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Things the most successful people I know struggle with to be happy

110 points by LeonW 6y ago

t0mmyb0y 6y ago
8. Don't overtly screw people on the way up. Most 'wealthy & successful' people I have known screwed people and never learned how to not do that and ended up paranoid about everyone since they don't know who they screwed.
- xwdv 6y ago
  Screwing people is inevitable. The only consolidation you can really take is knowing that the people you screwed at some point probably screwed someone else, and you're just continuing a cycle of karmic justice.
  - asimovfan 6y ago
    According to karmic religions him having screwed someone over doesn't let you off the hook for the bad karma you're accruing when you screw them.
    - colinmhayes 6y ago
      Luckily karmic religions aren't real.
      - crpatino 6y ago
        Of course they are! They have a core belief system shared by millions of followers; they also have organized priesthood to oversee the whole process, and even are entitled to tax exemptions!!! They also happen to be right. Your unbelief in karma did not prevent that another sarcastic, smartypants jerk would come and bite you in the ass, did it?
      - coldtea 6y ago
        No, but real-life-karma (people you've fucked over will get back on you 10 times as much once they get the chance) often is...
      - seigando 6y ago
        Maybe not but 'karma' in its original meaning of cause and effect is: if you hurt somebody, they will be hurt.
      - asimovfan 6y ago
        luckily? yeah it would be the worst if everyone got what they deserved.
  - deadwing0 6y ago
    Could it also be that being screwed is a matter of perspective? I imagine in a non-insignificant number of the she-screwed-me-on-the-way-to-the-top cases that the alleged screwee is sour because he or she missed an opportunity or simply was not the better candidate for the promotion? I'm not being a contrarian, but I think it's interesting how our biases and perspectives shape the way we understand things and situations. I've noticed people (myself included, no don't) trying to spin a situation to make them look or feel like a victim instead of admitting they were simply not as good as the alleged screwer. Not sure if I'm even stating this correctly, but maybe someone can help me elaborate.
  - runeb 6y ago
    Wow. Well, your bio isn't lying, I'll give you that.
- adamredwoods 6y ago
  In my opinion, I would maybe rephrase this as exploitation. "Business success" (define as you see fit), accompanies exploitation. "Screwing" people, could fall under exploitation, but feels more malicious, whereas exploitation can take many forms and is commonly accepted. It can be exploiting a rules loop hole, exploiting worker pay, exploiting current wealth status, exploiting someone's social connections, etc. Exploitation is not necessarily bad, as most companies to be profitable, need to exploit something. Companies want profit so they are exploiting the price they charge, or exploiting the workers they pay, or a combination of many little exploits. Imagine a company could pay its workers more, but they don't. I believe this is an exploitation of the workers. People don't see it as "bad" in minor cases, and this practice is commonly accepted. Consider how much Apple is making and how much it is paying its workers, versus a locally owned restaurant. Imagine a company could charge less for a product and still survive. This again, is a minor exploitation, and commonly accepted. When the exploitation gets large enough, workers sometimes revolt.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    That concept of exploitation makes zero sense on a microeconomic or macroeconomic level. If there is any money available to expand that is charging more money than they need to survive. A company could always pay their workers more unless it brought them to precarity - even the actual workers wouldn't want that and they are the direct beneficaries of said excess! That would be like your drug dealer staging an intervention.
    - adamredwoods 6y ago
      I don't understand your argument. I don't think a business would succeed if it was pushed to precarity, so this is not dealing with exploitation. Exploitation needs to present in many aspects to create business success, it supports the definition of profit. The money made exceeds what it took to make the product or service. To profit is to exploit. I'm not trying to cast the act of exploitation in business in a judgmental way, but rather to show it exists, because it is universally accepted. It's the other side of the same coin. Yes, it's a weird interpretation of Marxian economics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_of_labour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_of_labour
- inv13 6y ago
  Those are the kind of people that are not going to reach out to this guy to get help. Its a hard step to make as the author mentioned it too.
- fedreserved 6y ago
  A slight wrinkle I have found is contractors that discover how profitable you are, can often "feel" screwed over after the deal is struck and the project is on motion despite their position being profitable and exactly what they bargained for.
gaukes 6y ago
A lot of these seem tied to narcissism in some way. Not that it’s a bad thing but there are a lot of secondary effects of prioritizing ones “success” over all other things like relationships, friendships, mental health, etc.
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  This, a hundred times over. Or, as Thom Yorke put it in "Paranoid Android": "Ambition makes you look pretty ugly".
- notacoward 6y ago
