Metric-Less Success
In my early twenties, I had this phase where I was enamored with the idea of success. What did it mean to achieve it, and how do people work their way to it?
In an attempt to understand this phenomenon, I subscribed to a magazine that I hoped would unlock something for me. The name of the magazine was, quite shockingly:
Well, it only took an issue or two to figure out how the editors of Success Magazine defined that word. In short, it was all about quantifiable wealth. Each profile would start off with some headline on how much the individual was worth, or the sales price of their most recent exit. A large number in the opening sentence seemed to be a pre-requisite for inclusion, as any verbiage that came afterward would be contingent upon the validation of that number.
At first, I didn’t see anything odd about this. After all, as a recent college graduate, I was used to seeing the world through the tradeoff of promising opportunities with paltry salaries. There was an understanding that I’d be trading my youth for experience, which I would hopefully convert to wealth in a decade or two. So seeing the big numbers associated with these older individuals made me want to pay attention in an attempt to accelerate my timeline to success.
