Why Doesn’t Success Bring Happiness? - Laura Gassner Otting (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of author Laura Gassner Otting’s talk titled “Why Doesn’t Success Bring Happiness?” at TEDxReno 2022 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

The Excitement of Accomplishment

Have you ever accomplished something you weren’t quite sure you could do? It’s energizing. It’s exciting. It’s amazing.

Success feels kind of wonderful, right? The work you did opened more doors than you ever thought possible. And yet, that work also teased the opportunity of even more doors that you never thought possible. Maybe, just maybe, as you peeked through the doors at what could be, you thought to yourself, “I think I want more.”

The Paradox of Success

Instead of success handing you happiness, it gave you a faster pace and increased hunger, bigger goals. And in that faster pace, increased hunger and bigger goals, you also found uncertainty, self-doubt, anxiety, stress. Success is wonderful, but it’s also kind of hell.

It just might be that success is kind of wonderhell. Over the course of a 20-year career in executive search, I was hired by my clients to go out and find for them and recruit away on their behalf some of the most successful people in the world. Now, that sounds like kind of a hard job, except I was helped by the fact that despite all this success, which is why I was calling them, they weren’t all that happy, which is why they were calling me back.

The Illusion of Ease

Now, we think once we’ve achieved success, everything gets easier. So why doesn’t it ever get easier? Why doesn’t it feel better? Why doesn’t success equal happiness?

And why does it all too often feel like wonderhell? I had my own wonderhell moment shortly after my last book came out. I’d spent the previous few weeks existing on airplanes.

A Moment of Realization

I had gone to sleep in 20 different hotel beds. I’d woken up in 10 different time zones. At the moment of this realization, I was 35,000 feet in the air.

I had 1,200 miles behind me and 1,200 more to go. The only thing I knew for certain was that somewhere between the blur that would be the past and the blur that would be the future was the space I was in at present. And the space I was in at present was upright and locked in a center seat on a red eye.

The Cost of Success

And I was completely and utterly fried. Now, launching my book well meant I had to be bold. I had no idea what I was doing, but I set these crazy goals for myself anyway.

I let my mouth write a whole lot of checks that my hustle had to cash. I’d spent those weeks existing on nothing but coffee and protein bars and the rush of adrenaline that bowel-shaking terror offers by the fistful.

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The Arrival

But it worked. This thing that I’d created, I grew, I birthed, I pursued so very hard for those weeks and months and years leading up to it, it worked. I was pushing towards success and my mental GPS announced, “You’ve arrived.”

And I was like, “I know, right?” But I was also pushing towards burnout. I was tired, so very tired and somewhere in the alchemy of achievement and exhaustion, the part of my brain that normally governs my humility disappeared and all I was left with was a tiny little voice whispering, “This thing has legs.”

The Burden of Potential

Now you might recognize this moment as the moment that the burden of potential walks into your psyche, unpacks its backpack and asks, “Hey, what you got for me, huh?” The burden of your potential plunks its weight on your shoulders and demands that you carry it around with you at all times. It’s your wonderhell.

And it starts the moment that you realize that your idea has promise, that it can be bigger, that you were meant for more. Ego has entered the chat.

The Emotional Turbulence

Now what comes next is a sea of turbulent emotions, these necessary evils that we’ve been told are just part of going after everything we’ve ever wanted. We think we need to just struggle through and get by all the time, wrestling with this never-ending flip-flopping dialogue. “I can handle this. I can’t handle this.”

We think of success as a final destination, but it’s not. We think once we’ve achieved it, we’ve arrived, but we haven’t. We think once there, easy money, smooth sailing, but it’s not because wonderhell teaches us that success is not a final destination at all, but merely an inflection point along the way.

Seeking Answers

So once I realized I wasn’t at the end of my journey, but merely in the middle, I set about to do some homework. I read all the books. I read the books telling me to crush it and to lean in and to 10X.

And I read their polar opposites, the ones telling me to stop apologizing and wash my face. And what was on offer on social media was not much better.

The Extremes of Advice

There were the slick-backed bros, the hustle-born dudes jetting off to ink their next deal, yeah. And then there were the boho-chic instafluencers telling me to follow my passion, telling me I could find happiness if only I just breathed into the right energy crystals. What even is an energy crystal anyway?