  "Narcissism" is an unnecessarily pejorative way to put it. Narcissism is about having an inflated view of one's own merit, importance, or appearance. In popular parlance it also refers to an unquenchable need for external validation of these qualities. However, most of the issues mentioned in the OP are often associated with self-doubt and/or internal motivation - i.e. the very opposite of narcissism. Frankly, using such a negative term seems a bit like sour grapes.
  - gaukes 6y ago
    Narcissism isn’t necessarily characterized by strength even though we imagine the quintessential narcissist people to be “strong” and “driven”. That may be true in their professional lives but not personal. Narcissists are driven by external validation and appearance, yes. So much so that they forget the people most important to their lives are humans too, not tools or ornaments of achievement. When these relationships sour, there’s a lot of self-doubt, not about the achievements, but if the trade offs are really worth it in the end.
    - notacoward 6y ago
      Nobody's defending narcissism. My objection was to reflexively associating these problems with narcissism, and by answering only in the context of narcissism you're still equating the two. So let me even more blunt: that theory is so weak that it's almost self-refuting. Let's try to apply it to the OP and see just how badly it goes. The first item on the list is inability to celebrate. How does that suggest narcissism? Can it not be explained at least as well by feelings that the subject of celebration is undeserved, transitory, and subject to reversal? The second item on the list is inability to rest. How does that suggest narcissism? Can it not be explained at least as well by feelings that one is an impostor, unable to keep up without making extra effort? And so on. Every connection you claim points to narcissism actually points even more strongly somewhere else. Narcissism causes problems, to be sure, but it's far from the only thing that can cause these problems. Claiming that these issues are all about narcissism is tantamount to claiming that conventionally-measured success itself is all about narcissism. As I said, it comes across as a big load of sour grapes.
laurent92 6y ago
- A successful life often feels like day-to-day failure. Failure to reach ambitious goals, but 90% of the goal is often good enough. - Dedicating one’s life to work is often a form of suicide. « SINCE my life is void and I won’t do anything tonight, why not study this book, apply for an MBA or build a company. At least that will be some challenge. It’s not like I’m losing family time, and it will help me focus on one thing. » I’ll leave people to decide whether this is good or bad, but if most people’s lives were fulfilling, we wouldn’t see that much technological progress. I’m not denying a good share of people are into tech or work by passion, I’m just talking about those who work as a mean to avoid depression.
- ta1234567890 6y ago
  > if most people’s lives were fulfilling, we wouldn’t see that much technological progress Which then makes you wonder: do we really need that much technological progress? I love technology, especially when it helps people lead better lives. But if we are just developing it without real purpose and mentally/emotionally enslaving ourselves to do it, then it seems self-defeating.
  - boring_twenties 6y ago
    What if there is a real purpose, and it's enslaving others?
  - epicide 6y ago
    > if we are just developing it without real purpose and mentally/emotionally enslaving ourselves to do it Or worse yet: the purpose is mental/emotional enslavement.
  - adwn 6y ago
    > Which then makes you wonder: do we really need that much technological progress? Spoken like someone who takes all of the technological progress of the last centuries for granted. And I don't intend that as a personal attack. Many, many people think like you do, because they can't even begin to imagine a life without the fruits of progress. As for myself, I'm eternally thankful for that progress, for without it, I wouldn't be alive today (appendicitis), neither would my wife (also appendicitis), and probably neither would my two children (historically, most children died within a few years after birth). I'm also extremely thankful for not having to fear death from starvation (thanks to agricultural progress) or from bacterial infections (thanks to antibiotics). > But if we are just developing it without real purpose [...] That "if"-condition is doing a lot of work in your sentence. Kind of like saying "if technological progress wouldn't be bringing all the immense benefits it is bringing, it wouldn't be so great".
jonnymiller 6y ago
This resonates with my own experience: "Although most people look forward to vacations and days off, most successful people I know dread them."—working more hours was a socially acceptable route to not dealing with my own sh*t.
- hpoe 6y ago
  This hits me in the feels when I realized shortly after getting married that I realized what a workaholic is and that I am one. Just like an alcoholic uses booze to avoid the problems they face in the rest of life I use work to avoid problems in real life. I don't do it because I am so hard working, or because I really love what I do, its because when I sit down and can stare at code for a couple hours I don't have to worry about the other things going on in life, my brain gets filled with this little world which I know I can control by issuing magic spells that behave appropriately. It means I'm not thinking about my sister's descent into alcoholism, I don't have to worry about my bipolar sister in law, I don't have to face the guilt I feel about not spending enough time with my kid. I'm trying to combat that, I'm trying to not use work as an excuse to avoid situations that cause social anxiety, I'm trying not to shirk my household responsibilities by volunteering for extra work that is urgent. But the problem is that I've built up an expectation of several years of what people can expect from me, now I am trying to balance and I can't because I've got to the point where I have so much responsibility it requires that output, it's hard, and I am trying to keep things in balance, but by God it gets so hard sometimes....
