Me (playing black) being successful in 21 moves

“You are so successful!

I have been privileged enough to hear people say this to me.  And invariably – inside – my superconscious thinks: “I am not that successful”.

I have also been told: “You are a total failure!”

And yet again I found myself wanted to rebel and deny: “No I am not a failure, I am successful!”

Not sure how many others – including the readers of this blog – have had a similar experience.  A bit contradictory I suppose.  True and not true at the same time.

Similar moments have made me reflect about success, what it is and who is really successful.  I have not seen the movie, but a yoga master (also my teacher, even if my experience in yoga consists so far in a three minutes – albeit successful! – lesson) was telling me about the Stephen Hawking bio movie; and how it made the audience reflect on how successful his wife has been.

I have met successful people: my mum, several friends and you (actually many “yous” reading this for sure).  People with different characteristics, pursuits and passions.  What do they have in common?

The confusion about the concept of success is that we combine – or disregard – the fact that success has several facets.

In my view, there are two primary axes of success:

– Personal

– Public

Personal success is about what we achieve in our personal sphere, in our relationships, family, knowledge and thoughts.  My mum is indeed “just a housewife” but what she has accomplished as mum, sister, grandmother, mentor, auntie: it is so large that no one who has met her can deny she has been enormously successful.  Yet the only public notoriety she achieved was when she picked up a poetry prize awarded to my sister (who was too shy to go).  And of course her picture on my facebook page got more than 20 likes.

Public success is what we most commonly refer to.  Sport heroes, celebrities of different types, politicians, scientists and executives.  Various modern heroes of Schumpeterian typology displayed as example of behaviour and dream realisation.  Many successful people on the public domain have indeed achieved something special.  It ought to be recognised and celebrated.  However, what if a Nobel prize winner is – say – a wife beater.  Would this scum still deserve to be called a Success?  I think not, and many would agree.

 

So to me Success is about integration and fulfilment, both on the private and public dimension.  Contributing to others and contributing to ourselves.  A tall order.  But achievable.

And – key point in this post – often forgotten.

So I reckon we need to celebrate those who achieve the right balance. There are many amongst us: my mum again, my yoga teacher (with a charismatic style and immense creativity), President Pertini of Italy, Richard Benaud and many of you reading this.

I acknowledge that there are similarities between the two axes framework I propose to define true success and the brilliant work by Carlo Cipolla, the brilliant historian.  In his work on intelligence, Cipolla defined as Intelligent those whose action contributed to their own betterment as well as that of society.

Hence, it seems there is a logical sequitur between intelligence and success.

As I close, I would like to mention an obvious third dimension of success: Spiritual / Religious success.

Or course one can be successful in front of God, or the Spirit.  However, I find it dangerous to keep this dimension as separate, and I prefer to simply integrate it in the area of personal success.  A person who chooses to go to a spiritual retreat can be very successful, So can be the pious lady.  Or the atheist giver.

However, religious success has often become an overriding, dangerous source of fanaticism.  The idiotic and evil suicide bomber who achieves (he thinks – the moron) religious success by destroying his/her own life and that of others is a primary example of what is wrong by separating and isolating spiritual success from a more balanced approach.

In conclusion, success is about personal and social contribution.  Exploitation and delivery on our personal talents.  The setting, and pursuit, of nice big dreams.

And – as Ashton Kutcher said – “Success looks a lot like hard work”.