Neither of these worked for me, and I’m guessing neither of these work for you either. They didn’t work for the thousands of leaders who I stewarded through massive moments of career and life shift during those 20 years in executive search.

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Learning from Success Stories

And they certainly didn’t work for the nearly 100 glass ceiling shatterers, Olympic medalists, startup unicorns, and everyday people like me and like you, who I sought out to interview to find a way out of Wonderhell. Each one of them told me how they did things they never thought possible.

And each one of them also told me that at every phase and at every stage, they experienced crushing imposter syndrome, doubt, vulnerability, uncertainty, envy, exhaustion, and burnout.

But each one of them made it to the other side and the better for it.

Three Keys to Success

So, how’d they do it? Three ways. First, they came to terms with their ambition. Do you know why internal candidates always leave if they don’t get the job?

It’s because the very process of interviewing for that bigger job means that they literally had to, even just for a moment, answer questions in that role, speak in the voice of that role, wear the clothes of that role. And once they saw part of themselves in this new way, they couldn’t unsee themselves in this new way.

Embracing the New You

And just like these internal candidates, you can’t unsee this new you either. Each time we envision success, even before we achieve it, we see a version of ourselves that we never thought real, a potential we never thought possible, a promise of everything we can be and all that we can embody. There is the you before this realization, and then there is the you after.

Second, the mixed emotions surrounding this realization, the good, the bad, and the ugly, they aren’t limitations, but invitations. For each of the people I spoke to who have a track record of thriving in Wonderhell, they understood that these uncomfortable feelings weren’t just part of the process, they were actually incredibly helpful allies.

Renegotiating Emotions

So they were able to stop, reflect on these emotions, listen to these emotions, renegotiate their relationship with these emotions. Because we think about these chaotic reactions of slings and arrows to be absorbed in silence and pushed down and muscled through, but that’s a lie, and that lie is stopping us from capitalizing on our Wonderhell.

Because Wonderhell is the excitement and the fear. It’s the joy and the uncertainty. It’s the possibility and the chaos.

Choosing Your Path

And it is the promise and the potential that you feel when you see this new you and you realize the only one who gets to choose which you you become is, well, you. And that means changing the voice inside your head warning, “You haven’t done this before!” And warning you to run away from your potential into a cheerleader yelling, “You haven’t done this before!”

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And encouraging you to run towards it. Wonderhell is the sign that you are on the right track to new opportunity and new growth.

The Cycle of Growth

And third, Wonderhell loves itself a repeat visitor. We think that things will settle down after, it’ll get easier when, all we need to do is just get through this one stomach churning, butt clenching, fight or flight moment as if it is a single, one-time, temporary hurdle.

But for everyone I spoke to, what was on the other side of this Wonderhell was the next one. And the next one. And if they were lucky, the next one after that.

Redefining Success

Our journeys are a series of successes punctuated by lessons and losses in life. It’s an ongoing cycle. There isn’t one big finish line. There are a million different little ones.

So listen, I’m not telling you to suck it up and I’m not telling you to get hard. What I am telling you is that to define success as a finite destination would mean that you are accepting that there is only a finite limit to your growth. And all that does is steal away all the wonder and leave us only in the hell.

Embracing Wonder Hell

So what if we redefined success, not as an end point, but as a way point? And the way point is to allow ourselves to sit in that deep, deep discomfort that is the only path to growth. What if we saw success not as a final destination, but as a portal?

One that expanded our understanding of what is possible. What if we stopped dreading Wonderhell and bracing to survive it, and instead learned to look forward to it, to plan for it, to learn from it, to grow from it, and thrive in it instead?

The Gift of Potential

What if Wonderhell wasn’t our breakdown, but our breakthrough? Because Wonderhell invites us to dive into that discomfort. Wonderhell compels us to expand our boundaries, to expand our understanding of what is possible.

Wonderhell urges us to embrace our newfound potential. So what will you do with the gift that is the burden of your potential? What will you do next time you find yourself in Wonderhell? Thank you.

Why Doesn’t Success Bring Happiness? – Laura Gassner Otting (Transcript)