success neither falls under money (which by the way is just paper used as an excuse by humans to not kill themselves over bread), nor does it fall under social approval. Success in my words falls under passion, hard-work, and happiness. 

Stephen king once defined life to be boring without work, how long can one be on a vacation before the need to occupy time fills his head. No. It's this idea of passion that most clearly dominates the mind of truly successful people. They don't care about money, nor about prestige, they care more about going the next level. Achieving more, not for the sake of doing so, but from the thrill, and experience they gain from such an endeavor. 

Working hard for what you believe in, and seeing the beauty of this lifeless yet full of life goal take shape is by far, the best definition of success that I can come up with. The happiness that you seek from the experience, the presence of knowing that you worked your ass off without any fear of failure, and to see that fruit of success in a form of achievement, is what every successful man in this world has aimed for. 

You see, the people who do it to prove something, to gain approval of this “society”, get lost in achieving what you really gain from success. The experience. They don't realize that the fatal mistakes they kill themselves over, are actually just another step closer to success, and really it's nothing more than that. They see success as a linear path, a path defined only by ups, and not downs. They don't see that it's not the end goal that matters, but the journey, and what you gain from that journey. Sure the idea of having a vision is important, but they never go back to the present, they always stay in the future, and see the present as a mistake. 

If they realize that conquering the minute, not the decade, is really the first step, they will set themselves up to a much more peaceful, patient, and successful life. You see once you start conquering the minute, then you go for the hour, as hours pass by, you start conquering the day. And at that point, you realize that the battle is won. For then, you wake up the next day, and repeat the process, not hindering your will by focusing on small setbacks, but learning from them, and moving on, and as you conquer the days, weeks roll by. You see change, you see yourself getting stronger, better, more efficient. You stop with this thinking of constant failure, and start with this idea of a positive future, full of success and failure. As weeks roll, months pass, your hard-work takes on a real form, and you see a reflection of what once you were, you never want to go back. You keep failing, yet you keep succeeding, and as years pass, you realize that you are in that future. You are in that time, that you once sat at, and used to daydream about. You realize there's no point wasting time, wanting something only for the end goal. You learn that what you learned in these past years is much more valuable than what you achieved as of now. You walk home from work one day, reflecting over your past, having a vision, but not living in the future, you enter your home. Lock the door. Go to your bedroom. Lie down. Close your eyes. And repeat with arms wide open to welcome failure.

Bit folksy but "Being able to have a shave and like the person staring back at you from the mirror" is the way my dad explained success to me when I was younger.

Success is often a non quantifiable attribute as it is relative. If you can like who you are, then you're doing better than some people.

+1 for the Winston Churchill quote. Who can't like a guy that starts his morning with champagne?

To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Two chicks at the same time.

My goal in life has always been to work hard, profit, accumulate capital and use my life experience, knowledge and accumulated capital to help those who can't help themselves.

It is, after all, not the case that everyone is born into this world with the same opportunities. I was lucky, and I feel indebted to my fellow humans who have not been as lucky.

If I can manage to do this, and in my lifetime improve the world even just a little bit, I will consider my life and existence a success.