How to Measure Success
by Larry Lefkowitz
Recently I read the transcript of the Stanford University 2005 commencement address delivered by fellow boomer and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. It was interesting, and both surprising and inspiring. He spoke of finding the thing you love in life and pursuing it, regardless of the odds or obvious rewards. He spoke of listening to your inner voice to find your way and to trust that voice to know what is good for you. He also spoke of setbacks and failures, and how each can be catalysts to even better things in your life, if you continue to follow the path to the thing you love.
I am paraphrasing, of course, but having heard how he was fired from the company he started and how he also once overcame cancer, each while he was relatively young, I had to admire his constitution, grit, and ability to live for the day. Steve Jobs was not reckless, but he took risks because he believed in what he loved. So I asked myself, could I have done something similar? Could I have been as successful and significant as Steven Jobs?
The easy answer is no. The equally easy answer is yes. We all have the ability to do something meaningful, something special, something we love, and something for the benefit of all. But few of us ever get or take the opportunity to do so.
This all comes on the heels of my younger daughter's completion of her freshman year of college, and her desire to drop out. Her mother, my ex-wife, is beside herself that this would happen. I am more pragmatic. While any of us can be successful without a college education, I believe that having one makes for a more well-rounded, more aware, and better informed person. Or, at least it has the potential to.
It also provides more consideration for employment. At my ripe old age, without a degree, it is easier for me to look back and tell my daughter to get that education no matter what. But that is the easy answer. More important to me is to tell her to do what she loves; do what she looks forward to doing everyday; do what makes her happy. I have told her this since she was a junior in high school.
I have been moderately successful in my career. Not monetarily perhaps, but in my accomplishments. For most of my life, I have done what I loved, what I wanted to do when I got up in the morning, what I wanted to do to earn my pay. I knew going in that writing was not a pathway to riches for any but the few, so I had no preconceived expectations.
That’s why I agree with Steven Jobs that doing what you love is important. He never got a college degree, but was curious and resourceful, and he and I grew up in different times than our kids. It is harder now to do what you love and to succeed. There is more competition and the opportunities to make something from nothing are more rare.
Steve Jobs earned everything he has, as did his contemporary, Bill Gates. But by and large, in some ways they were also lucky. The old saying goes, better to be lucky than good. Perhaps, but I think it takes equal doses to be successful. Being good is something we all can control.
Learn all you can, particularly about yourself, and find out what you are good at, then find a way to apply it. Then, luck will come… or not. It is uncontrollable. It is a variable that affects us all, and is as elusive as youth itself. Luck comes in small and large packages, when you need it and when you least expect it. Luck runs out. Luck fails to come your way. Most of all, luck changes, constantly. Like catching a comet, you must be prepared to optimize the opportunities that luck presents.
I tell my daughter that college is not for everyone, not the end-all and be-all. I tell her that it helps provide greater opportunities and enriches her abilities to be aware and to appreciate her world. I tell her that she can succeed without it, but the chances are better with it. I give her all this conflicting information.
But how do I explain luck? Steve Jobs was both good and lucky, but this doesn't happen often to many. I have been good and, and to a much lesser extent, lucky. I have worked hard and survived. I am lucky that I cling to doing what I enjoy, that being a writer is what has suited me best and given me the most satisfaction in my life. I consider that to be my success. I tell my daughter that success is not necessarily measured in dollars and cents. I think Jobs would agree.
Larry's email is lpaulmartin@gmail.com