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Coffee With Hilary and Les from State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre
Success Examined: Personal Fulfillment vs. Public Validation
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What truly defines success? Is it the applause of others or the quiet satisfaction of personal achievements? On this episode of "Coffee with Hilary and Les," we embark on a contemplative journey to unravel the nuanced and deeply personal concept of success. Inspired by an insightful Facebook post from Sarah Jane Riley, we spend a serene August night reflecting on the countless ways our Monday morning coffee friends view success. From the beauty of meteor watching to the profound discussions on personal growth, we explore how success is a moving target that each of us perceives through our unique lenses.
Furthermore, we challenge the conventional wisdom of public validation versus personal fulfillment and delve into the importance of defining success on your terms. Whether it's the small victories in your relationships or the quiet milestones of personal growth, we emphasize the significance of internal benchmarks over external comparisons. To cap it all off, we introduce the intriguing practice of hypnosis as a tool for personal development. Join us for this thought-provoking episode that might just reshape your perspective on what it means to be truly successful.
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Welcome and thank you for joining us for Coffee with Hilary and Les. Brought to you by the State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Center located in the heart of the Kawartha Lakes. This is our almost daily community podcast about the mind and how we all might change it in the most simple and helpful ways. Every day we sit staring at the lake and sipping our coffee, chatting about hypnosis and how to make those meaningful adjustments to our state of mind, because nothing's more important than your state of mind, because nothing's more important than your state of mind.
Speaker 1:I wasn't even looking at the line.
Speaker 2:It's a chilly day this morning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's August, eh, it's August, eh yeah it's almost Christmas, august, eh.
Speaker 2:Almost Christmas and a day.
Speaker 1:From here on to Christmas. Eh, it's just all the same, eh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, basically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was cool. I was out watching meteors last night with a blanket. It was kind of cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Streaking across the sky.
Speaker 2:I was sleeping. I was so tired, I just I fell asleep so fast. I couldn't believe it when you said you came in at what quarter to 12?
Speaker 1:What, yeah it was like a party night. Well, it was just really getting started, but they were starting to move behind the trees, so Mm-hmm. I thought okay, at least I can say, I saw them, maybe I'll go tonight. Maybe, it's neat. It's neat watching them streak across the sky. I saw countless airplanes going by and I heard the howling of the wolves and the coyotes.
Speaker 2:They had one dog down the street just going crazy, jumping a fish.
Speaker 1:Lots of fish splashing. Maybe they're trying to catch the meteors.
Speaker 2:That's what came to my mind. When, you Like, they think that Maybe they see stars as bugs on the water or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know the life of fish, but there weren't enough meteors, I think, to be activating the fish. I think they were just doing what they do.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Maybe they were cold, maybe Jumping the fish. I think they were just doing what they do. Yeah, maybe they were cold, maybe jumping up to get warm.
Speaker 2:So that's a lot of gibberish about nothing.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about a topic so yesterday I was looking at Facebook.
Speaker 2:You were looking at Facebook. I was looking at Facebook. Oh yes, that's how you got it, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:Sarah Jane Riley. Hello, sarah Jane SJ, you posted something and it got me thinking and that got me thinking and I started sharing it with others and we ended up going to our Monday morning coffee friends and we talked about it there yeah.
Speaker 1:I thought it'd be worth continuing to think about. But she posted a question she does that from time to time and her question was how do you define your own success? I thought that was really great and it caused me to read all the comments that she generated with her friends and it got me thinking about how I would respond to it, and I feel like I have a million responses to it. Because there's so many different ways to think about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so we went to coffee in the morning and I asked others mm-hmm what they thought about it. Yeah, how do you define your own success? And I think for me the first idea really is you know, like she asks it in her question, she says your own success like success for me, she implies. I think that success for me would be different than it would be for somebody else yeah, absolutely, I think that's the case is it?
Speaker 2:well, and it is naturally the case that you know it's different for everybody.
Speaker 1:Is it?
