What really is success?

Is it the $150k/year? Is it the white picket fence? Is it that home?

Maybe.

I’ll suggest it’s something entirely different:

Making ourselves happy each and every day.

Both internal and external success exist. They’re both entirely real and make us feel a certain way – but they don’t feel the same.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have been pushed in my life to achieve this ‘external’ success. It’s the on-paper success. It’s the job and the degrees. It’s the money and usually it’s the status. It’s the stuff society congratulates you for. Generally speaking, it is getting paid and getting laid (that was just a fun phrase to write).

People pat you on the back for your good job. They tell you you’re doing the right things. They’re ‘happy’ you’re going to that school or getting that promotion. People might be impressed by your selection of partner or that new Audi droptop you just bought. They comment on your trip to Rome or your scuba trip in California or are impressed by your party in Nashville.

These are the things that other people see. They are the sorts of things that impress people, and often they get you status as well. They impress and can buy you social favors. They do well in a group dynamic. And people are more likely to see you as the guru or Person-that-knows. These are the credentials that earn respect – regardless if you deserve it and regardless if you enjoyed it.

But hey, you’ve got the experience to back it up, right?

All of that is external. It’s what people see. It’s what people notice. It’s the status metric.

Can’t Touch This

You’ve also got the internal success… the intangibles.

This is the personal game – The you vs you. It’s the battle with yourself and your mind. It’s the game where the only chips are your well-being.

Nobody else knows. Nobody else cares.

There’s no celebration. There’s no congratulations.

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“It’s a cold and lonely road, I knew it when I took the job”

Nipsey Hussle, Am I Gonna Make It

It’s you and you alone. We came in this world by ourselves and we’re going to leave the same way. And damn it, some day we are going to leave. The only metric that will matter then will be how much we enjoyed the journey, and if we had the courage to live the life we wanted to.

Internal success is the small boost in confidence we get from accomplishing things. It’s the pride we feel from creating something. It’s the quiet the moment of gratitude we express for our own lives.

Nobody is there and nobody knows. Internal success is for us and us alone.

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‘I was so focused on doing bigger and better that I forgot what was actually important – doing things that I enjoy each and every day’

Dan Bilzerian, The Setup

These are moments of progress in our lives – the sense of accomplishment we get from doing things that are difficult for us. Internal success means challenging ourselves. It means pursuing the things that make us feel good, and make us fulfilled.

They’re all behind the scenes.

It feels great when External and Internal success overlap. This is doing something difficult. It is running a challenging race or winning a competition or maybe graduation. This is getting the dream job or marriage (I imagine), or a successful business after it becomes successful. It feels good inside and out.

The trouble is falling in to the trap of the External success. It feels so damn good and it’s so god damn addicting. We’re designed to be social animals and when we get a pat on the back it feels nice. Every on-paper success is another pat on the back. It’s another moment of acceptance from the tribe.

But that’s a dangerous game – Too many pedicures, shoulder rubs or pats on the back and it becomes our fuel. We become motivated by other peoples’ motivations.

In my life, I’ve noticed it’s incredibly difficult to work on internal success if you’re failing externally… especially in social settings. Friends tease and people judge. It’s tough.

But it’s also when I’ve built the most character. These are times when people brush you off and look the other way. They throw you out and don’t care what you have to say. You are nobody and you mean nothing.

People count you out, this is the buildup stage.

You have nobody in your corner. Nobody is willing to spend the time and you are outcast. There’s no choice but to go inside. Nobody else gives you validation, you have to find it from yourself. Ironically, I’ve struggled with this is sports for much of my life.

I’ve always felt ‘just to far’ behind, not quite good enough. You feel like you’re at the bottom. But good thing, because the only way is up.

The journey is yours and yours alone. You either develop the resilience or you crash and burn. Despite the teasing, despite the incredulity, despite the disbelief. You either go inside and start to build, or you crash and burn.