  - lalos 6y ago
    The problem you mention at the end is not exactly a problem, you were working more for the same salary (a self inflicted salary reduction). That might help you rationalize it, calculate how much you earn per actual hour worked and try to get that number higher by not working for free. At the end of it, you are paying for that output with your time which is limited.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  I enjoy my work quite a bit. Vacations, not so much. I like the challenge, I like being in the game. I have no plans to ever retire.
jpm_sd 6y ago
One word I am surprised the author did not use in this article is patience. Successful people are used to being in a hurry. It takes practice to have patience with yourself, and patience with others. Another problem that I struggle with, and I'm sure "successful" people do as well, is chronic pain. Sometimes it's just bad luck, or an old injury; or maybe you have sacrificed your health to get more work done (in the short term). Many long-term problems are invisible; you never know who is struggling on the inside.
- hundillo 6y ago
  As a person with a 10+ year chronic injury, thanks for saying this. It was nice even just to read it on the internet from a total stranger and know that somebody is aware that people are dealing with things like this.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mathgladiator 6y ago
> That it’s ok to let go of the image of the lonesome warrior, shouldering the world’s problems on their own. This is the one thing that I've struggled with as an engineering leader. Much of this article is spot on, but the hardest thing for myself is simply asking for help. Part of it because I have learned how to learn anything, and I can just spend time doing what I need. However, there is only so much time in the day. For some reason, I've always felt that asking for help was related to weakness, and it took a long time to realize that leadership is not knowing everything, but knowing how to teach people to play the game and ask good/dumb questions.
- rabidrat 6y ago
  One thing I've been thinking about recently, is the difference between "asking for help" and "being offered help". It's difficult to ask for help in a socially acceptable way: deferential, but not ingratiating; vulnerable, but not needy; bounded, but not transactional. Whereas these tensions are largely circumvented when someone sees you struggling and offers to help in some way. This leads better results also, as often when I need help, I don't even know what kind of help to ask for. But someone who has gone through something similar, can help simply by knowing what it is I might need, even if they can't provide it. It's very difficult to get that kind of help by asking for it.
monadic2 6y ago
Note money is nowhere on this list.... what's the point? Every "successful" person I know simply buys their way into a happier life. What a puff piece without acknowledging this! Why is this shit even on HN? Is everyone here a rich, narcissistic douchebag? I mean we all suspected....
- prerok 6y ago
  I guess that the point of the article is also that "money doesn't buy you happiness", but the author only says it between the lines. He does state that success in business will also not bring you happiness if you don't take the time and care for other aspects of your life. The view may be a bit skewed since he is a coach and will mostly deal with people who have a problem. It is still a good reminder to try to have a balanced life, regardless of where on the ladder you are :)
  - KSteffensen 6y ago
    The author also owns enough money to buy himself a Lamborghini for his 30th birthday. It's easier to say that money is not the point when you have lots of it. Money may not buy you happiness but it sure does make a lot of things easier.
  - monadic2 6y ago
    Money does buy happiness, though, from all the time I have spent observing rich people. Clearly rich people do find ways to become unhappy but it seems like a struggle compared to the rest of us. It's not hard to coach when the largest barrier in human life is stripped away from your clients (well, excepting disabilities).
jrexilius 6y ago
I think the very first exercise is a great one, and a challenge for many this year (including myself). "What am I grateful for that happened in the last 365 days?" A sense of gratitude is extremely healthy and remembering to acknowledge it is hard in the face of adversity.
notacoward 6y ago
I don't claim to be super-successful, but these are things I've thought about quite a bit. Some people are good at being happy. Even when their situation is objectively lousy, they still find humor and love and fulfillment and so on. Other people just aren't good at being happy. Can't relax. Can't take a compliment. Can't enjoy when things are going well, without worrying about when it will end. The thing a lot of these have in common is being in the moment vs. looking forward. Absolutely nothing wrong with looking forward, it's how we all progress and ensure future good times, but you also have to be able to turn it off (which is another item on OP's list). Learning how to shut up those internal voices for a while can be hard, but it's worth the effort.
wiradikusuma 6y ago
It could be Asian thing (I'm Asian), but there's a saying, "Money can't buy happiness, but it sure hell better crying inside my BMW than crying outside by the street."
