Success

Ismar gets us thinking about what we think success is. With Igor in Los Angeles, Ritesh in Bengaluru and me in Cleebourg.

Frank And we are live. Ismar, fire away. It’s all yours.

Ismar Okay. An executive man had a very hectic routine. He thought most about how to make money and about the activity, their company. And after some years, without having a vacation, he got sick. He had burnout. And the doctor told him to have a 30-day vacation with his family. Then his wife suggested to them to go to the beach, more exactly, to a fishermen’s village where it was possible to have not so much contact with activity that was noise or stressful. Then they went.

But he didn’t have a good routine to preserve, to maintain his health. He lost the… he didn’t even sleep an hour during a night. And then he got up and went to the beach. And when it was about 5:30 AM, he saw a man arriving in a boat. He was alone, with, and his boat was full of fish, and a small boat. Then the man put his boat in rough water.

He approached the fishermen and asked, “Oh, how was your day? I can see that you caught so many fish. And I think you can make some money with that. But isn’t it so early to stop working for now? It’s 5:30.”

The fishermen said, “Oh no, it’s enough for today. I can sell them and have enough money to buy my things and to protect my family. And I don’t want to work more.”

And the executive told him, “But 5:30, it’s not early to stop working as a fisherman. Why don’t you work maybe two hours more? And in six months, you can buy another boat and put someone else to work for you. In one year, probably you can buy the third boat and so on. And as time goes by, you can have a small company. And after some years, probably you’ll be a millionaire. You can export fish to some other countries, and you will be very recognized in society. You can have luxurious mansions and why not a jet, a yacht, and something else.”

“Excuse me.” And then the fishermen told him, “Oh, after my work, I have my breakfast. Then I take my kids to school. After that, I go to the school and pick them up. I have lunch with them. After my lunch, I have a nap. And in the afternoon, I go to meet my friends. We can talk about a lot of things. We can play guitars, we can play cards, or some other table game. I think it’s very good for me. I have a total life. And of course, at the beginning of the night, I prepare my boat for the next morning, and I go to bed around 8 PM. And that’s my routine.”

“No, no, the executive. You have to work more. You have to make more money. Then you’ll be a millionaire.”

And the fisherman asked, “How long will it take me to be a millionaire, man? Maybe 15 or 10 years.”

“And after that, what are you going to do?”

“Oh, then you can retire. You can live in a peaceful place, maybe around the sea. And you can have much fun in your life.”

“Oh, but why that? I have all of these things now. I have time for my family. I meet my friends. I play cards.”

I don’t have much money. And success is a seven-letter word, but it’s a very big subject and very complex. What was success for the executive man was completely different to the fisherman.

For example, myself, when I was around 30. Any question? Not yet.

And even at that age, I was very eager to be a rich man, to be in general words in our Brazilian society, to be a successful man. Some moments I had three jobs. I worked for Brazilian forest. I worked as a dentist, and I was a teacher in a technical school. It was very suitable. And after that, I went to São Paulo, around 100 kilometres from my city, to take a course related to dentistry.

But as I became old, I think that sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you work, you can achieve success, financial success or not. And today that I would say 30 years after, I’m not a rich man and probably I’m more satisfied with my life than the life that I had 30 years ago.

If we asked for the executive man, success was to have much money, to be recognized in the entrepreneurial environments, and to have so many material things. And to the fishermen was to have only enough to buy things for that day that they have fish, to pay attention to his family and to his friends.

But success maybe for a religious person is to save many people, yeah, from sin. From a teacher is to teach enough to his students, to learning, maybe to be a lawyer, engineer and something else.

I think it’s a success for a teacher. And for one like me that study English for now, I think to be a successful English student is to have a high level in English and success is not the same, doesn’t have the same meaning for every one of us.

Probably immediate success is different from Brazil and the United States. I think is one of the most capitalist countries, successful is only to have money and to be famous.

A celebrity can be, of course, celebrity, the name is also already passed, it’s a famous person, but he can have no money or maybe a short amount of money and another person, another actress, for example, a singer can be famous and has much money and not exclusively to be famous is the same as to have money. And for one who pursue fame, to achieve fame is to be successful and to have money for other is to be successful.