Speaker 2:Apparently, I think so. After going around the table yesterday morning, you know everyone sort of um had more of a, a, a definition or a definitive like this is how I would feel successful. And then some people had more of like, uh, um, like a perspective on success instead of does that make sense? Well yeah, Like a perspective versus an absolute. We're not sure about that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, can there be an absolute?
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, I think that there can be an absolute for people, but I do believe that for every person, that that barge keep it can keep moving. Right, you almost want the bar to keep moving so that you keep working towards things as long as you're not getting down from not achieving in your mind. Um, you know, I think when it comes to say my own success, um success, I think I already see myself as successful, but there's the bar and I keep reaching and reaching forward, always having things on my plate that would maybe make me feel more successful or something right, maybe make me feel more successful or something right. But yeah, it was interesting to hear different people's version of success.
Speaker 1:Well, that was the first thing that Brian brought up when we were talking. Brian said hey, brian, brian said that he turns to the root of the word. Now, I don't know what the history of the word is, what is it? What's the word, etymology of the word? But it comes from the root of go to the next right, like things go in succession, and you know, then for him he talked about it sort of symbolizing moving forward. Success is moving forward, it's progress, it's development and it's neat, like for me, my immediate reaction, of course, is where does this come?
Speaker 1:from when do we get our definitions of success? Is it different for everybody? Is it?
Speaker 2:the same for everybody.
Speaker 1:I don't think most people would agree that success is the same for everybody, and yet I think that most people are out there driving towards the same stuff. Right, they're pushing themselves towards the same kinds of things, possibly different versions, um, but different versions of of the same thing, um. And I wonder what that is like. You know, for me, my immediate reaction, you know, is to try to claim it to be personal, like I. I like the idea that it's personal. I like the idea that somebody else doesn't get to define success for me. I like the idea that I can say no to commonly held views of success, and so I like the idea that it's an individually defined things.
Speaker 1:But I can't deny that inside of me there are a whole bunch of socially defined ideas of success. You know it's hard, you know, when you have people in your life that you love and admire, it's hard to ignore what they hold as success, what they admire. You know, I think children are just naturally driven to do the kinds of things that their parents admire, and I think that they they reach a point where they are going to actively reject what their parents admire in an attempt to be individuals, be unique, and sometimes, you know, I see people working so hard at their uniqueness, right? And I think, well, should uniqueness be so difficult, right? Should it require so much effort? Isn't it something that should come naturally? So I guess my first idea is, when it comes to success, it says who?
Speaker 1:right is success defined personally and is success or or is success defined by others and the social world that you're part of? How do do those two come together? They seem to be combined, but when you watch people try to be, you know like individual about it. You know you can see the look on their face that this is not something they think about often. Right, you know their day is not spent driven to what they might call success.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that might be, you know, one of the first takeaways is that we have to really hold a definition of success for ourselves to be able to work towards it, right.
Speaker 2:Do you think we automatically fall into if we don't think about that for ourselves? Do we automatically fall into society's version of success?
Speaker 1:Well, society's pretty confining, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like it's just money-driven Success is totally about money, fame. Think about how we see actors and actresses. We see them as the epitome of success. They've made it in the world. They're rich, they're safe, they're secure. They're all over the place. You know they've made it.
Speaker 2:For some, success is just making a difference in people's lives. I think that's actually for a lot more people than we think Making a difference is, and that's why I think we see so many people wanting to be. They're driven to take up volunteer roles or work roles where they're helpful, where they're helping people. And sometimes that comes later in life, because we start to think about these ideas of what would be success to me, and then there's a scale of that right, I've worked with people that think that they need to help a million people to feel successful. I was there. I was there. I thought I had to help the whole, every single person on the earth, to feel successful. But it's amazing how many people you help and then you have that internal feeling of success. It doesn't take much. It doesn't take much.
Speaker 1:So I guess you know we ask, you know, how do you define your own success? Sir Jane asked how do you define your own success? But I want to know where does that definition come from? Are you aware of the influences that have created your definition of success? And you know, is it quantifiable, you know? Is it about an amount of money? Is it about about a number of people? Is it about a number of units sold, the number of likes, the number of follows, the number of subscribers like? Where is success? Is this podcast a success? How do we define that? You know it's.
