Five Lessons You Need To Know About Success

The participants postured around the table, poised to present their arguments. Each anxiously awaited their opportunity to have the floor, to demonstrate their claim to the prize. But this was not an economic summit, a political debate, or a treaty negotiation. This was dessert at the local restaurant, where a group of grandparents moved from conversation to competition as they discussed the exploits, endeavors, and successes of their grandchildren.

“My grandson just got a scholarship to his first-choice college.”

“My granddaughter is the captain of her cheerleading squad, and she’s just a junior.”

“My grandson just got engaged to a very successful girl. She has a big job, drives a Porsche, and already has her own home, paid for. She’s very successful.”

What Is Success?

Now, I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, but I’ve heard and sat in on these same conversations many times with friends, relatives, church socials, work groups–you name it. I don’t have any grandchildren, but we know we’ve all witnessed, if not actually been involved in, similar conversations regarding children, or own social circles, or our jobs. And, of course, I discuss this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but we should be proud of accomplishments, big or small, by our loved ones.

Yet it is the word success that I continue to ponder when I hear these conversations. “She’s very successful.” Is she successful because she makes a lot of money (as evidenced by the Porsche and the house), or because her “big job” involves international negotiations for peace in an unstable region, or because she works in a lab that is making major breakthroughs in cancer research? Is she more successful than the tenth-grade, inner-city guidance counselor who has the highest rate of keeping kids engaged and enrolled in school, with the lowest drop-out rate in the country? Is she more successful than the math genius who decided to pursue a career in music, even though engineering or physics offered more job opportunities, larger salaries, and greater notoriety?

Struggling With the Concept of Success

I have struggled with the concept of success – how we define it, what parameters we set for it, and when, and if, we truly achieve it. When I entered residency for otolaryngology at Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary, I planned to stay in academics and to move up the academic ladder. After completing residency, I did, in fact, stay in full-time academics – that is, for three and a half years. Then various outside pressures, particularly family needs, led me to reassess my position.

Ultimately, I moved into private practice to be able to spend more time at home. I maintained a part-time academic position, but the idea of moving up the academic ladder had now vanished. I grappled with the belief that I was a failure. Nearly twenty years later, I have retained a part-time academic position, have developed a head and neck cancer center at our local hospital, and have enjoyed serving a wonderful community. The abstract concept of success versus failure has continued to fascinate me during this time.

Five Lessons Regarding Success

Ultimately, I have learned five valuable lessons regarding success I want to share with you now:

1. Define your success for yourself. When I applied to undergraduate programs while still in high school, I set my sights on MIT and Harvard. However, I also learned about the Boston University Six-Year Medical Program, which guaranteed acceptance into medical school from high school. So I applied to, and was accepted at, all three institutions. In the end, I chose the Boston University program. I subsequently did my residency at Harvard. Boston University was a perfect fit for me and positioned me for an outstanding residency training program. Yet so many people saw me as making a poor choice by turning down Harvard or MIT. I faced the same criticism when I left full-time academics to relocate my practice to the community. I was viewed by many as “wasting my talents,” “giving in to the pressures of academic life,” and in short, “being a failure.”

Fortunately, I was able to learn a valuable lesson: We have to define success for ourselves. For some people in medicine, being successful means becoming a chairman of an academic department, publishing a plethora of medical articles, and lecturing internationally. For others, it means making a sizeable income performing the medical procedures they love to do. Still, for others, it means setting up a free clinic in an inner city and providing care to those underserved by the medical community, even though the position is neither lucrative nor prestigious.

In defining success for ourselves, we must decide what is important for us. In my opinion, we can’t let others define success for us.

If success for you is being a teacher, but others in your family want you to be a lawyer (perhaps to follow in someone else’s footsteps) or to run the family business, I think you should strive to be a teacher. Of course, there are tradeoffs – foregone income, prestige, and lifestyle all may be factors. And believe me, people will be all too willing to point out what you may be leaving behind. But pursue your goal – be the best teacher you can be. At the end of the day, it is you whom you face in the mirror, and you have to be happy with your choice. I see that as success.

2. Continue to set new goals. I hold a strong belief that complacency is a breeding ground for failure. The most successful people I know are continually setting and striving for new goals. They may learn a new skill, get a new degree, or pursue a new career. At age 51, I finished a Master’s in Health Informatics and Management. The same year, I completed training in robotic surgery so that I add that service to our cancer center.

My cousin, a year younger than I, completed her Master’s in Education a couple of years ago and continues to move up the educational hierarchy in her school system to further the education of her students. Maybe we are obsessive, maybe restless, or maybe just aware that life is short, but we are never afraid to try something new and strive to reach some new achievement.

3. Expect failure. I don’t mean this in a negative way, but in a realistic one. I don’t mean that you will always fail, but you are not always going to succeed. Keep striving, anyway. One of my favorite books is Dr. Seuss’ Oh, The Places You’ll Go! This eternally optimistic story speaks of our potential and the successes we can achieve, but it reminds us that there are times when we will fail, times when we will feel alone, and times when we will be left behind. The key is to keep trying.

We have the ability, through persistence and perseverance, to turn failures into successes. I have found throughout my career that the mistakes I have made and the failures I have had often stay with me much more than the successes, providing a valuable lesson from which I can move forward. In the words of the Dalai Lama, “If you lose, don’t lose the lesson.”

4. Have meaningful successes. Call me an idealist, but I believe we would like our successes to be meaningful. In the grandest terms, we might envision inventing the next great interactive technology, discovering the cure for cancer, or creating a strategy to improve education in a third world nation. True, those are probably big stretches for many of us, but we can still make a difference. Looking at examples I’ve already used, we have teachers who succeed by attaining a Master’s in Education and then using that knowledge to improve the standardized test scores of an urban high school.

We have plastic surgeons who have achieved success in their field (success in terms of results, finances, and prestige) and use that success to repair cleft lips and palates in a third world country. Moving beyond those examples, consider the professional athletes and musicians who donate time and money to hospitals, youth organizations and, in particular, the communities from which they came. They take their success one step further by making it meaningful, and by having a positive impact on others. I like to call this impact our “Societal Footprint.”

5. Have fun. Being successful usually takes a lot of work and a lot of time. Rarely is it easy. But achieving success is satisfying, particularly when that success is the success we have chosen for ourselves. Never lose sight of the fact, however, that achieving success should be fun. I realize that staying up all night studying anatomy for a medical school practical, doing “two-a-days” in football camp, or carrying lumber up three flights of stairs hardly seems like fun. Yet, acing the anatomy practical, playing football on Sunday, or turning the keys over to the owners of the new house you just built – there is great satisfaction in these achievements.

Don’t forget to have fun on the journey to those successes. Also, remember that part of the fun should be celebrating your successes. Even the smallest successes can deserve a brief celebration. I’ll admit it – I’ve been alone in the office at night, finished a hastily eaten sandwich, crumpled up the wrapper, and shot it across the room into the trash bin. “Shish, the perfect three-pointer at the buzzer.” Ah, my associates should have been here to see that. Foolish, I know, but how often have little successes put a huge smile on our faces!

This doesn’t mean we have to brag, or have balloons and confetti fall from the ceiling. The celebration may all be internal. Just don’t underestimate the achievement. And if your success involves a team effort, by all means, celebrate with your team. You will engender a culture of success that will cultivate future achievements. And that will be a success in and of itself.

 

Arthur M. Lauretano, MD, MS, FACS

February 13, 2017

 

My book, Do the Right Thing: A Surgeon’s Approach To Life is now available on Amazon! Read an excerpt here. 

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