- Cerium 6y ago
  What are your thoughts on the (in my experience more common) phrase: "I would rather cry in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle"? When I really consider this phrase it brings tears to my eyes.
  - crispyambulance 6y ago
    That makes me think of the flippant quip: "Whoever dies with the most toys wins."
  - wiradikusuma 6y ago
    I'm biased, I prefer (nice) bicycles than (nice) cars. Not because it's healthier, but because I don't like to be stuck in traffic. -- Again, living in overpopulated Asian country.
    - kiliantics 6y ago
      Cycling a bicycle is just easily one of the greatest of human experiences.
  - threatofrain 6y ago
    Reminds me of the short story "The Adopted Son" by Guy de Maupassant. > Then the boy said, roughly: "I'd rather not have been born than be what I am. When I saw the other, my heart stood still. I said to myself: 'See what I should have been now!'" He got up: "See here, I feel that I would do better not to stay here, because I would throw it up to you from morning till night, and I would make your life miserable. I'll never forgive you for that!"
  - philwelch 6y ago
    That happens to me sometimes, but when it does, I find the leather seats in my BMW very comforting.
hdfhu 6y ago
"Successful people" are those that come to the ocean shore, build a sand castle (indeed, what else is this sand for?), develop depression protecting it from wind, water and sun, and even force other tourists to build the castle for them. And they die wondering why the ocean shore is such a cruel and pointless place. Their lives aren't worthless,though: at least they develop some will. The wise don't build castles, they just watch the ocean and think about the relationship between sand, water, wind and sun.
- Grimm1 6y ago
  Thinking without interaction may as well be useless. Even the type of people I believe you to be speaking about wrote and shared their writings to influence others.
  - dbtc 6y ago
    We don't know how many more did not write or share their writings
  - mikelyons 6y ago
    The wisest realize there are no others.
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      Which obviously doesn't include anyone on HN talking to people in virtual space, you and me included.
      - mikelyons 6y ago
        Hehe, there could be people on HN who know they are talking to themselves in virtual space, but choose to engage anyway.
- Apofis 6y ago
  Wise people don't like playing with sand on a beach?
dbtc 6y ago
One extreme: calm, content, happy, don't care about much, don't do much. Other extreme: stressed, unsatisfied, unhappy, always working, getting lots done. Maybe there is a middle way. A more nuanced definition of success.
- notacoward 6y ago
  Great observation. Thank you. I think there is a middle way, but it's not so much about definitions as about balance. There's a time to sow (work) and a time to reap (rest and enjoy). Of course you have to sow before you can reap, but if all you do is sow then your final yield is zero. You have to alternate, maximizing the product of the two instead of either alone.
- bigbizisverywyz 6y ago
  I think the middle way is going home to your family or SO, somewhere between 9-5 :)
x87678r 6y ago
I think a lot of people in the US are taught from a young age to work hard and be the best you can be. Get into the best college, work hard to get the best job. Get promoted. Get promoted. Start your own firm. Work hard work hard, make money. Often they never learn you are allowed to back off.
- yeswecatan 6y ago
  Absolutely. One of my favorite teachers in high school used to always say "the harder you work now, the easier it will be later." There is always a later, though.
  - VonBlue 6y ago
    Until there isn’t
- WalterBright 6y ago
  > Often they never learn you are allowed to back off. I don't believe that people cannot think for themselves, nor have I encountered a single person who believes they are not allowed to back off.
- randomdata 6y ago
  > Often they never learn you are allowed to back off. More-so fear of the long-term consequences. You do all that hard work to get to where you want to be and then if you back off, will that work be lost?
StanislavPetrov 6y ago
If you aren't happy, you aren't successful. Far too many (like the author of this article) equate economic wealth with "success". How can someone who is miserable be described as a "success" no matter how many baubles they collect or how many accolades they receive from their fellow bauble collectors? To me being successful means being content and leading a happy and rich life. Economic well-being often helps facilitate contentment and happiness through the security it allows, but it is, at best, a piece of the pie. Unfortunately all too many (especially Americans) have been conditioned to believe that life is a game of Monopoly and the goal is to accrue as much material wealth as possible. This leads to the oft-referred to, "mid-life crisis" when people start coming to terms with their mortality and realize they've wasted the best decades of their life pushing pencils and sitting in traffic. Perhaps if we start changing the way we view "success" we can help some poor souls avoid this awful day of reckoning in the future.
np- 6y ago
I feel like the problem may be that we have a distorted view of "success" and what it means. Success is much more than a one-dimensional goal of earning more money. Are you really considered successful if that's all that you accomplished? Success itself encompasses many of the goals espoused in the article, such as having quality relationships and being able to take time for yourself. I think it's a perspective problem. You aren't successful just because you did well in your career. There's much more to it than that.

