The Real DEFINITIONS of SUCCESS
Everyone wants to be successful, but most people can't define it because even if they tried, most people would get it wrong. We all know that after $125,000 per year, money no longer contributes to happiness or fulfillment. So, what does it actually mean to be successful? Well, let's break it down together. Here are 15 definitions of success that will serve you as a North star in life.
Number one: Success is when you wake up and smile for the day you have ahead of you. Success is when you wake up rested in a comfortable and safe home, knowing you've got a great day ahead of you. Success is when you no longer are rushing somewhere because you've already arrived. You wake up with a sense of anticipation rather than obligation, like a kid on Christmas morning, ready to see what gifts you're about to receive. It feels amazing, and you can't believe that you get to live a life without stress, anxiety, pain, or fear. There's a quiet contentment in knowing the day to come holds the promise of purpose and delight, as if the universe itself conspired to arrange it that way.
Number two: Success is when the young you is beyond proud of who you've become in your journey. There's a moment when the person you've become exceeds the hopes and dreams of the child you once were, and that's when you know true success is when your present self is the hero your younger self always imagined you'd be. Despite the years going by, you kept the spark alive and stayed true to your beliefs and goals. Success is when you've been able to materialize what was once just a far away wish. You understand the world more; you've become more wise but have yet to lose the child within you along the way.
Number three: Success is when you raise the value of the room because you're in it. Your presence brightens and elevates the room you step into. People gravitate toward you, and your words carry weight. You hold the power to shift perspectives. You know what you bring to the table, so you're not afraid to eat alone. But even with that being true, your table is long and filled with people whose lives were changed by their proximity to you. You help them see beyond the horizon into a future that without you would be out of reach. With you, they're a part of something bigger than themselves, and that's why they respect you and show loyalty to you, as you have shown loyalty to them.
Number four: Success is when you feel like you have enough. Success is when the pursuit of more is replaced by the realization that true wealth is needing nothing beyond what you already have. Most people get caught up in the trap of always wanting more, but the problem with that is that every desire is a contract we make with ourselves to be unhappy until that desire is fulfilled. You have to help yourself before you can help others. The catch is to know when you've helped yourself enough. Your belly is already full, so share what you have with everyone else. When you finally find the success you're looking for, accumulation turns into distribution because that's how you're supposed to measure impact. Once you have enough, going for more comes with too high of a price tag.
Number five: Success is when you've mastered the five pillars of a good life: finance, health, intellect, relationships, and emotions. You got to be rich enough to escape money problems and have the resources to alter the world around you. Without health, you can't enjoy the world. Without intellect, you won't understand the world. Without relationships, you'll be lonely. And emotions, you need to find peace and balance, so your journey is a smooth ride and not a stormy sea. It took us decades to come up with the five pillars of a good life and to map out exactly how they interconnected. We did it for ourselves because we wanted to know what is the most effective allocation of time, effort, and resources that would get us the maximum amount of life out of our time here on Earth. And we cracked it.
Okay, we built an evolving app that optimizes you, with the sole purpose of increasing your quality of life for the longest possible time horizon. It's called the Alux app, and you can download it right now by going to alux.com/slapp. Go download the app right now and listen to Foundation week for free. We mix in large-scale academic studies with tested advice to provide you the guidance needed to really improve your life. Hundreds of thousands of people have seen measurable results, and we're confident that you will see the same. Go to alux.com/slapp right now, and let's start this journey together.
Number six: Success is when your children want to hang out with you as adults. Success is when you're present as your kids grow up. Your role as a parent is to raise strong and independent children that are able to go out into the world and thrive. The intellectual and emotional investment that goes into raising children will be one of the most fulfilling and rewarding tasks you'll do in your life. We're like biologically programmed to be the happiest we'll ever be as human beings when we have a strong bond with our children. Watching them grow and even surpass you is the epitome of the human experience because that is how society moves forward.
Number seven: Success is when others want to be you when they grow up. Success is when your life becomes a blueprint of wisdom and freedom, a story that others dream of living just by your own personal example. Others have hope that one day they might do the same; that despite the humble beginnings, the challenges, the obstacles, the never-ending hardship, somehow you found the strength, the courage, and the wisdom to come out on the other side victorious. You mature once you realize that a life well lived is not one of accomplishments. No, it's one where your legacy is worth emulating, one where you're laying down the first steps in what will be a new path for them to take.
Number eight: Success is when you go beyond what you and anyone else thought was possible for you. Starting out, you have this wild belief that you're destined for more, but society doesn't see what you see. They think you're just like them, destined for mediocrity, and they'll do their best to warn you about failure, about not bothering to try. But you try anyway. It might take years of effort, public embarrassment, of all of your doubters patting themselves on the back for being right, until one day, one day when it all clicks for you. Life, very much like a staircase in the home of a wealthy family, starts spiraling upward. The more progress you make, the more potential you see ahead of you. They can't see where you're going; their vision is narrow because they never were able to reach the summit of the mountain.
Success is when you're self-actualizing, when you reveal to yourself what you're actually capable of and finally materialize your potential. Your doubters will take pride in telling other people how they've known you, and your haters will start to say you got lucky because they don't know that you've crafted your own luck. Eventually, you'll move away from them and find the right people.