Speaker 1:We certainly are struggling with sort of putting it out there, where we're naturally inclined to think in terms of numbers right we, um, and some days I just I feel like boy, that was a good podcast that was full of thoughtfulness and full of new thoughts that I just know that anybody who listens to is going to be thinking for the first time and and to me that's one of the biggest, most successful things that I have done in my life. It's been one of my focuses really in so many ways in almost every part of my various careers, to get people to think differently, to cause people to pause right and say wait a second. Am I so sure about that or is that way I think? Is that really helpful to me?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Is there another way of thinking about this that has a better impact, a better motivation? So yeah sometimes we'll do a podcast and I'll think that was a good one. Boy oh boy, we were out there on the edge of the way we think and the way people think, and that's going to stretch some minds. And then I'll look at the number of downloads and go, oh, that didn't go very far. So how do I define success and where?
Speaker 2:does that?
Speaker 1:come from. You know what kind of influences have you had in your life. What were their definitions of success?
Speaker 2:and why do you like?
Speaker 1:their definitions of success.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure success can be quantified. Well, I'm sure it can be quantified, but I think the root of it is a feeling. I think it's a feeling that you have when you when you feel like.
Speaker 2:I can't describe the feeling exactly, but there's a. There is a feeling that comes along with okay, yes, that was a, that was a success, I feel successful, I'm good now. But then you go okay, I'm going to create this new thing to attain, and then you work towards that and then you get feeling from that when you attain that.
Speaker 1:So in our in hip, in our little hypnosis. Hypnosis Lee defined world in our little mind. Models, right, we as hypnotists, we have models of the mind. All models. Models are wrong. Some are helpful.
Speaker 1:It's that idea that the mind goes through experiences, the sum total of our day-to-day moments. We call experiences and we put a lot of value on them in terms of how we predict what comes in our future. And you know how well things are going for us. You know, and in our model we break that that down to.
Speaker 1:You know, something happens, an event. Sometimes it's something we do, sometimes it's something others do, sometimes, sometimes it's something others do, sometimes it's something that just happens around us that we have absolutely no input or control over and we're just receiving it. And then we put meaning on it and that's the big, big moment. The big moment is the meaning we put on it, and some of these meanings that we put on things are very automatic. They've been really programmed into us and some of the meanings we put on things, you know, sometimes unique events, events we haven't experienced before, are really empty of meaning. We get a real opportunity to decide what meaning we're going to put on them and in those moments we realize that you know nothing means anything, except what we decide.
Speaker 2:it means yeah.
Speaker 1:So these events are going on and then, because of the meaning we place on it, there's an emotional response.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Right. So we continue with that example. We do a podcast that we think is just really, really thoughtful, right. And so the meaning is we've been really helpful today. My meaning I'm going to talk about me. My meaning is we've been really helpful today. We've really got people thinking today. My meaning is we've been really helpful today. We've really got people thinking today. We're really helping people consider new ways of looking at their life.
Speaker 1:That might be helpful. That might be useful, that might cause them to have a better experience of life. That would change the meaning that they put on things, therefore change the emotion they experience and therefore change the experience as a whole. And that's the definition, that's the meaning that I've put on that podcast. And then I checked the stats a few days later and the stats are geez. People weren't very interested in that topic, people weren't very interested in that particular podcast. And then does that mean? What does that mean? That meaning that I place on it is going to create an emotion, maybe disappointment, maybe emotions that cause me to think of failure rather than success.
Speaker 1:Anyway, what I'm really driving at is that it's the meaning we put on things, and success is very much a meaning word. It's a judgment word. Yeah, it's a word that has an opposite success and failure. It's a word that is very subjective. Unless we accept it totally, totally accept all external definitions of success, then it's really a personal definition of success and it's it's very much about self-judgment and I.
Speaker 2:I think if we're looking at it how do I say this? Like, if we're not looking at it from an individual standpoint and my own successes, then we get caught up in the idea that, well, if so-and-so down the road is doing well, that means I'm not successful, right, if my friend is, let's say, making a lot of money, that means I'm not successful because I'm not where they are, right, and all the way up to actors and actresses, right, like they've made it, I haven't made it right. So we judge ourselves. If we're not looking at our own ideas of what the word means, I think we naturally can sometimes fall into that, just judging ourselves constantly for where we are.