110 points by LeonW 6y ago

8. Don't overtly screw people on the way up. Most 'wealthy & successful' people I have known screwed people and never learned how to not do that and ended up paranoid about everyone since they don't know who they screwed.

xwdv 6y ago
Screwing people is inevitable. The only consolidation you can really take is knowing that the people you screwed at some point probably screwed someone else, and you're just continuing a cycle of karmic justice.
- asimovfan 6y ago
  According to karmic religions him having screwed someone over doesn't let you off the hook for the bad karma you're accruing when you screw them.
  - colinmhayes 6y ago
    Luckily karmic religions aren't real.
    - crpatino 6y ago
      Of course they are! They have a core belief system shared by millions of followers; they also have organized priesthood to oversee the whole process, and even are entitled to tax exemptions!!! They also happen to be right. Your unbelief in karma did not prevent that another sarcastic, smartypants jerk would come and bite you in the ass, did it?
    - coldtea 6y ago
      No, but real-life-karma (people you've fucked over will get back on you 10 times as much once they get the chance) often is...
    - seigando 6y ago
      Maybe not but 'karma' in its original meaning of cause and effect is: if you hurt somebody, they will be hurt.
    - asimovfan 6y ago
      luckily? yeah it would be the worst if everyone got what they deserved.
- deadwing0 6y ago
  Could it also be that being screwed is a matter of perspective? I imagine in a non-insignificant number of the she-screwed-me-on-the-way-to-the-top cases that the alleged screwee is sour because he or she missed an opportunity or simply was not the better candidate for the promotion? I'm not being a contrarian, but I think it's interesting how our biases and perspectives shape the way we understand things and situations. I've noticed people (myself included, no don't) trying to spin a situation to make them look or feel like a victim instead of admitting they were simply not as good as the alleged screwer. Not sure if I'm even stating this correctly, but maybe someone can help me elaborate.
- runeb 6y ago
  Wow. Well, your bio isn't lying, I'll give you that.
adamredwoods 6y ago
In my opinion, I would maybe rephrase this as exploitation. "Business success" (define as you see fit), accompanies exploitation. "Screwing" people, could fall under exploitation, but feels more malicious, whereas exploitation can take many forms and is commonly accepted. It can be exploiting a rules loop hole, exploiting worker pay, exploiting current wealth status, exploiting someone's social connections, etc. Exploitation is not necessarily bad, as most companies to be profitable, need to exploit something. Companies want profit so they are exploiting the price they charge, or exploiting the workers they pay, or a combination of many little exploits. Imagine a company could pay its workers more, but they don't. I believe this is an exploitation of the workers. People don't see it as "bad" in minor cases, and this practice is commonly accepted. Consider how much Apple is making and how much it is paying its workers, versus a locally owned restaurant. Imagine a company could charge less for a product and still survive. This again, is a minor exploitation, and commonly accepted. When the exploitation gets large enough, workers sometimes revolt.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  That concept of exploitation makes zero sense on a microeconomic or macroeconomic level. If there is any money available to expand that is charging more money than they need to survive. A company could always pay their workers more unless it brought them to precarity - even the actual workers wouldn't want that and they are the direct beneficaries of said excess! That would be like your drug dealer staging an intervention.
  - adamredwoods 6y ago
    I don't understand your argument. I don't think a business would succeed if it was pushed to precarity, so this is not dealing with exploitation. Exploitation needs to present in many aspects to create business success, it supports the definition of profit. The money made exceeds what it took to make the product or service. To profit is to exploit. I'm not trying to cast the act of exploitation in business in a judgmental way, but rather to show it exists, because it is universally accepted. It's the other side of the same coin. Yes, it's a weird interpretation of Marxian economics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_of_labour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_of_labour
inv13 6y ago
Those are the kind of people that are not going to reach out to this guy to get help. Its a hard step to make as the author mentioned it too.
fedreserved 6y ago
A slight wrinkle I have found is contractors that discover how profitable you are, can often "feel" screwed over after the deal is struck and the project is on motion despite their position being profitable and exactly what they bargained for.

gaukes 6y ago

A lot of these seem tied to narcissism in some way. Not that it’s a bad thing but there are a lot of secondary effects of prioritizing ones “success” over all other things like relationships, friendships, mental health, etc.