In this case, you can say that fame is different to be rich and it depends on what a person pursuing, it can be a successful person or not. But most people generally they have money, they are famous, and they have money. But I have seen that famous people that they don’t like to be famous because they don’t have peace. Wherever they go, they are someone that is around them to asking for an autograph or to take a selfie together and they have money, they have fame, but they don’t have peace. And in this case, we can say that the success is not complete because in general, we want everything from some specific subject, but we don’t have the honours, we only have the bonus.

And I have some questions for you. If success or value, it’s worth over above everything. For example, you were, for example, suppose that you sell the last 10 years of your life, for example, $50 million.

Igor Can you repeat the question, please?

Ismar How much is worth is success for you? Would you sell? It’s just a supposition because not possible. Would you sell the last 10 years of your life to have now $50 million?

Igor No, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t. And why not? Yeah. Well, because let’s say most of things I value in life nowadays doesn’t require money. So, money wouldn’t make a huge difference for me right now. So there’s no reason to exchange lifetime for money. Of course, that’s my situation. It

may change for different people, but that’s pretty much my answer.

Ismar Okay, and you are saying that success is not the same as to have much money. Yeah?

Igor No, definitely not, yeah. Like from what I have learned and from people way smarter than me that I have read about and talked with, yeah, I think money is of course necessary and it’s very useful to achieve well-being, happiness, et cetera. But at some point, it doesn’t play such an important role as a lot of people will think of.

And this idea of being successful equals having a lot of money, it’s a very cultural thing, like extremely cultural thing, right? So yeah, being aware of that, I think you are right and your story, like beautifully illustrate this point that money is important, but if you stop to think about that, most things we value in life doesn’t require money. And if it requires, there’s no need to have $50 billion.

You mentioned the happiness, but I want to know what is exactly substance for you? What’s substance for me? What is success for you? Oh, okay. I think it varies a lot throughout the life. I don’t have a fixed idea of success. I think it depends on what you are living, your level of maturity and a lot of things. For now, success for me, it’s being able to use my time on things that I value. That’s my biggest source of success. When I think I’m successful is a day that I can look back to my day and think, oh, today I did, most of the times I did things I really value doing. So that’s success for me.

Ismar Okay, thank you. And you Ritesh? Would you sell your 10 last years of life for $50 million?

Ritesh See, if I think, and I can’t say that I can do, because what I will do with that money if I don’t have that time, right? See, so you are telling about that my 10 years, I can sell for a few billions of money, but I don’t think so, because what I will do for, see, it depends on the situation also.

Suppose someone is dying, then one person can sell for $50 million. If someone is dying, then one person can sell that time, but I can’t. And I feel that why I need money if I don’t have that time, okay?

See, if I earn money and I have a lot of money, but I don’t have time to enjoy those things, then that money is the waste. It is not desirable. So, I don’t think so that I can exchange that time with money. You would have less time in the age of your life, but now you have money, you have $50 million, but then I think you can appreciate, you can have more fun in your life, I suppose with $50 million, no?

No, see, it will bring like, it will be a constant reminder that my life has got short, and I will not be able to enjoy that money at all because every time I will think that my life has gone less and I have less time. So I don’t think so that I can enjoy that money.

Ismar: And for you, the same question, what is success?

Ritesh Yes, so I was thinking like, see, from the childhood, so every time the success changes and at this moment I feel that a healthy life and having a peaceful mind is what I think is a success. Otherwise, everything you do, you want to get something and when you achieve that thing is success for me.

So, it’s like, I wanted to be in a good school, then I wanted to get a good grade. So, in India, we have annual exams. So when you get a higher grade, people say that he’s very successful, he has done a good study in his class and he will be successful in the life. When you get a good grade, you are successful in the life. When people here used to say that successful means you are having a job, earning and all those things.

Then the later part of the time, it came like you are successful when you have a good family, your wife, they are understanding, they are having a good relationship, then this is a successful life. Then the later of the time, when you are able to bring your children, give them a good education, that is what you feel successful in your life. So every time it changes, for me, it’s getting everything’s done and getting some happiness from that moment is what I feel success is.

I think what I’m saying, and what I’ve said and myself, success is different from person to person and is different from all different moments in our lives. Because as I said about me, I wanted to be a rich man and I’m not. And I think today it’s not important to me to have much money.

