Several years ago I spent two days lecturing at my alma mater about success, to an audience of business and marketing students at my alma mater. It was an intense experience to walk the halls where I once studied and explored and dreamed toward the future I imagined ahead of me.

“What does success look like?” one of the bright-eyed ones asked.

“How did you get from sitting where we are, to where you are now?”
Her unspoken question also hung in the air, “How did you accomplish this… as a woman?”
Her unexpressed doubt hung there equally, “And if you did, then could I possibly do so too?”

I chewed on her question for days afterward... this idea that success is something to be measured and quantified against preconceived goals.

Because that’s how we all start out… If I make this much money, or achieve that career title, or have this type of wedding, or drive that type of car… then I will have achieved success. 

I will be somebody. 

But who will you be with those things? 
Whom do those things make you?

The eager young woman asking those questions wanted very much to admire others around her as “successful”. It was oozing from her, palpable. She needed to have role models she could emulate, hoping perhaps that their formulas for choice and decision-making could become hers, and in following those formulas that she could achieve her own “success”.

I told the auditorium filled with students that success looks a lot less like a direct trajectory, and a lot more like a plate of spaghetti. 

Twists and turns and tunnels, and limp noodles tied into knots… 

That’s all true. Success is rarely achieved in a direct line. Valuable accomplishments are most often entwined  with an unenviable dose of heartache, failures, humiliations, and lessons badly learned.

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You must walk a few laps with Job from the ancients... or many…

But as I’ve pondered since, I wish I had answered her question much differently.

I wish I had told her she had it upside down.
I wish I had clearly stated that success has very little to do with things like becoming a director or producer.
Or being on TV.
Or working with impressive clients.
Or publishing a book.
Or going back and speaking at your alma mater.

Those things are fun. 
They look good on a resume. 
They complete a digital portfolio nicely.

But they are not success.

Success is…

• going to sleep with a clean conscience at night.

• seeing your child choose the Jesus-thing, instead of the self-thing, and then come dashing over joyfully to share it with you.

• confronting injustice and being an active part of resolution for the oppressed.

• living in harmony with those you love most.

• doing something kind to someone who has absolutely nothing to offer you in return.

• knowing that even in the face of great pain or loss, you have clung to your core values without flinching.

• finishing the day’s to-do list and knowing it was accomplished with a measure of excellence, no matter how trivial the content.

• being vulnerable enough to embrace honesty when you knew you were wrong, and allowing a friend to put you in your place without hating them for doing so.

• deciding to do that really hard thing, because it’s right, instead of the fun or easy or comfortable thing that is gonna nag your conscience.

Success. has. absolutely. nothing. to. do. with. occupation.
Or accomplishment.
Or prestige.
Or fame.

If anyone ever asks again, my answer would be short, and sweet:

Success is a matter of the heart.

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