burntoutfire 6y ago
This, a hundred times over. Or, as Thom Yorke put it in "Paranoid Android": "Ambition makes you look pretty ugly".
notacoward 6y ago
"Narcissism" is an unnecessarily pejorative way to put it. Narcissism is about having an inflated view of one's own merit, importance, or appearance. In popular parlance it also refers to an unquenchable need for external validation of these qualities. However, most of the issues mentioned in the OP are often associated with self-doubt and/or internal motivation - i.e. the very opposite of narcissism. Frankly, using such a negative term seems a bit like sour grapes.
- gaukes 6y ago
  Narcissism isn’t necessarily characterized by strength even though we imagine the quintessential narcissist people to be “strong” and “driven”. That may be true in their professional lives but not personal. Narcissists are driven by external validation and appearance, yes. So much so that they forget the people most important to their lives are humans too, not tools or ornaments of achievement. When these relationships sour, there’s a lot of self-doubt, not about the achievements, but if the trade offs are really worth it in the end.
  - notacoward 6y ago
    Nobody's defending narcissism. My objection was to reflexively associating these problems with narcissism, and by answering only in the context of narcissism you're still equating the two. So let me even more blunt: that theory is so weak that it's almost self-refuting. Let's try to apply it to the OP and see just how badly it goes. The first item on the list is inability to celebrate. How does that suggest narcissism? Can it not be explained at least as well by feelings that the subject of celebration is undeserved, transitory, and subject to reversal? The second item on the list is inability to rest. How does that suggest narcissism? Can it not be explained at least as well by feelings that one is an impostor, unable to keep up without making extra effort? And so on. Every connection you claim points to narcissism actually points even more strongly somewhere else. Narcissism causes problems, to be sure, but it's far from the only thing that can cause these problems. Claiming that these issues are all about narcissism is tantamount to claiming that conventionally-measured success itself is all about narcissism. As I said, it comes across as a big load of sour grapes.

laurent92 6y ago

- A successful life often feels like day-to-day failure. Failure to reach ambitious goals, but 90% of the goal is often good enough. - Dedicating one’s life to work is often a form of suicide. « SINCE my life is void and I won’t do anything tonight, why not study this book, apply for an MBA or build a company. At least that will be some challenge. It’s not like I’m losing family time, and it will help me focus on one thing. » I’ll leave people to decide whether this is good or bad, but if most people’s lives were fulfilling, we wouldn’t see that much technological progress. I’m not denying a good share of people are into tech or work by passion, I’m just talking about those who work as a mean to avoid depression.

ta1234567890 6y ago
> if most people’s lives were fulfilling, we wouldn’t see that much technological progress Which then makes you wonder: do we really need that much technological progress? I love technology, especially when it helps people lead better lives. But if we are just developing it without real purpose and mentally/emotionally enslaving ourselves to do it, then it seems self-defeating.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  What if there is a real purpose, and it's enslaving others?
- epicide 6y ago
  > if we are just developing it without real purpose and mentally/emotionally enslaving ourselves to do it Or worse yet: the purpose is mental/emotional enslavement.
- adwn 6y ago
  > Which then makes you wonder: do we really need that much technological progress? Spoken like someone who takes all of the technological progress of the last centuries for granted. And I don't intend that as a personal attack. Many, many people think like you do, because they can't even begin to imagine a life without the fruits of progress. As for myself, I'm eternally thankful for that progress, for without it, I wouldn't be alive today (appendicitis), neither would my wife (also appendicitis), and probably neither would my two children (historically, most children died within a few years after birth). I'm also extremely thankful for not having to fear death from starvation (thanks to agricultural progress) or from bacterial infections (thanks to antibiotics). > But if we are just developing it without real purpose [...] That "if"-condition is doing a lot of work in your sentence. Kind of like saying "if technological progress wouldn't be bringing all the immense benefits it is bringing, it wouldn't be so great".

jonnymiller 6y ago

This resonates with my own experience: "Although most people look forward to vacations and days off, most successful people I know dread them."—working more hours was a socially acceptable route to not dealing with my own sh*t.

hpoe 6y ago
This hits me in the feels when I realized shortly after getting married that I realized what a workaholic is and that I am one. Just like an alcoholic uses booze to avoid the problems they face in the rest of life I use work to avoid problems in real life. I don't do it because I am so hard working, or because I really love what I do, its because when I sit down and can stare at code for a couple hours I don't have to worry about the other things going on in life, my brain gets filled with this little world which I know I can control by issuing magic spells that behave appropriately. It means I'm not thinking about my sister's descent into alcoholism, I don't have to worry about my bipolar sister in law, I don't have to face the guilt I feel about not spending enough time with my kid. I'm trying to combat that, I'm trying to not use work as an excuse to avoid situations that cause social anxiety, I'm trying not to shirk my household responsibilities by volunteering for extra work that is urgent. But the problem is that I've built up an expectation of several years of what people can expect from me, now I am trying to balance and I can't because I've got to the point where I have so much responsibility it requires that output, it's hard, and I am trying to keep things in balance, but by God it gets so hard sometimes....
- lalos 6y ago
  The problem you mention at the end is not exactly a problem, you were working more for the same salary (a self inflicted salary reduction). That might help you rationalize it, calculate how much you earn per actual hour worked and try to get that number higher by not working for free. At the end of it, you are paying for that output with your time which is limited.
WalterBright 6y ago
I enjoy my work quite a bit. Vacations, not so much. I like the challenge, I like being in the game. I have no plans to ever retire.

