Redefining Success: Excerpt from my book: A Friendly Guide to Writing and Ghostwriting
Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill
Success is an elusive concept that means different things to different people. Some measure it by material gains. Others think it’s about being recognized and sought after. Some people feel successful when they’re acquiring knowledge and striving toward elevated social positions. Others believe it’s about being celebrated for an extraordinary act of courage. For some, it’s about winning the race. For others, it’s about joining the race and making it to the finish line.
I used to measure success in terms of productivity and accomplishment. How much could I get done in a day? How much attention was I getting from the people around me? How could I write better, faster and more than anyone else? That was then. My definition of success has changed over the years. Today, getting to the computer is a form of success for me. So is writing for three or four hours in a row. Or finishing a chapter, dreaming up a great title, and finding my authentic voice that makes my story come alive. When I meet a deadline, I feel successful. When I write every day whether or not I’m inspired, I feel successful. When I push my limits to create something from nothing, a la the Grimm Brother’s fairy tale character, Rumplestiltskin, who spun straw into gold, I feel successful. I even feel successful when I carve out downtime to relax, regenerate and hang out with friends. These days, I approach my downtime with the same focus and determination it takes for me to be productive and when I feel rested and raring to go, I feel successful.
Our lives move perpetually forward, we keep on changing, and so do our ideas about what makes us feel accomplished and happy. It doesn't have to be about winning a race or writing a bestseller. It can be about the little things – going grocery shopping for someone who is housebound, finding compassion when you feel resentful, and writing for a prescribed period of time. Whatever you do, large or small, if you don't feel good about it, if your work doesn't show up as a kind of grace, no matter how much money you make or how famous you become, we can't call that being successful. If you have all the accouterments and privileges of the rich and famous but you’re unhappy in your day to day life, rushing blindly from one thing to the next, what difference does any of the stuff make?
Have you ever looked at photographs of celebrity couples? Their hair and makeup are impeccable, they have beaming smiles on their faces, they appear to be deeply in love with their significant others, their children are dressed in designer clothes and are too adorable for words, their homes are lavish, and they’re getting paid millions of dollars for movie roles and musical scores. They publicly declare their eternal love for their partners on Instagram so everyone can see how happy they are and they tell their fans that they found Mr. or Ms. Right. They say that they’re in it for the long haul and some of them are. But for others, it isn't surprising to find out that they’ve been living apart since the husband got caught snogging the nanny, they’re bitter, they’re locked in custody battles and their latest movie just tanked.
When I was growing up, my mother was in awe of famous people. They could be great authors, movie stars, artists, supermodels, political figures, first ladies, athletic pros or anything else that set them apart from us regular folks. When we sat down for dinner, she reported what she’d read about their enviable lives, the coveted awards they won, their million dollar weddings, their swanky vacations, homes all over the world, the clothes they overpaid designers to create especially for them, the free swag they got, the exotic food they ate, and the lavish parties they threw.
It’s no surprise, then, that I became a ghostwriter for some of the very celebrities that my mother worshipped. At first, I was in awe, envious of these people and their sparkly lives. I couldn't wait to tell my mother all about them. But that was before I came to understand that success did not always equal happiness. I saw firsthand, that privileges like bottomless bank accounts, Chanel and Versace gowns, Rolls Royces and private planes made for an exciting life but it didn’t ensure a satisfying one. Often enough, those kinds of attainments proved to be counter-productive to a person’s peace of mind because they had to keep “stoking the star making machinery,” in the words of chanteuse, Joni Mitchell. The more they acquired, the faster the treadmill raced, and the harder it became to keep up.
I did an editing job for a man who traveled the world, doing workshops and lectures about how to achieve financial success in record time. He had a formula that he swore would work for anyone and he agreed to share it with his followers for exorbitant amounts of money. When he was home for short periods, he worked on his latest book and organized his next series of lectures. He had millions of Facebook and Instagram followers, he was what was called an “influencer,” he was always on the move and he was usually short on sleep. When I asked him how he kept up such a demanding schedule, he said, “The people I know who don't work all the time have a better quality of life than I do, but I need to keep promoting my work or I’ll lose my audience.”
I once worked with an Oscar winning movie star who was so famous, he hardly had time to sit for an interview with me. Each of our sessions was interrupted with phone calls and impossible demands for his time and his deep pockets. I struggled to get information out of him and when I got back home after our fraught meetings, I was relieved to be me. I didn't have his material success or access to the best restaurants, but my phone wasn’t ringing off the hook, fans weren’t hounding me, no one was stalking me, my accountant wasn’t figuring out how to steal my money, my agent wasn't overbooking me, and I didn't have every hour of my day accounted for. And when I broke up with a husband, a boyfriend or a BFF, the whole world wasn’t watching.