Life Successful
What does winning look like for you?
This morning Izzy and James were in rare form — they coordinated their outfits, scarfed their avocado toasts, brushed teeth proactively AND put on sunscreen, and were ready to go to by 6:45am.
Go where you might be wondering?
Golf camp.
[For context - camp does not start until 9am, and the course is about 4 mins away.]
I told them it was too early and suggested we play at home for a bit.
They both shook their heads.
“No, Mama” they said. “We want to be early.”
I said, “it’s just REALLY early and you’ll get bored waiting for a whole hour.”
They said, “We will bring our books. We’ll read.”
Me = baffled. What could I say to that???
So they grabbed their bags, their little golf gloves, and their books, and we were off, entirely content despite the thick San Francisco fog encasing our neighborhood. I sat in the car for a moment, smiling. If there is one picture that could sum up my parent’s deepest joy and dream, it would be this:
We were of course so early that even the coaches weren’t there yet; but when they arrived, they also smiled when I explained why we were there an hour early…. teachers know the look of a child who is eager to learn, and I can imagine that is exactly the look that fuels their love of teaching. The head coach was so moved that he even got out a little swing prop and started teaching them a move in the hallway.
When it finally hit 8:45am, the kids signed in and shooed me off. As I drove to work I couldn’t help but notice how full I felt. How much fun my husband and I been having introducing our kids to the things we love: golf, riding, music, art, reading, travel…. How curious they are. How much they absorb. How much joy there is in just… living life together.
What else could there be to life?
The phrase that immediately came to mind: life successful.
The cognitive dissonance with “success”
Most of the time, when we talk about success, we mean professional success:
Promotion.
Liquidity.
Recognition.
More.
But, success is too often defined not by your own internal measures, but by external validation —what others can see, compare, quantify. We all spend a lot of time (subconsciously or consciously) optimizing for that kind of success. Often at the expense of the things that matter most. I’m guilty of it too. Even when we know better, the gravitational pull of achievement is hard to resist.
Life successful is different. It’s not a bright gold star. It’s a quiet warm glow. It’s there whether anyone else knows it or not. Only you have to feel life successful to make it so.
It’s the kind of success that can’t be faked, posted, or neatly summarized in a LinkedIn update. It’s an internal awareness that you are living a life that is aligned and authentic to you. One where you don’t feel like you're sprinting toward something you don’t even want. One where the “why” is clear, the “how” can be fun.
Sharing what you love
I don’t think I fully understood this version of success until I started sharing my favorite things with my kids. And then watching them love it too. Watching them love reading. Watching them learn how to make music. Watching them be curious, and gain confidence, blossoming into their own selves.
That’s when I felt it. Not pride. Not relief. But Joy.
And something quieter underneath: Completion.
We’ve still got a long way to go. But in this simple moment, I heard a little voice in the universe saying, “you’re doing a great job.” I’m sure it was my mom and dad.
Redefining “winning”
In a recent post I wrote that “winning requires definition.” And I’m realizing how much of adulthood is about re-writing definitions we inherited before we even understood them.
For me, life successful means:
Having the freedom to spend time with the people I love, doing things we love.
Being present enough to notice when something beautiful is happening.
Watching my kids be and explore themselves—not replicas of me, but real little humans who think, feel, learn, love, and choose, all by themselves.
There’s no finish line for being life successful. No IPO. No financial windfall. No Midas List or Fortune 100 ranking.
It’s not to say we shouldn’t be ambitious and push ourselves to achieve professional goals; but, for me, this quiet human moment — parking lot, books in hand, smiling healthy kids, 8am on a freezing foggy San Francisco summer day — stands up against any professional milestone I’ve had to date.
What have been some of your life successful moments? Have you reached life success but not yet celebrated?
Love this, thanks for sharing. As a father of 3 girls, we find ourselves having more life successful moments each year!