The true meaning of success
AS we face into another winter of price hikes, wage cuts and discontent, a book promising to change your life for the better might seem a doomed pipe dream.
Not so, says Brendan Foley. The 35-year-old life-and-business coach, trainer, motivational speaker and author of the newly-launched 5 States of Success, says he has identified the ingredients of that most charmed, elusive and highly-desired commodity: success.
But before you rush for the nearest bookshop, it might be instructive to consider what success means to you. Foley says, for most of us, the answer to this is informed by other people’s success, and our hunger to have what they have (or at least what we perceive they have). It may also be informed by our parents, schooling, social conditioning and a host of other environmental and cultural factors that create the state of being we define as successful.
Through Foley’s own personal and business experience, he has discovered that success is a relative state that is in constant flux.
For example, while he might judge today to be successful if he finishes a chapter of the book he’s writing, years ago, after a debilitating car crash, success for Foley was getting back to doing the ordinary, everyday things in life, which, prior to his accident, he had taken for granted.
So how to define success? Perhaps unsurprisingly in these straitened times, more and more people believe success to be synonymous with “financial freedom” or the ability to do whatever you want because you don’t have to earn a living from it. This, says Foley, is a fallacy perpetuated by peddlers of unscrupulous investment funds and get-rich-quick schemes.
We are encouraged to accumulate wealth to achieve this so-called state of freedom, says Foley, when all we’re really getting is a set of ‘golden handcuffs’.
“By this I mean that our possessions actually become traps that deprive us of the very freedom we were meant to be achieving by having them.
“Everything we collect — property, cars and so on — comes with responsibilities, and, of course, running costs. We have to stretch further to pay for these, and therefore we need to accumulate more. Eventually, we become so entrenched in this cycle of accumulation that we completely lose sight of why we ever wanted or needed these things in the first place,” he says.
Which is all very well for those still in possession of their ‘golden handcuffs’. But what of those who have lost their jobs and had their homes, cars and other such trappings repossessed? Although the future for those suffering such losses might seem bleak, Foley says it’s about perspective.
Foley cites the example of two people in negative equity, both unemployed and living off a fraction of what they once had.
The first person takes a negative view of life. He is the type you hear ranting on phone-in programmes. He feels cheated by the banks, the government and the system. He is angry with his employer for letting him go, and blames everyone around him for his misfortune. As his anger mounts so too do his debts, which in turn make him even more negative. He distances himself from his family and friends, and his health and well-being suffers.
He becomes paralysed in a cycle of negativity and thus blind to any opportunities to improve his situation. All this, says Foley, works on the basis that if you look for negativity you will find it.
By contrast, the second person has a positive outlook on life. He accepts personal responsibility and believes that every cloud has a silver lining. He has seen his house plunge into negative equity and is struggling to meet the mortgage repayments, so he contacts the bank and they work out a payment plan. He views his redundancy as an opportunity to start afresh and follow his dream. He makes plans to start a business doing whatever it was he always wanted to do, and shares these plans with his friends who are so inspired by his energy and enthusiasm they offer to come on board and help. Before long he is up and running, clearing his debts, doing something he loves, and living a vibrant and healthy life.
To get the work-life balance right, Foley says view your life as a garden, with each area of your life represented therein.
For example, your family may be the fruit bushes and trees, your health may be hedges and borders, your career and business the lawns, your education and hobbies the shed, your spirituality the pond and fountain, and, finally, your voluntary contribution the rose bushes and shrubs.
As in life, you will tend more carefully the areas you enjoy most or feel are most important. Maybe you are passionate about your lawns (career) and cultivate them with care and attention. If this is the case you will have immaculate, verdant lawns (or a very successful career). But what is happening to the rest of your garden? Are the fruit bushes and trees (your family) becoming overgrown and stifled by your lack of attention? Is the garden shed getting dusty (in other words, is your education and learning growing old and stale?).
While you are tending your lawns, what is happening to the borders and hedges (your health)? Are they top heavy and at risk of collapse? Foley says the analogy of life as a garden helps us to recognise all the areas that make up a fulfilling and happy existence and to realise that they all require attention and care.
And sometimes it takes a life-changing event to make us aware that all in our garden is not rosy.
For Foley himself, this realisation came shortly before his wedding in 2005, when his father had a terrible accident from which he never recovered. Though tragic, his father’s subsequent death made Foley step back from his own life and view it from a new perspective.
“I realised after my father’s passing that life is too valuable not to spend it the way you really want and in a way that can make you and others happy,” he says. “I realised that a life well-lived is a life that feels purposeful and in some way can serve a greater good. So I decided to get into the area of helping people to achieve their potential and established my training and coaching company, Seachange Training,” he says.
Though he started his business in an economic depression, giving up a solid job with great prospects “as others saw it,” Foley has no regrets.
“A business consultant would have advised against it,” he says. “But I had something their spreadsheets could not quantify — passion and belief. I am happy to say that today I am fulfilling my purpose and I am as passionate now as I was the day I started my business.
“I believe that part of my continuing success is because I regularly ask myself, ‘What makes my heart soar?’ As a friend of mine beautifully puts it, ‘follow your bliss’ — a line from the author Joseph Campbell. By living and breathing what we really love, we create meaningful success.”
