What does “success” mean to You?

Friend from my previous job asked this question: “What does success mean to You"?

One of the answers that I remember he got was:

“Get “brand recognition" of my name, and get a job with monthly salary of 40,000 PLN."

(I'm not sure if “brand recognition" is correct phrase – I mean that he wanted his name/person to be well known among people working in the same area as he is.

40,000 PLN – to give some perspective, is a bit over 10% of value of new Jaguar XK convertible (not XKR).

I would like to ask You, to tell me what does “success" mean to You. What would You have to achieve to feel successful.

8 thoughts on “What does “success” mean to You?”

  1. @cayco:

    Thanks for link, read it. My question is not actually about money.

    If Your criteria for being successful is: “become host of TV show” – fine. If it is: “save 100 people from dying” – fine.

    I wrote about the money because this is the one single answer that I fully remember. Your success can have 1000 criteria, and none of them have to be money-related.

    But what are they? You didn’t write 🙂

  2. Yeah, I know, that was twisted answer 😉

    Recently I had discussion with a friend and he told me about problem that’s comon amongst >30 year old IT (only IT?) guys – they start asking themselves (at work): “What’s the meaning of all this? Why am I doing this?”.

    I thought that problem hits around your 50’s 🙂

    Anyway, I thought this is connected with your success question. For me, I guess I am just starting my road so my career and succes goals are pretty well determined. To cite some of them: getting more work experience, rising a child, setting tree 😉

    Frankly speaking, I think if you want honest answers I sugest you’d better do annonymous poll on this 😉

  3. @cayco:
    Well, You don’t have to state Your well-known nickname as name in comment form.

    You can easily comment anonymously.

  4. hm … what does mean ‘success’ for me?
    I think better is to consider: what does ‘failure’ or ‘defeat’ for me or anybody?
    when I (or anybody) answer this question and then negate the result we will receive what we want.
    so, Jaguar XK (Maybach (not this of rydzyk :>) or rocket) may be crashed, might be stolen … so I think it’s rather not a success.
    40k pln per month … hm … I might buy many things, but can I buy everything? may I buy real friends? may I buy true love?
    recently I was reading about most depressing people. do You know where people are most depressed? not in Africa where they are dying becasue of lack of food but in manhattan.
    are you surpise??
    so happiness and success is not in material things.
    i think it’s rather in our belief, in God (regardless of his name), in people whom we are meet, in beautiful weather, in smile etc.
    but this is my opinion, this is my point of view.

  5. For me, success is not a point in time when I’ll collect something (be it money, friends, knowledge) and then use it. I see myself successful in the process of giving, in looking back, and thinking “it was good”. Now, somewhere in the middle of the road of my life I cannot state what I’ll name “is was good”, because my view on the world, situation and my deeds may change, I may simply not know all the pros and cons of my decisions. So, in simple words – success for me would be pleasureable feeling about my life experience on a death bed.
    One could say I’m negating myself – not collecting, but giving – but how, when I’m not collecting. First – I already have something – myself, and can answer some needs with my deeds (what a rhyme! :)). Second – it’s the shift in thinking, from “collect and then give (why should I!?)” to “give, then rebuild resources (mmm, I’d need that, but this would be spurious)”.
    Is this that kind of answer you wanted to read?…

  6. Was that my answer, or am I just that type of guy?

    As for the money, they tend to vanish as soon as you get them, and you have to try very hard to keep them by, instead of getting yet another useless-thou-cool gadget ;). And that kind of money every month for 2-3 years, would give a birth to my little enterprise, where I could make my employees happy with their 40k a month at the same time being happy with growing a business of my own style. That’s what I’d need that kind of money for.

    And the “brand recognition” opens lots of doors when you’re starting your enterprise. It’s very helpful to walk throught open door instead of forcing your way in.

    No talking about “buying” happiness, or being friendless thou villa-full. The answer “Get `brand recognition’ of my name, and get a job with monthly salary of 40,000 PLN.” is purely about success in business.

    How life could be successful, if no matter what you’re still gonna die at the end, right? Is death a success? Not for me. In life always try to do your best, give all you have to give, love unconditionally, be free and give freedom to all that deserve it, try to always be happy (“it’s gonna be ok, you’ll see”) and pour as much of that happiness to all souls that you care about. Life is a process without end. You won’t see a “failure” or “success” message in the life-log at the end. You’ll see nothing. Maybe except a light in a tunnel, but this is unconfirmed tale…

  7. I wake up in the morning.
    I go to bed in the evening.
    In between I do what I want.
    I think I’m pretty successful.

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