jpm_sd 6y ago

One word I am surprised the author did not use in this article is patience. Successful people are used to being in a hurry. It takes practice to have patience with yourself, and patience with others. Another problem that I struggle with, and I'm sure "successful" people do as well, is chronic pain. Sometimes it's just bad luck, or an old injury; or maybe you have sacrificed your health to get more work done (in the short term). Many long-term problems are invisible; you never know who is struggling on the inside.

hundillo 6y ago
As a person with a 10+ year chronic injury, thanks for saying this. It was nice even just to read it on the internet from a total stranger and know that somebody is aware that people are dealing with things like this.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

mathgladiator 6y ago

> That it’s ok to let go of the image of the lonesome warrior, shouldering the world’s problems on their own. This is the one thing that I've struggled with as an engineering leader. Much of this article is spot on, but the hardest thing for myself is simply asking for help. Part of it because I have learned how to learn anything, and I can just spend time doing what I need. However, there is only so much time in the day. For some reason, I've always felt that asking for help was related to weakness, and it took a long time to realize that leadership is not knowing everything, but knowing how to teach people to play the game and ask good/dumb questions.

rabidrat 6y ago
One thing I've been thinking about recently, is the difference between "asking for help" and "being offered help". It's difficult to ask for help in a socially acceptable way: deferential, but not ingratiating; vulnerable, but not needy; bounded, but not transactional. Whereas these tensions are largely circumvented when someone sees you struggling and offers to help in some way. This leads better results also, as often when I need help, I don't even know what kind of help to ask for. But someone who has gone through something similar, can help simply by knowing what it is I might need, even if they can't provide it. It's very difficult to get that kind of help by asking for it.

monadic2 6y ago

Note money is nowhere on this list.... what's the point? Every "successful" person I know simply buys their way into a happier life. What a puff piece without acknowledging this! Why is this shit even on HN? Is everyone here a rich, narcissistic douchebag? I mean we all suspected....

prerok 6y ago
I guess that the point of the article is also that "money doesn't buy you happiness", but the author only says it between the lines. He does state that success in business will also not bring you happiness if you don't take the time and care for other aspects of your life. The view may be a bit skewed since he is a coach and will mostly deal with people who have a problem. It is still a good reminder to try to have a balanced life, regardless of where on the ladder you are :)
- KSteffensen 6y ago
  The author also owns enough money to buy himself a Lamborghini for his 30th birthday. It's easier to say that money is not the point when you have lots of it. Money may not buy you happiness but it sure does make a lot of things easier.
- monadic2 6y ago
  Money does buy happiness, though, from all the time I have spent observing rich people. Clearly rich people do find ways to become unhappy but it seems like a struggle compared to the rest of us. It's not hard to coach when the largest barrier in human life is stripped away from your clients (well, excepting disabilities).

jrexilius 6y ago

I think the very first exercise is a great one, and a challenge for many this year (including myself). "What am I grateful for that happened in the last 365 days?" A sense of gratitude is extremely healthy and remembering to acknowledge it is hard in the face of adversity.

notacoward 6y ago

I don't claim to be super-successful, but these are things I've thought about quite a bit. Some people are good at being happy. Even when their situation is objectively lousy, they still find humor and love and fulfillment and so on. Other people just aren't good at being happy. Can't relax. Can't take a compliment. Can't enjoy when things are going well, without worrying about when it will end. The thing a lot of these have in common is being in the moment vs. looking forward. Absolutely nothing wrong with looking forward, it's how we all progress and ensure future good times, but you also have to be able to turn it off (which is another item on OP's list). Learning how to shut up those internal voices for a while can be hard, but it's worth the effort.

wiradikusuma 6y ago

It could be Asian thing (I'm Asian), but there's a saying, "Money can't buy happiness, but it sure hell better crying inside my BMW than crying outside by the street."

