Have We Been Trying to Build Success from the Top Down
Have We Been Trying to Build Success from the Top Down?
I was looking at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs recently and mapping my own definition of success against it when something struck me.
I think we might have success upside down.
Think about how we usually describe a successful person. We tend to talk about what she has achieved, the business she has built, the money she makes, the contribution she is making or the impact she has had. We celebrate fulfilling our potential, creating meaningful work and perhaps eventually leaving some sort of legacy.
All of that sits towards the top of Maslow’s hierarchy.
Yet underneath it are some much more ordinary things: our physical wellbeing, safety, relationships, belonging and self-respect. The things that don't necessarily make an impressive LinkedIn post but have an enormous influence on how it actually feels to live our lives.
And I found myself wondering: can we really call the thing at the top success if we have continually sacrificed everything underneath it to get there?
My definition of success has changed
There was a time when I would probably have found success much easier to describe through achievement. I have spent much of my career working in transformation, taking on significant responsibility, solving complex problems and making things happen. I know how to achieve.
I also know what it is like for my body to pay for it.
Burnout changed my relationship with success because it forced me to look at something I hadn't previously given enough consideration to. Being capable of carrying an enormous amount doesn't necessarily mean carrying it is good for us. We can continue achieving while something underneath is becoming increasingly unsustainable.
That is why my definition of success now starts somewhere rather less glamorous.
It starts with being physically well enough to enjoy my life.
That sounds incredibly simple until you've experienced a period when it isn't possible. Sleep, rest, nourishment, recovery and having enough energy to actually participate in the life you're working so hard to create suddenly stop looking like things you fit around success.
They become part of success.
That was the first thing I noticed when I looked at Maslow’s hierarchy. Before we get anywhere near fulfilling our potential, there is a body underneath it all that needs to be able to live the life we're creating.
Success also needs to feel safe
Then I started thinking about money.
I've talked elsewhere about why I believe we're allowed to make money, and Make Money sits unapologetically in the middle of Do Business. Make Money. Enjoy Life.
But when I thought about money in relation to safety, I realised I wasn't thinking about enormous wealth or some grand definition of financial freedom. I was thinking about something much more tangible.
For me, safety means having enough.
A secure roof over my head. Food on the table. The bills covered. And enough money left for nice things.
There is something about the word enough that I really like because it makes us define success for ourselves. My enough and your enough may be completely different. Our lives, responsibilities, desires and circumstances aren't the same, so why would the number be?
Money isn't simply a way of keeping score in business. It supports our lives. It gives us choices and creates a degree of safety. So when I'm thinking about whether my business is successful, I don't only want to know how much revenue it generated. I want to know whether the money I'm making is creating the life and sense of security I actually want it to create.
That's a rather different conversation.
What if relationships are part of success too?
The next thing that caught my attention was belonging.
Again, this isn't something we tend to put on the traditional business success scorecard. Yet what would it mean to build an extraordinary business while becoming increasingly disconnected from the people we love, or spending our lives in relationships where we can't really be ourselves?
My definition of success includes loving and being loved without losing myself.
It includes family, friendship, thoughtful conversations and meaningful connection. It includes reciprocity. It includes having people in my life who value me for who I am, not simply for what I can do, provide, solve or take responsibility for.
I've become much more conscious of the difference between connection and belonging, and between being loved and continually adapting ourselves in order to remain acceptable to somebody else.
That deserves a whole conversation of its own.
But in terms of success, the point is quite simple: the quality of our relationships isn't something separate from the life we're trying to create. It is part of that life.
Which means it belongs in our definition of success too.
And then there is value
This was another interesting one for me because I have spent a great deal of my life being useful.
Being capable and being useful can take you a very long way. People trust you. They give you responsibility. You become the person who can sort things out, make things happen and carry things when they need carrying.
The difficulty comes when usefulness becomes confused with value.
We can find ourselves proving our value through how much we do, how much responsibility we take and how much we are prepared to carry. And the more capable we are, the easier it can be to keep doing it.
My definition of success now includes knowing and expressing my value without continually having to prove it.
That means self-respect. It means being respected by others. It means being properly rewarded for my contribution. And it means recognising that my value doesn't increase according to how exhausted I am at the end of the day.
That one has taken me a while. 😊
I still want the top of the pyramid
And here's the important bit.
None of this means I've stopped wanting to achieve.
Quite the opposite.
I still want to create. I want to write. I want to speak when I have something meaningful to say. I want to initiate ideas and turn what I've learnt into resources that other people can use. I want to fulfil my potential and create work that continues to make a difference without requiring my constant presence.
I want the top of the pyramid.
I just don't want to pay for it by sacrificing everything underneath anymore.
That is the distinction I saw so clearly when I mapped my own definition of success against Maslow’s hierarchy.
Perhaps we've been taught to focus so much on the visible achievement at the top that we've forgotten to ask what is holding it up.
We build the business and sacrifice sleep. We pursue financial success while feeling fundamentally unsafe. We create work that matters while relationships suffer around the edges. We gain recognition while privately feeling as though we still have something to prove.
And because the thing at the top looks successful, we call the whole thing success.
I'm not sure I do anymore.
What if we built success from the bottom up?
For me, success now looks like being well enough to enjoy my life, having enough money to feel safe, loving and being loved without losing myself, knowing and expressing my value, and being free to create work that matters.
Not one instead of another.
The whole thing.
That doesn't mean every part of life will be perfectly sorted before we can pursue an ambition. Life isn't that neat. There will be periods when work requires more of us, times when money needs greater attention and times when our health or relationships become the priority.
But there's a difference between a temporary imbalance and creating a definition of success that requires continual sacrifice as its operating model.
Perhaps that is what I was seeing when I looked at Maslow’s pyramid.
We've been staring at the top and asking, How do I get there?
Maybe there is another question worth asking.
What needs to be underneath my success so that when I get there, I have a life capable of holding it?
That, for me, brings us straight back to The Minerva Manifesto.
Do Business. Make Money. Enjoy Life.
Not three competing priorities. Not three things we achieve one after another.
Three parts of a life that needs to work as a whole.
So perhaps instead of asking yourself only what success you want to create, try looking at the whole pyramid.
What does success look like at every level for you?
Explore The Journey
The Journey is an invitation to explore what success means to you — not simply what you want to achieve, but the life, relationships, money and sense of self you want your success to support.
