Measure Success With Your Heart
Wins and Losses, are great.
If you know me, you know that I tend to reflect on things a lot, almost to a fault. It’s just how I’m wired. I love the idea of looking back at both mistakes and successes and see what went right or wrong. This is how I determine if I’m “progressing” or not. I care just as much about my losses as I do my wins. It’s so cliche and corny but you really do learn from your mistakes. At the moment I get down at myself or upset that I failed or missed the mark. Once you realize you aren’t invincible and humans can make mistakes, you will see that avoiding a loss or failure is close to impossible, no matter how hard you try. This isn’t just with my work life though. I judge how great of a son I am to my parents, or boyfriend to my girlfriend or just being a human in everyday life. I make sure to treat everyone with respect and integrity, no one deserves less. Of course, I’ve been a terrible son at times (Ask my mom, she’ll tell you I’m been great all these years but keep asking and she’ll let you know I’ve made mistakes in the past). I’ve been a bad businessman as well and I hate to admit that but I believe we even fail at what we love the most. The great thing about these failures is that you need the self awareness to notice the faults and correct them. Once you can develop that sense of right and wrong, you will only go up from there. I don’t make the same mistakes I did 3 years ago because I’ve been on the losing end of those mistakes and it sucks. Having someone tell you that you did a terrible job at something you love makes you feel like a fraud. Like someone who shouldn’t be in that field and should be focused on something else. That pit in the bottom of your stomach is not something I like to feel a lot. That feeling is my self awareness alarm going off and telling me to adjust ASAP or find something else.
Why Are We Obsessed With Time
Taking care of past mistakes and working on yourself takes time. I look back at videos of me when I was 18 and I cringe. I had the gnarliest sense of style and had WAY to much hair gel and hairspray in my hair. I don’t know what was going on there. Part of me likes going back and seeing these clips though because I’m seeing the progression of growth. There are interviews of me from 18-22 years old. Each year I can see a slight maturity bump that has happened and that makes me happy. I see the progression of my professional career and where it’s going.
That’s 4 years of slow but steady growth and it went by so fast. The problem with people my age is everyone wants to be concerned about time. I have these same insecurities but it’s reflecting back on what time does for us that makes me not worry. We wanna make sure we are doing EVERYTHING we can and not lay back in 50 years and worry about regret. That feeling alone is something that haunts me. I value work and career so much because I love it but at what cost? Am I not focusing on family enough? Am I doing everything in my personal life I want? Do I need to take a step back? At age 17 I though I’d have it all figured out at 23. In my eyes (at 17) I thought at 23 I’d be a millionaire, doing massive music video shoots with Kanye and Drake and have all of these cars and wealth. Now looking back, why did I want that so bad at 23? Why did I think that those materialistic / temporary things would mean I accomplished all of my goals. It was because at the time, 4 years felt like 50 years. I wanted to show people that I could be successful before 25 and be in Forbes 30 under 30 and be the richest person. At that age, I was going into this with the wrong intentions. I didn’t care about the art or the integrity of my work. I just cared about my monetary status. This the toxic life of being obsessed with time and thinking everything has to be accomplished ASAP. The idea of patience is thrown out the window. The “i want it now” symptoms starts pouring in.
Measure Success With Your Heart
Let’s say that I did become a millionaire by 23 and ran the music video world, than what? Would I be happy? Would I not have any more goals? As soon as my bank account hit 1 million would I just pack up and be done? Absolutely not. At 17 I may of thought that and I couldn’t have been more wrong. The idea that money is the only factor that defines success is sad. You don’t take materialistic items or greed to the grave, you are only left with your heart. What you do with your heart during your life has the potential to exceed any net worth. How you treat people, how you treat yourself, how you give back, how you change the world. This is what life is all about. Yes, chase your goals and if one of your goals is to be a millionaire, go for it. If that’s your happiness, chase it. For me, it’s not about that anymore. I’m sure money and success will come but that’s that not my focus. My goals are to progress as a human creating honest and real work that has a pulse and continue to inspire those around me. The by-product of that is success (for me at least). Go to a white board, chalk board, notes on your phone. Write down your goals for the next 5 years and ask “why?”. Why do you want that mansion or why do you want to marry that girl. It’s okay to want things but answer it honestly and ask yourself if that truly will bring happiness or if it’s just a temporary high. Go over what moves you emotionally and not just monetarily. I promise you, you will find happiness in that.