00:00:08
hi my name is David Heckman I'm here
00:00:10
with Professor Richard shell to talk
00:00:12
about his new book springboard Richard
00:00:14
welcome thank you Dave first question
00:00:16
Richard you're really well known for
00:00:18
your work in negotiation and persuasion
00:00:20
so why write a book about success well
00:00:23
Dave it's um it's been a long journey um
00:00:26
the
00:00:28
the the materials on success actually
00:00:31
preceded the materials on negotiation
00:00:34
and persuasion I've been interested in
00:00:35
success probably since I was in my 20s
00:00:39
and um it also feeds into a real passion
00:00:42
I have which is in all my teaching to
00:00:44
help students and Executives uh bring
00:00:47
more self-awareness to their uh practice
00:00:51
whatever it is and the subject of of
00:00:53
success allows me to do that really
00:00:55
directly here at Wharton you teach three
00:00:58
very different audiences is about the
00:01:00
topic of success and challenge them to
00:01:02
think about what is success that being
00:01:04
our warten undergrads our mbas and our
00:01:07
senior Executives in our Advanced
00:01:09
Management program what do you see as
00:01:11
the differences in the way that the
00:01:13
audience reacts to the question um well
00:01:16
that's a that's a great question they
00:01:17
they're they're at very different stages
00:01:19
of life and so each one of those groups
00:01:23
has a sort of different question in
00:01:25
their head when you ask them what do you
00:01:27
mean by success so for an undergrad
00:01:30
they're standing right on the on the
00:01:32
edge of adulthood and uh very anxiously
00:01:36
awaiting the real world after um you
00:01:39
know doing school for 16 years and for
00:01:42
them it really is the first time to
00:01:44
encounter what their life goals might
00:01:47
consist of uh that sort of begin
00:01:49
thinking about family begin thinking
00:01:51
about career begin thinking about how to
00:01:53
balance those things and I think uh in
00:01:57
asking that question for them I'm able
00:01:59
to in some ways set their minds at ease
00:02:02
that they don't have to answer that
00:02:03
question all at once and that their
00:02:05
lives are kind of more like an
00:02:07
experiment than uh a test uh for the
00:02:10
NBAs it's a little bit further down the
00:02:13
road and I think they have a more career
00:02:16
directed Focus to that question they're
00:02:18
all thinking very very directly about
00:02:20
the kind of professional Niche that
00:02:22
they're seeking and what kind of success
00:02:25
that may uh that may hold for them and
00:02:28
then for the executives it's uh it's
00:02:30
it's much much different the senior
00:02:32
executives are much more mindful of
00:02:35
issues like family uh of issues like
00:02:39
work life balance and uh the kind of
00:02:42
mentoring that they can do for other uh
00:02:45
people little younger than they are and
00:02:47
help those younger people think about
00:02:49
what a meaningful career might look like
00:02:51
or how they can uh carve out a life that
00:02:53
will make uh sense to them so at some
00:02:56
levels I'm teaching the executives how
00:02:59
to be coach Es as much as I am opening
00:03:02
up a new subject for them many people in
00:03:05
our culture are chasing success goals of
00:03:08
Fame and Fortune yet you in your book
00:03:11
sort of say that they could be traps uh
00:03:14
what do you mean by that and how does
00:03:16
your how does your book help the reader
00:03:18
to find success for
00:03:20
themselves um well the the the culture
00:03:23
one of the points I make in the book is
00:03:25
that whether we like it or not our
00:03:27
surrounding culture is going to create a
00:03:30
lot of expectations for us and when you
00:03:33
filter that culture through the prism of
00:03:35
a family and where how you grow up and
00:03:37
where you grew up and the peer group
00:03:39
that you grew up around you're going to
00:03:41
have almost a hypnotic effect on what uh
00:03:45
people think they ought to be pursuing
00:03:48
and with the media that we have and the
00:03:50
uh celebrity culture that we have it's
00:03:51
very very common to see people
00:03:54
unconsciously adopt um a frame of
00:03:56
reference that if they're not famous
00:03:58
they're not successful if they're not
00:04:00
wealthy they're not successful and to uh
00:04:03
even when they know better continue to
00:04:06
behave in ways that give them this sort
00:04:09
of underlying sense of dissatisfaction
00:04:11
if they're not famous or Rich enough so
00:04:15
a lot of what I do in the book and in
00:04:16
the teaching that I do is to try to give
00:04:19
people a chance to gain a little
00:04:21
perspective on that and that means
00:04:23
looking at the sources of those early
00:04:25
messages that they may have
00:04:28
internalized uh and giving giving them a
00:04:30
chance to make a few more choices about
00:04:33
whether uh that sort of impulse toward U
00:04:37
getting recognition or the impulse
00:04:39
toward making another
00:04:41
$100,000 uh when they have choices about
00:04:44
using their time other ways um whether
00:04:47
they you know whether they can gain more
00:04:49
control over that I mean part of what I
00:04:51
do is try to substitute uh new goals for
00:04:54
the for the more automatic ones that our
00:04:57
culture provides and so instead of Fame
00:05:00
I try to get people to start thinking
00:05:01
about gaining respect that means a
00:05:04
smaller audience of people who know you
00:05:06
better and uh giving uh you a sense of
00:05:10
satisfaction from Gaining the respect of
00:05:12
that group as opposed to recognition
00:05:15
from people you don't even know and when
00:05:17
it comes to the money side of things I
00:05:19