Speaker 1:And there are people who want a very public life.
Speaker 1:There are people who want their endeavors to be public, to be out there across many, many people. They want broad-based approval and acceptance for success. But there are many, many people whose success you know, like it is natural for us to think of the people that are in the media when we talk about success. Like you mentioned actors and you know we musicians, and these people who are out there basically putting themselves out into the public, seeking approval which really, by the sounds of, was kind of dangerous, but anyway and but there I'm gonna guess that there are more people who whose definition of success has nothing to do with others opinions, others thoughts, others acceptance being public at all.
Speaker 1:You know there are people who are just really focused on the immediate, what's in front of them right now, the person who they're doing, what they're doing, whatever it is they do right. For some people, you know it's it's just that I'm a good friend and I have a wonderful circle of friends who see me as really, really worthwhile, and how does that factor into someone's perception of success? Is it always going to be external? It's an old Taoist saying when I am focused on others' when I am focused on others' opinions, I am their prisoner.
Speaker 2:When I am focused on somebody else's approval, I am their prisoner.
Speaker 1:Is that really good territory to be defining success and failure? That we require others' approval? When we get it, it feels really good. It certainly doesn't hurt to have somebody say, hey, you're a good actor, I want you to do this job for me and we're going to put this movie out to millions of people. I'm sure that feels really really wonderful. And where does the actor draw the line to say well, I'm here to act and so it's my performance that matters to me?
Speaker 2:And where does the actor say say it's how I think of my performance that matters to me, right, and that's again.
Speaker 1:We're just focused on that. But what about a nurse, right? What about, um your local shop owner who owns a, um, a curio shop? You, you know. What about, you know, your local teacher teaches grade one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:How do all these external definitions of success impact them? Is success something to just be disposed of? Does it? Does it actually lead to motivation and reward?
Speaker 2:does it actually does it actually? Result in positive experiences. Yeah, I don't know if you can. I've been thinking a lot about this recently, not in the word success so much, but this feeling like there's things that I want to achieve and how do I feel if I'm not working towards them Right, almost. Like you know, if we were to use the word success almost like success is paired with guilt, right.
Speaker 1:It's interesting how you can see the connection when you pause, because success and failure are are intricately interwoven into each other. In fact, there's an old quote I forget who said it in every success there's an element of failure. In every failure there's an element success. Treat them all as successes. I remember teaching that one to my students Like, don't think that everything is absolute and must be. You know an absolute, touchdown right. Boom, home run, it's got to be a complete and total. You know barn burner right. Sometimes each thing is, as Brian said, just a succession, an improvement on the last.
Speaker 2:I was thinking recently. I'm going through this writing course and one of the things that they teach you is that your character is going to want things and you don't quite give them what they want, but you end up giving them what they need. And I thought, and I think this I don't know how really this is all coming together in my mind about this success, but it's almost like the universe, if you pull back from your life and you look at it in succession universe, if you pull back from your life and you look at it in succession, the universe, let's say, has given you not maybe what you want, but what you need. Right, and so to your point. If we let go of thinking of things as failures, everything is exactly as it should be. The universe has given us everything that we need, in a sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you know, it's the old Bhagavad Gita story, right of Arjuna and Krishna. And Arjuna is standing in his chariot, the great general, the great warrior, and Krishna is trying to advise him that he should not be focused on the outcome of his actions, only on the purity of his own motivations and the precision of his own actions. That's what he controls. He does not control outcomes, and as you examine the world, it's hard to tell. You know, when you think about ideas, we have this idea we call the butterfly effect. You know that some tiny, tiny movement and the movement of a butterfly wing in Brazil changes the weather in China. And these kinds of ideas that we contribute into the great flow in little increments, in our own way. You know, I think you know big, big lessons. You know you talk about.