Ismar And I would like to know from Frank, which one, success or failure, teach us more friends?

Frank Why do I get the different question?

Ismar Because I have so many in the time, and I would like to do a lot, not a lot of them, but some parts. And I think I want to ask the same question for everyone.

Frank So if I fail to answer your question, I wouldn’t be successful. And if I do answer your question, I might be a failure because I didn’t answer it correctly.

Failure is the best teacher in life. If you know that you made a mistake or if you know that you failed, yeah? Because failure isn’t always obvious. Because there are in the motivational world, in all these motivation speakers that run around the planet, they say, don’t give up, keep trying, keep trying. You will be rewarded. And at some point, the question is, if you try and change something or do something, and you are not successful, whatever that is, are you a failure?

You may not see it because you believe in so much what you do is correct, that it’s not you who is the failure, it’s the others who fail to see what you are offering. And so, failure could lead to blindness and it’s when you see that you become successful.

So, the normal thinking is if I make a mistake and I fail, and I have made some spectacular mistakes in my life and I have failed tremendously in my life, did I learn from it? Yes. Did I change something? Yes. But there are other things in my life where I keep pushing saying, I know I’m on the right path, but I do not know whether it is the right path because nobody tells me.

Ismar Okay, you have finished?

Frank Yes, I have.

Ismar Okay. The same when we said that failure teach us much more, we have self-criticism, if not, it doesn’t value. But I suppose that if someone fails all his lifelong, maybe he didn’t realize what life showed him and the final result of his life, he’s a failed man. He’s a failed man and someone that has only success in life and if the failure really teach us, a success man probably didn’t learn anything in life, but how someone can be always successful in everything he does. I think it’s just something to reflect on. I don’t have an answer for that. Okay, and I have another question for Igor. Igor, is there any relation between success and someone’s inner values, for example., success and honesty, success and generosity? Do you think there is any relation with inner values?

Igor Yeah, I think there is. I think there are very close connections. The way I like to think about success, it’s like it is a construct, right? The idea of success, it doesn’t exist in nature, right? It’s just something we construct in our brain. So, the way we construct it, I believe there are internal forces and there are external forces.

External forces would be what society sees as success, what environment, if you are along many people, what those people see as success, what are milestones in your society and those are external.

But when you think about internal factors, I think intrinsic values, like internal values, they play a big role because as you mentioned, like throughout your story, if you value spending time with people you love, you’re gonna use these criteria as a factor to define success for you.

If you value having power, if you value having a good body. So, I think they are like very closely connected and that’s why it’s dangerous to not, to define success not using your internal values because if you do that, in my experience, you’re gonna get to some point that you are pursuing something that you don’t even value and that’s very dangerous.

So yes, I think they are very connected and it’s very important to understand what are your values in order to define success and then pursue it.

Ismar I would like to add something, two points. Maybe it’s just a point, but it’s not an answer either, it’s this point to reflect again. Suppose that a politician or even an entrepreneur gets very rich, but in his honest way, but the society probably will recognize him as a successful man according his financial, financial, his assets.

But if we really connect internal values and success, a person that achieved a fortune and became very rich and doesn’t have good internal characteristics, I think it’s not success. I think this kind of person was dishonest completely with life, with the laws of nature and the thing that he had overcome another car in front of him in an appropriate way, against the laws, the traffic laws.

And I think it’s not something that we can work. I think it’s not something that we can work. Okay, please.

Igor No, I’m just saying that, yeah, I agree with you. I wouldn’t see such a person as a successful person, but I think that’s the point. There isn’t a shared definition of success. Everyone will have your own definition and that’s where things get tricky, right? Maybe for me to be a rich person, he considers himself a successful person, but in my opinion, he’s not.

Ismar Yeah, I agree. Okay, I’d like to know from you, how much do you persevere, or would you persevere to achieve the success you consider that you deserve? Do you understand?

Ritesh Yes, so I don’t feel any time that I deserve something. In my opinion that we don’t deserve anything, whatever we get, see, if we are trying to get things from others and then we put barriers, say that we deserve these things. In that scenario, sometimes you don’t get those things, but you get better than that.

That time how you can say that this thing, what I wanted to deserve, I have not received that thing. So, in my opinion that whatever you get, so if you are getting from some other people, then it depends on their criteria, their thinking and their perspective that you get. Apart from that, when you try to get things and if I have done really good, then that thing will come to me. I don’t think that I deserve, and someone should give to me.

