RE-DEFINING SUCCESS (September/October 2002 Issue)

"Success" as we know it - Money and Status - will eventually bite everyone in the rear.

The problem, and it is a problem facing all your career clients, is that "success" is defined as a zero-sum game. For every "winner", there is at least one loser, usually many. For everyone who makes a lot of money, there are lots of others who make little. You can read today’s corporate scandals into this as much as you want. For everyone who has a lot of status in the marketplace, many others have little. Think celebrities. "I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not."

So, as long as "making it" requires beating out other people, being richer or more important than others, there will be a lot of unhappy "others." And there will be a lot of anger in the streets as the working poor and the entrapped middle class wish they could drive those three Jaguars and travel to the far reaches of the world.

It’s bad enough that the Haves have so much. What compounds the problem is that they flaunt it. They actively look down upon everyone who has less. They rub people’s noses in it. Again, think celebrities. And this snobbery, this patronizing, this condescension is what makes not being rich or famous so hard to take.

Somebody has created a culture in which you’re supposed to feel bad, very bad, if you’re not Number One, if you can’t afford what they’re pitching on TV, if you can’t buy all the cool stuff the merchandisers are jamming downthroat. And you are sold the destructive idea that it’s OK to indulge your children, which you do to alleviate your guilt for working too hard, but that’s another story.

Every advertisement depicts in one way or the other that unless you’re rich or notable in some way, or cannot afford what they’re selling, you’re a loser, you’re not cool. And not being cool, at any age, is a place you don’t want to be in America.

I have hawked this theme before. You may write me off as an aging hippie who just has to get in his two cents. I was never a hippie when they were prominent. I was straight as a string and bought into the consumerist culture as soon as I could. Couldn’t wait to get a sports car to be cool.

Upward mobility, making money, buying things, and getting recognition is what everybody does to "get ahead". Right? Isn’t this what we all work hard for? Isn’t this the American Way? Hard to argue with, I suppose. But consider how stressed out people feel when they’re not making "enough" to buy fancy things for their children, when they have humdrum jobs that don’t compare to their neighbors, when they see people cheating their way to riches. Consider how many people do resort to lying, cheating, or underhanded scams to gain advantage. Consider how many people lust to be "winners", in terms of money and status, yet they fall short, and then feel obligated to feel bad about it.

The best evidence we have that people are burdened with the Win-Lose aspect of careers is that old devil DEBT. When the culture encourages (even demands) that as many people as possible "act as though you are millionaires", there is only one way to play that game, and that is to money, max out your credit cards, or mooch off family members.

Debt appears to be the great equalizer, but of course what it does is to assure that debtors will have lives of massive anxiety, and portray themselves falsely to everyone around them. College graduates average $5,000 of debt upon graduation, not including student loans. The corporate lenders descend on college students like swarm of locusts. It doesn’t get any better as they become spouses and parents. Then the spending spree, and the desire to impress people, really kicks into high gear.

Rather than continue silently watching our clients absorb the values of a consumerist culture that sucker them into a Win-Lose game, I propose that we be pro-active in raising some of the following questions. These will encourage a Win-Win approach to career development.

(1) How do you feel about any debt you have or may have in the future?
(2) How do you define "success" for yourself?
(3) If money and status are removed from your view of success, what is most important to you?
(4) Are there internal measures of "success" that may be more important to you than external indices?
(5) To what extent do you believe you are influenced by advertising to buy things you may not need and be someone you may not want to be?

I’m not trying to overthrow the commercial establishment, but I am reminding us that we are often persuaded unconsciously to buy things. I’m in favor of people thinking for themselves as much as they can.

Even more importantly, the career counseling we do must have a Win-Win framework, rather than Win-Lose. Even a Super Bowl winner eventually loses. Doesn’t everyone who has a career deserve to feel good about themselves?

This means that our counseling should help clients to get in touch with their innermost drives, rather than being captive to external, flashy, visible measures of "success." This is where career happiness lies.

Howard Figler, Ph.D., is the author of The Complete Job Search Handbook and The Career Counsleor's Handbook [1999, with Richard N. Bolles]. He can be reached at: hefigler@pacbell.net