Speaker 1:If you could reduce your accomplishments to being completely personal. This is what I'm going to do. Success means you did it. I'm going to do this the best I can. If you approach everything you do, doing it the best you can, or I like to think of things now.
Speaker 1:I really I guess I judge myself now this way, but I think that that's.
Speaker 1:I don't need to be so harsh, but you know everything I do, did I do it with love? Right, you know, so many of my silly habits fall away when I say did I do that with love or did I just do that because I thought I was being, you know, glib or funny or cuter you, somehow a little too self-impressed, self-important. These are reasons why I always come back to ideas of curiosity and creativity. You know, they seem to be the simplest but the most direct ways to do what we feel driven to do. Am I curious about something? Do I want to learn? Do I want to know more? Am I creative? Am I expressing myself? Am I expressing these ideas? Am I expressing the things that are that I am curious about? That I am engaged in mentally and emotionally. You know, if I can simplify things and not be concerned with the outcome, not be concerned with how other people might receive them and be completely concerned with doing my best, consistent with my own sense of love, is that a nice replacement for external, extrinsic reward?
Speaker 1:will I be satisfied, then I do believe that it's valuable to have your own definition of success. I do think that having your definitions of success be external to you creates a lot of self-judgment. A lot of self-judgment creates a lot of self-chastising and criticism and lack of self-love. So I think that that's got to be there and I think it's really natural for our world to want to tell us what success is, and people want to say this is my version of success and they want you to agree with it. Because if you agree that my version of success is the right one, then, thank God, now I'm on the right path. And if you tell me that, well that's not success.
Speaker 1:Well, that just disturbs my sense of safety. That just disturbs my sense of safety. That just disturbs my sense of competence, Even my. It shatters my own self view sometimes when somebody says, well, that's not success, Especially when you've been working so hard at it. So I do think there's value in having your own definition of success. I think SJ is right. I think it's interesting to find out what other people's are, as she did pose the question out there on the Facebook world. In the land of meta.
Speaker 2:On the line.
Speaker 1:On the line. I think it's good to reduce success to your own judgment. Your own evaluation, I think, is a better word. It's not good or bad. Evaluate how you've moved forward in succession to the next thing.
Speaker 2:I think there's value there, but it's up to you, right, yeah, and I think it's always I think I've said this in past podcasts is it's for me at least.
Speaker 2:I really love the thought of always having something that I'm working towards right, something, um, that keeps me going right, something exciting that is in my midst, or or something I'm moving uh ahead with and um, I think the the, the secret there is to not attach myself so much to the outcome.
Speaker 2:Attach my ego and myself, you know, my big self, capital S to the outcome of that scenario. And that's hard, that can be very hard, because you get caught up in the excitement of it all and everything, and then that can be the driving force. But having motivation come from another area I'm not sure where that area is motivation of wanting to attain that, moving towards it, but not attaching myself to it so much so that it's, you know, a detriment to my, to my being if it's not attained, you know. But I think as humans, we always, we always want to have something that we're working towards. Um, you know, we think about um. We know someone in their 90s and they're, they're just always doing something. They've always got something lined up for the evening and you know whether it's cards or a buffet, or you know something that they're thinking about coming up, that they're going to be doing, and I think that's a good way to move through life.
Speaker 1:Well, if this podcast was successful, it caused you to pause and examine your own thoughts. From my perspective, anyway, from my perspective it's not a desire to tell you how to define success. It's actually an invitation to help you redefine success much more personally and much less At least be aware of your programming and much less at least be aware of your programming. Be aware of what programming is impacting the way you ultimately feel about yourself because of how you define success. Feel good about you All right, see you later.
Speaker 2:feel good about you. Alright, see you later. We hope you enjoyed today's podcast and that maybe it helped even a little. If you have any questions, we would love you to send them along in an email to info at psalmhypnosiscom. Thank you for being part of the state of mind community. For more information about hypnosis and the various online or in-person services we provide, please visit our website, wwwsomhypnosiscom. The link will be in the notes below. While you are there, why don't you book a free one-hour journey meeting with Hilary or Les to learn more about what hypnosis is and how you might use it to make your life what you want it to be? Bye for now. Talk to you tomorrow.
