Redefining Success: The Pursuit of Better, Not More

Success. What does that word mean to you? I could ask 100 people on the street and receive 100 different answers. Despite that, there seems to be a cultural undercurrent that defines the word as some combination of money and power. Success = More. More income, more wealth, more (and better) possessions, more influence and more control. Let me rephrase my earlier comment. If I were to ask 100 people on the street what success means to them, I'd get 100 different answers … but 90 of them would include some version of "more."

I couldn't be more excited to speak at the Greater Des Moines Partnership's Top Five for Small Business series on Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2024. In my talk, I'll dive deep into this idea of success. More specifically, I'll discuss the four myths that often hold us back from living our most successful lives.

Through my coaching, writing, speaking and podcasting, I've been testing these concepts for years. While I believed in these ideas way back then, every ounce of my experience continues to confirm and affirm this truth: To live a life of "more," we whiff on achieving a life of "better."

As I write these words, I think of several businesses I am privileged to serve. Each of these businesses has, at one point or another, fallen into the all-too-common trap of believing their definition of success is more. More revenue, more customers and more profit. When I ask why these are their goals, they respond with some version of (paraphrasing): "I thought that's what I was supposed to do" or "Because making more money is better." It never dawned on them that perhaps what they are really searching for is something different than more.

First, allow me to clarify one thing. I'm not suggesting that making more money is inherently bad. In many ways, having more revenue, more customers and more income is the consequence of serving people well and adding value to society, to our communities. That's something to be admired. However, when we pursue more for more's sake, we lose sight of something important: meaning.

It's a bit ironic. When we focus on the output (i.e. more), we might possibly find it. If we're trying to drive revenue or procure more customers, there's a chance that happens. However, if instead of dwelling on the output, we focus on the inputs (i.e., why we're really doing what we do), financial success is often the natural consequence. If we're leaning into the better (serving our customers exceedingly well, creating a superior product or inflicting more impact), the outputs speak for themselves.

End Up with Better

Taking this input-oriented approach also does one other thing. It better connects us with the fulfilling and mission-oriented sides of our business and our personal wiring. This is the "better." When we take this counter-cultural approach, we may or may not end up with more, but we will absolutely end up with better.

This concept reminds me of a business owner I work with. She runs a well-respected business here in Greater Des Moines (DSM). Over the last few years, she has achieved far more financial success than she ever dreamed possible. By every metric possible, she won. More revenue, more customers, improved margins and a higher bottom line. She is the definition of success… except she didn't feel it. She achieved everything people around her told her she should achieve, yet she didn't feel like a winner. She was frustrated and burned out. Despite "success," something was missing, and she felt as though life was passing her by.

This goes back to my original question. What is "success?" She chased a version of our culturally accepted definition of "more," but it didn't feel like winning to her. While most would consider her a winner, she felt like anything but. That's when we decided to turn our culture's model on its head. We asked the question, "What is success?" Turns out, her genuine, sincere answer was much different from "more." This changed everything. Instead of dwelling on the outputs that society would use to measure success, we recalibrated and clearly defined the inputs we would focus on.

Before doing so, however, we spent some time on the behavioral science piece of her life and business. This is a topic I continually discuss with clients, and I'm excited to share during my upcoming talk. Overall, we have collectively decided that more money equals more happiness. That's a universally accepted truth. But is it actually true?

The science shows that money makes us really, really happy … until our needs are met. This makes sense if we think about it. If we live in constant fear of being evicted, our well-being will be hindered. If our water or electricity gets shut off, it's going to impair our life. If we struggle to put food on the table, it's hard to live a quality life. So, when we live in a state of need (or threatened need), more money will absolutely make us happier. Gaining the resources to take us from a state of hunger to the state of having enough food will make us tremendously happy!

One problem, though! We humans are a fickle bunch. At some point in our lives, we probably experienced the steep happiness slope derived from more income. For some, it was during our high school years. For others, it was completing college and entering the workforce. For many, it was on the heels of an unforeseen event that caused significant financial turmoil. Regardless of when it was, the exhilarating feeling of more is intoxicating. It fuels us. We want more of it. Therefore, our natural human reaction is to assume that if more money made us happy in that past season of life, then even more money today or tomorrow will do the same. In other words, we assume the upward-sloped line is perpetually steep.

It's one thing to believe something, but another to act on it. And that is where we get tripped up. If we genuinely believe more money will make us happier, that impacts our decisions. We choose our careers accordingly. We build our business accordingly. We make personal financial decisions accordingly.

Here's my proposition. If we understand the actual psychological dynamics between money and happiness, and internalize them, we'll make different (and better) decisions. It allows us to take a step back and actually answer the question, "What is success?"

Back to my business owner friend. She redefined success, and we recalibrated the metrics we would use to measure it. She stopped dwelling on more and started focusing on better. She gave far less attention to the financial outputs and became obsessed with the non-financial inputs. Here's how the story played out. Eighteen months later, she was more engaged, more driven and more fulfilled than ever. She also experienced record revenue, record customer growth and record income. We don't have to choose between meaning and money … we just need to choose meaning.

I hope you'll join us at the Top Five for Small Business event Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2024 to engage more on this topic. There's a whole reimagined world of success out there; we just need to find it (and pursue it!).

The Greater Des Moines Partnership celebrates the Greater Des Moines (DSM) entrepreneur community and helps small businesses succeed with one-of-a-kind resources and opportunities for networking. Find out how other entrepreneurs have found success by reading their stories and attending local small business events in the region.