I overheard a conversation this morning. I do not know the subject or point of it. I only know that I heard this one sentence and it sent me tumbling down the rabbit hole:
“Oh,” said the fellow to his friend, “he is a very successful individual.”
As I went on my way, I chewed on that statement. It raised questions in my mind…
- Successful in what way?
- Successful to what degree?
- What is the measure of success in general, or is there a general measure?
Enigmatic and volatile Dallas Cowboys running back Duane Thomas, who died August 8, 2024, at age 77, provided one of my favorite quotes about success.
I do not know whether he mellowed with time but in his time, he was a hard man for the media to talk into talking. When he did speak, he was unpredictable. He once called legendary Cowboys coach Tom Landry a “plastic man.”
Thomas did talk to a reporter after helping to lead his team to its first Super Bowl victory in 1971. The reporter asked how it felt to win the ultimate game.
Thomas answered, “This is not the ultimate game. If it was the ultimate game, they wouldn’t play it again next year.”
And that is the thing with success. It will always matter but not as much later on when the dust settles on the trophy won. How many people reading this article even know there was a great running back named Duane Thomas, a man whose talent former New England Patriots General Manager—the man who traded for Thomas after the running back burned his bridges with the Landry comment—compared to Jim Brown, O.J. Simpson, and Gale Sayers?
Not many remember. Those who aren’t old enough to remember, likely never heard of him.
Success is relative, short-lived, and temporary.
Unless you discover gravity or develop the formula for relativity or in some other way leave your indelible mark on humanity, your success will die with you, and perhaps a long time before you. (I wonder how many know the names of the two I referenced?)
Let’s do something more recent. How about Bill Belichick, winner of eight Super Bowls, architect of the NFL’s greatest dynasty, and recently fired? Belichick is just 15 wins shy of passing the late Don Shula to become the NFL’s all-time winningest coach. You would think the line starts to the right and NFL teams would clamor for his services.
Not so. Despite seven open head coaching jobs, only one team gave Belichick any real consideration and they ultimately passed. So, he swallowed his pride and abandoned (at least for now) his goal—and it is, by all accounts an important goal to Bill—and accepted the head coaching job at the University of North Carolina, a basketball school.
I often quote Severus of Rome. I have yet to run into anyone who knows who I mean when I say his name. He was only the Emperor of Rome and the most “important” leader of his time.
Severus, as he neared death called for the urn that would contain his burned remains.
Severus said, “I have been everything and everything is nothing.” Then he held the urn and added, “Little urn, you will hold the remains of one for whom the world was too small.”
Mighty Emperor! World leader! Ashes to ashes. Nobody remembers. Nobody cares.
Now that I have managed to drain the life from the room, let’s find some positive takeaways and put our aspirations and achievements into perspective.
“I have been everything and everything is nothing. Little urn, you will hold the remains of one for whom the world was too small.” Severus of Rome
Five things to remember about success
Success can only be attained with a valid goal and a verifiable outcome.
If your goal is to “lose weight,” good luck. If your goal is to lose “twenty pounds” so you can fit into that leisure suit tucked away in a chest in the attic so you can wear it to your 50th high school reunion, well, now you have a measurable goal, something to plan and work toward, and one you can get on a scale and celebrate achieving.
Success is the result of planning and smart work.
Most people say “hard work.”
They are incorrect. You can work your ass off but if you don’t work smart, you get nowhere fast. I weary of those who celebrate hard work as if it is its own virtue. A certain amount of laziness is necessary to invention. Thus, we get the cotton gin, the motor vehicle, and conveyor belts.
I don’t celebrate laziness. I loathe it, especially when I see people letting AI do all of their communication. I do celebrate the smart worker and want to be on his or her team.
Success is not the same thing for everyone.
My wife and I watched Awakening, the 1990 classic film, for the first time last night. Brilliant performances by Robin Williams and Robert DiNero highlight the beautiful telling of the summer of 1969, when a group of catatonic adults suffering from the effects of encephalitis lethargica(there was an epidemic of the disease from 1919 to 1930), were treated by Dr. Oliver Sacks with a new drug, L-DOPA. The group experienced a miraculous recovery for a short period.
For those patients, some of whom had been locked inside an unresponsive body for decades, success was being able to respond to stimuli, to move, to speak, to walk, to dance.
Success is relative and it is right to celebrate it, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem.
Taking it back to sports, some teams fly banners celebrating winning a division or conference title but those are consolation prizes.
Are those teams, those players all failures because they failed to reach their goal for that season?
That depends on expectations. If you are a championship caliber team with skins on the wall, your fanbase, the media, and stakeholders hold you to a higher standard than a team that has never won a championship and doesn’t look like winning one any time soon.
Maybe the lovable loser, finishing .500 is success.
Success is not a birthright.
We live in the Age of Entitlement—my unofficial moniker for our times, but it ought to be official. Every commercial, every encouragement, and most wellness and life coaches appeal to your right to have this or that or to be this or that.
Pssst. Success is not a right. Success is a reward.
Is Bronnie James entitled to an NBA championship because his Daddy has a bunch or will he have to be a part of a team that wins one?
Unless you are in the royal lineage of some monarchy, success is not a birthright. Even then, only the title is your birthright. What you do with it will determine success. Beware, people will strongly disagree on what success looks like. History will judge you by the whims of people you never met.
Success is not a guarantee.
Pick your favorite sports league. Is it the NFL, the NBA, the MLB, the NHL, the EPL, NCAA football, or whatever? Every team in that league (with the possible exception of the Dallas Cowboys or some team tanking for a high draft pick) is doing everything in its power to gain the ultimate prize, a championship.
At the end of the season, all that hard work and effort pays off…for one team and one team only. Everyone else is an also-ran and better luck next year.
Success does not have to be celebrated by everyone to be important to someone.
My toddler grandson now calls me “DooDah”, clearly and often. That may not be terribly important to you as a milestone. I will never forget the first time he did it. And I can’t wait until the next time.
Success doesn’t have to remembered forever to be important right now.
If the world will forget Sir Isaac Newton and Severus, I do not like my chances for being much remembered beyond my mortal journey. No one will celebrate this article or anything else I have published, spoken, or done. After all is said and done, all will have been said and done that is that. On to whatever comes next.
But I did it and no one could stop me. I did it. I am doing it.
What are you doing?
Success is worth pursuing.
Attempting to be the best may not make you the best but it will make you the best version of yourself, if you take care to pursue it honestly, fervently, and with integrity.
Here’s to your success!
And, if you are seeking to succeed as a claims adjuster, contact us today. Let us help you on your way.