Number nine: Success is when you feel like you belong. You will find the people and the environment that nourishes you. Belonging offers a profound sense of peace, but it's rooted in the idea that you found a place where you belong, not because you conform, but because you're understood. It's the quiet satisfaction of knowing that you're valued and that your contributions are celebrated. Belonging is a massive strategic advantage in life that exponentially increases the value of every piece of the equation. True belonging is physical, emotional, and spiritual all at the same time. It's when everything is in tune. You're not forcing anything. A great love life, like any great piece of art, has to be harmoniously put together, from every detail of the piece of art itself to the place where it's displayed, because even the best art could be mistaken for trash if that is what it's surrounded by.
Number 10: Success is when your mentors and idols become your peers. Success is when your growth aligns you with those who you once looked up to, turning admiration into mutual respect. There's a quiet elegance in the moment where those you once revered recognize you as one of their own. It's a subtle shift that signals your arrival. Picture yourself standing eye to eye with those who once seemed unreachable, knowing that you're a stepping stone away from overtaking them. Everyone has the option to stand on the shoulders of giants if only they could find the courage to climb that high. If you don't have a mentor in your life, allow us to fill that role for you. Subscribe to our channel, and we'll start building your castle one brick at a time.
Number 11: Success is when no other person holds control over you. You can't have success without freedom. It doesn't matter how expensive the watch is if it tells you when your lunch break is over. Success is when your life is so intentionally designed that no other person can alter its course—where no other person tells you when to show up, what to wear, what to say, what to do, or what you should be trading your time for. Success is when you can say no without fear or guilt.
Number 12: Success is when you don't have to pretend to be someone you're not. Success is when your personal growth and fulfillment allow you to live authentically, unshaken by the opinions or expectations of others. It's not necessarily an act of courage as much as it is about architecting a life where pretending isn't required. It's the triumph of your authentic self over the false identities imposed by society. You're no longer trying to fit in because the world naturally shapes itself around you. True success is the ease of living as you are, where the gap between who you are and who you present to the world has shrunk to nearly nothing. You now excel through your individuality. What you used to be punished for is now your greatest asset. Your success is a byproduct of you finding your own voice and identity.
Number 13: Success is when you see yourself as successful. Success is a self-fulfilling game. The only way to win the game of success is to see yourself as successful because it's not relying on metrics but our interpretation of them. What to others could look like overwhelming success to someone else could be more like the middle of the journey toward it. You have your own standards of fulfillment and grace that you measure against, but it's important that you define and measure it yourself. Otherwise, you'll be trapped in a golden hamster wheel called the Red Queen's race, where you have to run as hard as you can just to stay in place. Daenerys Targaryen said it best when she realized she had to break the wheel for anything to change. So do what must be done, but do it balancing who you are and who you're meant to be. You'll know you've achieved this level of success when you look in the mirror and you respect the person looking back at you.
Number 14: Success is when you create something that outlives you. In the first half of your life, you need to speak for yourself if you want to be heard. In the second part of your life, you need your work to speak on behalf. Technology might not have caught up with immortality, but some things end up living through time: ideas, books, inventions, discoveries, monuments, and cultural shifts. Every century, there are a handful of people that change the trajectory of humanity, and we reward them with ideological immortality. That's why you know the names of Jesus, Einstein, Da Vinci, Picasso, Mozart, or Napoleon. You might not be able to reshape the entire world, but you might be able to build something that reshapes your local community. We believe this to be true at our core, which is why a portion of all of the revenue we generate from the Alux app goes toward building schools and developing societies. Hopefully, Alux will live on well beyond all of us, but just in case it doesn't, the ideas will, the community will, and hopefully, so will everything that we build in the real world.
Number 15: Success is when there's nothing that people can give you to trade for the life you currently have. We hope that one day you'll wake up and realize that the life you're currently living, the feelings you're currently experiencing, are the pinnacle of what it means for you to be happy. It won't be at some kind of grand ceremony. It won't be you refreshing your bank account. It'll be a casual Wednesday, sitting in bed with your partner, your kids playing around the beautiful house that you've built for all of you. You're still young, healthy, and life is abundant. True wealth is knowing that the people who have the most money in the world would trade it all to have what you have in this moment right now. And even if they did, you know that deep down in your soul, there's nothing, no experience, no amount of money, fame, or status that they could offer you that would make you take the trade. And if that's you, congratulations.
Okay, you have officially won. Now that Alux is a community of brilliant and driven individuals, we want to hear from you. Okay, what is your definition for success? Leave it in the comments below. We can't wait to see what unique takes you guys have on the conversation.
And as a thank you for watching this video until the very end, here's your bonus: The Love of the Game. You know who wins in life? Those who love playing the game. Sure, you play to win, but it's impossible to compete against someone who genuinely finds pleasure in the game. For everyone else, the game is an uphill battle. For everyone else, it's a struggle to get up and do it, but not for the one who loves the game.
And the beauty of all of this is that you get to choose the game and how you play it because one can shift their perception of the game being played in an instant. And once you do, the fact that you even get to play the game at all is successful enough. No more need for external validation because it's right there in the title. Okay, it was there all along. Love means the enjoyment of doing something, and the word game tells you that you're supposed to have fun doing it while trying to win.
The beauty of the game is that sometimes you win the game and sometimes you just have some fun playing it. As long as the game is winnable, it's just a matter of you keeping on playing until you eventually get good at it. If success is the game, we hope you all eventually win. And if you've made it this far in the video, please write the word "success" in the comments. Let's see how many of you are committed to winning the success game.
We hope you found this video valuable. We handpicked this video for you to watch next, or head over to our app and let's take this to the next level.