Cerium 6y ago
What are your thoughts on the (in my experience more common) phrase: "I would rather cry in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle"? When I really consider this phrase it brings tears to my eyes.
- crispyambulance 6y ago
  That makes me think of the flippant quip: "Whoever dies with the most toys wins."
- wiradikusuma 6y ago
  I'm biased, I prefer (nice) bicycles than (nice) cars. Not because it's healthier, but because I don't like to be stuck in traffic. -- Again, living in overpopulated Asian country.
  - kiliantics 6y ago
    Cycling a bicycle is just easily one of the greatest of human experiences.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  Reminds me of the short story "The Adopted Son" by Guy de Maupassant. > Then the boy said, roughly: "I'd rather not have been born than be what I am. When I saw the other, my heart stood still. I said to myself: 'See what I should have been now!'" He got up: "See here, I feel that I would do better not to stay here, because I would throw it up to you from morning till night, and I would make your life miserable. I'll never forgive you for that!"
- philwelch 6y ago
  That happens to me sometimes, but when it does, I find the leather seats in my BMW very comforting.

hdfhu 6y ago

"Successful people" are those that come to the ocean shore, build a sand castle (indeed, what else is this sand for?), develop depression protecting it from wind, water and sun, and even force other tourists to build the castle for them. And they die wondering why the ocean shore is such a cruel and pointless place. Their lives aren't worthless,though: at least they develop some will. The wise don't build castles, they just watch the ocean and think about the relationship between sand, water, wind and sun.

Grimm1 6y ago
Thinking without interaction may as well be useless. Even the type of people I believe you to be speaking about wrote and shared their writings to influence others.
- dbtc 6y ago
  We don't know how many more did not write or share their writings
- mikelyons 6y ago
  The wisest realize there are no others.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    Which obviously doesn't include anyone on HN talking to people in virtual space, you and me included.
    - mikelyons 6y ago
      Hehe, there could be people on HN who know they are talking to themselves in virtual space, but choose to engage anyway.
Apofis 6y ago
Wise people don't like playing with sand on a beach?

dbtc 6y ago

One extreme: calm, content, happy, don't care about much, don't do much. Other extreme: stressed, unsatisfied, unhappy, always working, getting lots done. Maybe there is a middle way. A more nuanced definition of success.

notacoward 6y ago
Great observation. Thank you. I think there is a middle way, but it's not so much about definitions as about balance. There's a time to sow (work) and a time to reap (rest and enjoy). Of course you have to sow before you can reap, but if all you do is sow then your final yield is zero. You have to alternate, maximizing the product of the two instead of either alone.
bigbizisverywyz 6y ago
I think the middle way is going home to your family or SO, somewhere between 9-5 :)

x87678r 6y ago

I think a lot of people in the US are taught from a young age to work hard and be the best you can be. Get into the best college, work hard to get the best job. Get promoted. Get promoted. Start your own firm. Work hard work hard, make money. Often they never learn you are allowed to back off.

yeswecatan 6y ago
Absolutely. One of my favorite teachers in high school used to always say "the harder you work now, the easier it will be later." There is always a later, though.
- VonBlue 6y ago
  Until there isn’t
WalterBright 6y ago
> Often they never learn you are allowed to back off. I don't believe that people cannot think for themselves, nor have I encountered a single person who believes they are not allowed to back off.
randomdata 6y ago
> Often they never learn you are allowed to back off. More-so fear of the long-term consequences. You do all that hard work to get to where you want to be and then if you back off, will that work be lost?

StanislavPetrov 6y ago

If you aren't happy, you aren't successful. Far too many (like the author of this article) equate economic wealth with "success". How can someone who is miserable be described as a "success" no matter how many baubles they collect or how many accolades they receive from their fellow bauble collectors? To me being successful means being content and leading a happy and rich life. Economic well-being often helps facilitate contentment and happiness through the security it allows, but it is, at best, a piece of the pie. Unfortunately all too many (especially Americans) have been conditioned to believe that life is a game of Monopoly and the goal is to accrue as much material wealth as possible. This leads to the oft-referred to, "mid-life crisis" when people start coming to terms with their mortality and realize they've wasted the best decades of their life pushing pencils and sitting in traffic. Perhaps if we start changing the way we view "success" we can help some poor souls avoid this awful day of reckoning in the future.

np- 6y ago

I feel like the problem may be that we have a distorted view of "success" and what it means. Success is much more than a one-dimensional goal of earning more money. Are you really considered successful if that's all that you accomplished? Success itself encompasses many of the goals espoused in the article, such as having quality relationships and being able to take time for yourself. I think it's a perspective problem. You aren't successful just because you did well in your career. There's much more to it than that.