If that means isolation, so be it.

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“If they don’t know your dreams then they can’t shoot them down”

J. Cole, Too Deep for the Intro

It is these times in my life, that I’ve found to be the most difficult. You just want acceptance. You want some people on your side. You just want others to understand. But they don’t. They won’t. And that’s precisely what makes it the most important. Nobody is here to help. Nobody is there with a pat on the back.

It’s just you.

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“It’s you vs you dog, you’re running your own race”

Russ, Stockholm Syndrome

These are the times where you get to create. You get to find what the hell you’re made of. Nobody’s looking and nobody expects anything. This is when you get to find out who the hell you are – not for anyone else, just for you. There’s no other reason to do anything, other than your raw, unfiltered, joy.

Those are the only moments we are slowly pushing back against regret. It’s when we get to reclaim our lives. This is precisely when nobody is expecting anything. There is no External success.

It’s up to us if we want to have Internal Success.

In grand scheme of things it won’t matter what we’ll have built. It doesn’t matter where we’ve gone, or what we’ll have seen.

What will matter will be the small moments of happiness we gave ourselves when nobody was looking.

That means taking care of ourselves. That means finding the things that bring us joy and doing them over and over again. It means continuously challenging ourselves. It might mean distancing ourself from people or even old friends that hold us back. It’s finding what makes us truly happy on a regular basis and setting our life up to pursue them.

I’ve found the pursuit of Internal success to be quite scary, embarrassing even. It sucks sometimes. It doesn’t feel like people are there for you. They might be, but this journey is yours and yours alone.

A small story

I little while ago I ran a half marathon. I take pride in my athleticism and am very competitive. But I didn’t train for the race as much as I could have. I ended up with a wayyy slower time than others, family members included. Weirdly, it hurt. I actively chose not to train well. I consciously decided that there were other priorities in my life. I preemptively accepted a slower time – I just wanted to finish.

And yet, when I got a slower time relative to others, a piece of me was hurt. I wanted to the validation. I wanted the glory. Even though the race didn’t matter all that much, I wanted the External Success.

It caught me so off guard. This was a goal I had minimal stake in, already accepted the outcome and was still frustrated that I didn’t ‘win’. It caught me off guard with how truly powerful External Success really is.

But after I took a step back, ironically, I cam to appreciate the Internal Success. I was glad I ran it. I trained minimally and still got through it. I wasn’t willing to invest more time to get good results and got the results accordingly. But what I was really proud of, is that I was ok with doing poorly. I was ok to forego the External Success.

I wanted the external success, chose not to chase it, and was okay not having it. I didn’t train for the race to be competitive. I trained because I wanted to run a half-marathon. I’d never done it before and wanted to prove it to myself.

I think we always want the external success. There’s no getting around that. But if we live our life only seeking that validation, we’re trying to fill a hole that inside with something outside.

They are different metrics. Internal vs External. They solve different problems. One does not treat the other.

There’s a cool Tweet by Chris Williamson that wraps this idea up nicely.

“Imagine a world where you’re unanimously adored by millions, but you hate yourself.

Are you happy? Is it worth it?

Now imagine a world where you’re disliked by most people, but you love yourself.

Because ultimately, in some taoist, roundabout way, the reason we want

validation from others is to give us a good enough reason to validate ourselves”

Sometimes we need external success – It can buy us time and status. It can give us access to resources that we otherwise would not. But over a long period of time it also buys us regret and self-hatred. One of my favorite lyrics from Russ is somethings so simple:

“Chase your passions don’t chase the money”

– Since I Was Broke, Russ

I’ll leave you with this final little snippet from a fantastic book that I think about regularly. 5 Regrets of the Dying. An article version here.

Bronnie Ware was an Australian nurse who would work with patients in their dying days and the Number 1 regret of her patient is this:

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself not the life others expected of me”

Thank you. I hope you continue to seek Internal Success.

-Colin