And I’m very, very sensitive about this idea because you have false scenario in your mind and you have false your image that I want to, I have done something and I deserve these things. I don’t know.

Ismar Okay, thank you. Frank, different question for you.

Frank No surprise.

Ismar Do we have any idea in general aspects, why some people are all between success and others not?

Frank So just to repeat the question, why are some people successful, yeah, or between success and others not? Unsuccessful. If I were to use my own values and my own benchmarks, I suppose a successful person would be one who thinks a lot, who speaks with other people, who perseveres but accepts reality, that something may not be correct, but then he will think about it or seek advice about it.

So a successful person will also ask questions and listen and evaluate what is told to him and then make a decision. A successful person, and then we have to differentiate between a public, a person who is successful in public, like a politician, like a highflyer entrepreneur.

As bad as it is, I do not think that you can be successful without power and with the power comes the ruthlessness, the manipulation, the negative sides of it. That’s hard power, but we also speak of soft power, yeah, and there soft power, of course, is totally different and more friendly. And a private person can be successful if he feels accepted, if he or she feels respected, if people come to him or her asking for advice, asking questions, wanting to communicate, share thoughts with that person, accept the person for what and who he is or she is.

Yeah, that is the definition, yeah. I am what I am, take it or leave it, yeah. I’m not going to change very much. I will listen, but I may not change. I may adapt to a situation, yeah. So a successful person is one who is happy with what his lot in life is. But is also prepared to grow and do something different, yeah.

Again, as the underlying theme in all of this discussion, there are five of us in this discussion round. We all look at success differently because we have different cultural backgrounds. We have led different lives. We lead different lives, and we have different futures ahead of us, some longer, others shorter, yeah. So, but I think if you want to break it down into a formula, maybe, a successful person is one who accepts a given situation but is prepared to adapt to a new situation without selling his or her soul in the process.

Ismar Okay. We have said that success is different from person to person, from culture to culture. And we can consider it in some different aspects.

And for example, a poor man that work for all his life and doesn’t have enough money to support his family, but if he had work enough honesty according to all of the opportunity he had, all of his efforts, but at the end, he didn’t get to give them enough support for his family as it need and as he wanted to give to his family. I think we can consider that man a successful man because maybe he didn’t have a good opportunity. He didn’t have a good moment or he didn’t have enough preparation, professional preparation. He didn’t have opportunity to go to school and to obtain a better salary or a good way to reflect about his society, his environment and success. It’s really an open subject.

And Igor, for you again, I think it’s something related to what I finished to say. Is success the result of hard work routine or it’s this destiny?

Igor I think there’s a little bit of both. I don’t think there is just one of them. I think it requires hard work, strategic thinking, but there is a good dose of destiny and luck. From everywhere I go and people I met, and they are successful people, I never met someone who is successful because they were like strictly smart or strictly lucky. There is always a mix of both.

And that’s why it’s hard to understand what success is because there isn’t a simple answer. I think it requires both because even someone very lucky, if you think about both extremes, someone very lucky who wins a lottery ticket, for instance, the likelihood of this person being successful in the medium-long term is very low. And someone who, let’s say you work really hard, let’s say you was born in Somalia, right? And you work in coal mines. You can be a very hard worker, but your chances of being successful, it’s extremely low, almost in existence, right?

So it’s a mix of both. I think it’s a mistake to think that one of them is more important than the other one.

Ismar All right, Ritesh, would you like to say something about it?

Ritesh Yes, so I completely agree with Igor that we are part of, some things are meant for us, like destined and some we do from our work, like we do to add that success. And as he said that a person who is born in Somalia, he will have different environment and that environment also adds in our success.

So if a person born in India, he can’t have such environment because that person has environment in USA and other places. So being born in a certain country will reduce the chances of achieving that part of that success.

One more thing, like what success we are talking about, it can be from the both sides. One is from person who is looking at that person and one is the person who himself feels. So if I see a person who is not able to feed his family, I see that he’s a failure, he’s not able to do, he’s not able to feed his family.

