This is amazing media production. So today we're going to talk about some of my thoughts about success. External versus internal success. I've learned a lot about the topic of success through my interviews with dozens of women at this point, who I've spoke to for different interviews, but mainly podcast interviews.
And how people connect with success as well as how they interpret success is all very different. The final question that I would ask at the end of most of my interviews was what does success mean or look like for you? I got so used to asking this question, it just rolled off my tongue. And the answers, they were anything but uniform.
It started to make me realize that my own views on success needed to be reevaluated. I was asking it initially because it's a measure, right? It's how people define you a lot of times in this world, whether you're successful or not. But when I really thought about some of the answers that were coming my way and then related them to my own ideas, I realized that it had been a while since I took inventory of my own views on success and sort of reevaluated what that looked like for me.
I had been unconsciously holding on to an idea about success that I probably created somewhere in my early years. I'm not going to say as a child because I don't even know that as a child I was really concerned about success. I think there are these ideas that are planted or these seeds may be that are planted in our head in terms of what do you want to be when you grow up and letting you know that there were certain professions that carried more prestige or that weighed heavier on the scales of success than other professions. But I don't know that I had this idea as a child of what success was, but as you get older you start to formulate opinions and start to look around you and identify what you think is successful.
But as an adult I hadn't taken the time to really understand what success meant to me in my present years. I solely associated success with the things like achievements, money and societal status which so many of us do. However, as this adult businesswoman that I am who's encountered wonderful highs and some lows at this point in my life, I now realize that success has to be based on more for me that is. I now realize that in short to me success in life it's about what you feel not what you can show.
It's about how you show up for yourself and as a result how you feel about how you've shown up for yourself. You got that? Not just about how you've shown up for yourself. How you feel about how you've shown up for yourself as well.
Despite any personal realizations there are still these societal norms that always hang around us. Those norms that we absolutely must contend with. Being able to show material things makes many people feel accomplished and successful, especially since we live in such a consumerist culture. Because of this I've devised two ways that we can approach the idea of success.
External success and internal success. You guessed it because I mentioned it at the top of this conversation. So external success that closely ties to your feelings of accomplishment with the elements that others can see. It's the degree.
It's the house. It's the car. It's the fancy clothes. It's the professional titles.
It's the designer labels, the luxury, the in vivo lifestyle. But are you happy? Not just throw that in the air. It's just a little nugget to think about.
We're not specifically talking about happiness right now. But when you think of people who are some of the most successful people in your mind, you also want to look at where does their happiness level fall? Not that you can ever really know. But if you have the chance to engage with somebody in real life and maybe even see them in their unfiltered, more private moments, you can really start to ask yourself an assess.
Are they exemplifying the signs or the behaviors of somebody who's truly happy? So then we enter into internal success, which is a very private feeling and a private sense of accomplishment. It doesn't have to be proven to anybody nor approved of by anyone. It's not up for debate.
It's not up for judgment because it can only be determined by you. So many women that I've interviewed say that happiness is essential to their definition of success. I attribute that to their personal experiences and exploration of the idea of success in terms of what fits for them. I challenge you to take the time and consider which version of success connects best with you.
And which version of success have you been trying to exemplify? As always, thank you so much for spending time with me today, sending you big love, positive vibes, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. Be well. This podcast is produced by Maisie Media.
Maisie Media is a women-led podcast production company that works with small businesses and corporations. Visit MaisieMedia.com for more details on how you and your organization can go from ideation to podcasting.