Success Is Who You Become Along the Way (Yes, I Know)
Okay, I know. "Success is who you become along the way." It sounds like something stitched on a pillow in your aunt's guest bathroom, right next to "Live, Laugh, Love" and a little ceramic frog.
I rolled my eyes at it too. For about twenty years.
Here is the problem. It's true. Annoyingly, stubbornly true. And I have watched it play out in my coaching practice more times than I can count.
So let me go first. For most of my career, I thought success was a scoreboard. Hit the numbers, get the promotion, get the bigger office, repeat. And I was pretty good at it. I was also, simply put, an asshole. I once fired a great employee for being two minutes late. Two minutes. I was calm. He was fired. And I felt like a strong leader doing it.
Then one night at home I slammed my hand on the dinner table because dinner was taking too long, and my two little girls broke into those can't-breathe, world-is-ending sobs. Not my finest moment. That was the night the scoreboard stopped mattering. I did not need a new strategy. I needed to become a different person.
What I see in coaching
Here is what nobody puts in the job description: the person who shows up to work determines the results far more than the plan does.
I coach VPs of Operations, GMs and executives who are smart, driven and (this part is important) usually exhausted. They come to me wanting to fix their team. Their numbers. Their turnover. Their "people who just don't get it."
And almost every time, after a few sessions, we end up somewhere else. We end up talking about them. How they walk into a room. Whether people relax or brace when they show up. Whether they are reacting all day or actually responding.
Their "state of being," for lack of a less woo-woo phrase.
The leaders who change how they show up (calmer, more curious, more honest about what they don't know) start getting different results. Not because they found a magic framework. Because people actually want to work for them now.
(Side note: you cannot fake this. Your team can spot a weekend-seminar personality transplant from the parking lot.)
Okay, but is there any proof?
Yep. And this is where the cheesy pillow starts to look a lot more like a business case.
In 2005, researchers Sonja Lyubomirsky, Laura King and Ed Diener reviewed 225 studies covering more than 275,000 people. Their conclusion: happiness doesn't just follow success, it often comes first. People with frequent positive emotions were more likely to go on to succeed at work, in relationships and in their health. We have it backwards. We say "when I get there, I'll be happy." The research says, pretty much, the opposite.
Gallup found that the manager accounts for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement. Seventy percent. Your team's experience of work rises and falls with who you are being that day.
Organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich found that about 95% of people believe they are self-aware. The actual number? Somewhere around 10 to 15%. Which means most of us (me included, for a long time) are walking around pretty sure we are the calm one in the room.
And the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has followed people for more than 85 years, keeps landing on the same answer: the quality of our relationships is the strongest predictor of a long, healthy, happy life. Not income. Not title. The people most satisfied in their relationships at 50 were the healthiest at 80.
So. Happier people succeed more. A leader's inner state drives the team's results. Most of us can't see ourselves clearly. And what matters most in the end is how we were with people.
Sounds a lot like who you become along the way, doesn't it?
The serious part
I want to slow down here.
A lot of the leaders I work with are carrying something heavy. They were told their whole career that who they are doesn't matter as long as the results show up. Be tough. Have the answers. Leave the rest at home. And they did. And somewhere along the way they lost track of themselves.
Some have kids who are a little scared of them. Some have marriages running on fumes. Some have hit every goal they ever set and can't figure out why it feels so empty.
I know that place. I lived there.
What I want you to hear is this: the results you are chasing are downstream of the person you are becoming. Every day. Every meeting. Every time you choose to pause instead of react, to ask instead of tell, to listen when you would rather be right. That is the actual work. The title, the bonus, the promotion: those are just the receipts.
And the good news, the really good news, is that you can change. Not in a weekend. Not perfectly. But you can. I am proof that a 6'6" ex-rugby player with a temper can learn to sit still, breathe, and become a dad his daughters aren't afraid of. For those that have faith in a Higher Power, you already know grace is offered fresh every morning. For everyone else, the research says the same thing in its own language: people grow.
So here are a few questions to sit with this week:
When people see me walk in, do they relax or brace?
What am I chasing that I think will finally make me happy?
Who am I becoming while I chase it?
You don't need all the answers. You just need to be willing to look.
Be honest. Be patient with yourself.
Success is who you become along the way. Cheesy? Yep. True? Absolutely.
Let me know your thoughts.