But on the other side, that person says that I’m happy, I’m able to, the people are, I’m able to do whatever I was, I’m able to do. In his opinion, that success will be a different aspect. So whenever we talk about success, we always add this value with financial success but the success is, as we all discussed, like it can have different, different aspects.

One scientist, his success is to have a name in the community or in their field. One person who is a scientist, he wants to get a Nobel Prize but sometimes after getting that, he feels that there’s nothing in life after that and he will have something called syndrome.

So it depends on what the perspective and the environment also. A person who was born in USA and he has a better education system, and he can have a good education and he can have, there is chances of people getting more Nobel Prize from that college than the other places.

So it all depends on the both part. The environment and environment mean the luck. So being born in a certain area, certain countries, certain place, it’s a environment, it’s luck and then you do hard work.

So if you are in a college, same college but a person who is doing more work, he’s doing hard work, he will be having the chances of getting success more.

Ismar Our time is almost over, yeah. But I’d like to say something and to have the final impression from each one from you, all of you. And I would say that here in Brazil, most of us think that to have success in life is to have money. And either when he has the word, he can contradict me or to be favourable to my words.

And it’s just a concept, it’s according to the culture. Here, it doesn’t matter how good professional or honest person and virtuous man or woman you are. If you don’t have money, here in Brazil, you aren’t a successful person.

And as I said in the story, and in my opinion, and probably you agree with me, the fisherman was more satisfied with his life than the executive man. Because in general, just to summarize, I think success is to be satisfied what you are doing, what you have achieved, and with who you are sharing your life, your TV teams in general, I think it’s more important.

And maybe not only sharing your life, but maybe where you are leading. Because if you live in a dangerous or in a very bad place, according to violence rates, public services offer, I think it’s difficult to be satisfied with our own life.

In general, I think that this subject is very, very complex, and it doesn’t have a correct answer. It’s according to each one of us. And I would like to have maybe a fast explanation from Igor what you have to say about success, or in general, what we have discussed here. Maybe just some words, please, Igor.

Igor Well, I think success, as I mentioned, it’s something that exists in our mind, so we should make use of it, make good use of it by defining it for ourselves, like understanding what success means for us, and then pursuing it according to our values. I think following ideas of success in which you wasn’t part of the definition, it’s a huge mistake and a huge source of happiness in life.

Ismar Okay, Igor, thanks. Ritesh, your final words.

Ritesh For me, success, it’s not once, it’s little things you do and get satisfied with that result. I feel that is a success.

Ismar Okay, thank you. Frank, your final words, and maybe it’s time to finalize our session. Please, back to you.

Frank So I think we all made one mistake here. Because we compared apples with oranges. And if we go back to your story with the fishermen, maybe the fishermen was successful because he started with a fishing rod, standing on the beach, catching one fish, and he progressed to owning a fishing boat, which enabled him to go out and catch a lot of fish and sell them and feed his family better than standing on the beach with a fishing rod.

So success is probably best measured not by comparing people with other people and situations with other situations, but the journey that one undertook to get from A to B, namely from one’s birth to one’s death. There are many things that we cannot influence. We are educated, we grow old, we are healthy.

But if I die and say that I have lived a fulfilled, happy, successful life, whatever that means, then I have been successful, and no one can take that away from me because it was my life.

So there you go. That would be my thought to all of this. Then success, there is an appropriate definition for every one of us, yes? As long as you accept that my definition is more successful than your definition. And then we’re comparing apples with oranges again.

Ismar, difficult subject. Thank you very much for hosting this and getting us to really reflect on it. And I’ve got two pages of notes here to speak and think about this, to answer some very difficult questions. So thank you, Ismar, for this. I think if we look at the beginning of this meeting and the end, it was a success because we came to a conclusion, yeah?

So there you go, it was a success, yeah? Next week, we go further in Philosophy 101 and we look at acceptance hosted by Ritesh. I’m looking forward to this one, Ritesh. And then what happens after that, I don’t quite know. But I think it’s Sebastian with the topic on the 16th. Anyway, gentlemen, nice to see you again this week. We meet each other at our respective times, Igor and Ritesh, in 23 hours, yeah? And Isma, we need to speak about rescheduling. Gentlemen, have a great afternoon, morning, evening, night. See you all next week. See you. Thank you, Isma. Thank you, and thank you, Isma, for a good session. Bye-bye.