try to emphasize whatever your needs are
00:05:23
that would relate to Financial Security
00:05:26
for you and your family and not just a
00:05:28
status score card that uh people
00:05:32
sometimes slip into when they just start
00:05:34
counting their uh their bank account uh
00:05:37
zeros at the end of their net worth so I
00:05:40
think part of it is helping people wake
00:05:42
up that realize that they're being
00:05:44
unconsciously influenced and the other
00:05:46
is to provide them with a more
00:05:47
thoughtful alternative that when they
00:05:50
think about it actually is something
00:05:51
they'd much rather pursue in the US
00:05:54
declaration of independence Thomas
00:05:56
Jefferson penned the words that we have
00:05:59
the inali a right to the to life liberty
00:06:01
and the pursuit of happiness should he
00:06:04
have edited those Wars to be the the
00:06:06
pursuit of personal
00:06:08
success um I don't know that the
00:06:10
founding fathers had the word success in
00:06:12
their um normal vocabulary happiness was
00:06:16
though and I think it's interesting if
00:06:17
you look back at that um at that event
00:06:20
in our founding because the original
00:06:22
text said life liberty and the pursuit
00:06:24
of
00:06:25
property and then Jefferson edited out
00:06:28
property wrote the word happiness over
00:06:31
it and I think it's a lot of cultural
00:06:34
commentators think that that single uh
00:06:37
editing changed the course of American
00:06:39
culture because the word happiness is
00:06:42
very
00:06:43
ambiguous I think it meant one thing to
00:06:45
Jefferson he was a stoic uh philosopher
00:06:48
he followed a very strict regime in his
00:06:50
life uh and uh got his Joy from
00:06:53
gardening and from uh from intellectual
00:06:56
Pursuits we've interpreted I think to me
00:07:00
uh longer times at casinos and uh and
00:07:03
more uh more elaborate Vacations so so
00:07:07
one of the things I try to do in the
00:07:08
book is give people a chance to think
00:07:10
more deeply about what happiness
00:07:13
actually means and it turns out it means
00:07:16
three different things the research
00:07:18
shows it's it's a kind of momentary
00:07:20
emotion that is something that people
00:07:23
feel that's a good feeling but it's also
00:07:25
a kind of positive evaluation when you
00:07:28
look back on a period of time time and
00:07:30
consider whether your efforts have been
00:07:33
uh rewarded with some kind of
00:07:35
achievement but it's then finally a kind
00:07:37
of satisfaction that comes with almost a
00:07:40
spiritual dimension of awe of
00:07:44
appreciation of nature of a sense of
00:07:46
connection to Nature and the world and
00:07:49
maybe even a deity and those kinds of
00:07:52
Happiness feelings I think are the
00:07:53
deepest of all and so when you speak of
00:07:56
Pursuit of Happiness it's probably some
00:07:58
mix of all those three things uh but
00:08:01
it's not I don't think the the sort of
00:08:03
simple metric uh that uh that most
00:08:06
people
00:08:07
consider in your book uh you describe an
00:08:10
experience where you went to a
00:08:11
conference about happiness and uh a wise
00:08:14
Angel arrived and he said that happiness
00:08:18
is just three things good health
00:08:21
meaningful work and love you have that
00:08:24
you're happy was he missing anything uh
00:08:28
relative to success as you would Define
00:08:30
it well uh the guy I called the wise
00:08:33
Angel was really just a senior citizen
00:08:35
who wandered into a Wharton seminar The
00:08:37
Faculty were giving on the relationship
00:08:40
between income and and the and the
00:08:43
emotion of happiness and I called him
00:08:46
the wise Angel because he was dressed in
00:08:49
working man's clothes he really didn't
00:08:51
belong in the setting and the question
00:08:54
uh that he posed to the presenter was
00:08:57
about as unacademic uh a concept cep of
00:08:59
Happiness as you can find but but very
00:09:02
deeply felt and in many ways very wise
00:09:05
so I think uh good health is certainly a
00:09:08
very com important component of
00:09:10
well-being and meaningful work is
00:09:12
something I talked great lik about in
00:09:14
the book because that's something I
00:09:15
think that's well worth understanding
00:09:17
and pursuing and love of course is the
00:09:19
foundation for all everyone's personal
00:09:22
life if you're going to sustain any kind
00:09:24
of uh meaningful life so he had a lot uh
00:09:28
captured with that but I think one of
00:09:30
the things he missed that most people
00:09:33
think of when they think of success is
00:09:35
some sort of notable achievement uh and
00:09:40
um I think you know I think that people
00:09:41
get a lot of satisfaction from achieving
00:09:44
something significant that they try to
00:09:46
set out and that whether or not it's
00:09:48
recognized that's a sort of cherry on
00:09:50
top uh I think your um your sense of
00:09:53
satisfaction comes from doing things
00:09:54
well that are important to you uh when
00:09:57
they recognized that's uh that's sort of
00:09:59
an extra benefit for that but I think
00:10:02
achievement is something that most
00:10:04
people would consider pretty important
00:10:06
when you get to the concept of con of
00:10:08
success compared with just the concept
00:10:10
of Happiness great uh another thing you
00:10:13
mentioned in your book is the tradeoffs
00:10:15
between success and happiness and now we
00:10:18
live in a world that says can't we have
00:10:21
both uh I you know I I believe that um
00:10:25
there's only 24 hours in a day uh we
00:10:28
each only get to live live roughly
00:10:31
32850 days in a year uh or of in a
00:10:34
lifetime of uh 90 years and how you
00:10:38
choose to spend that most precious asset
00:10:41
time uh does involve trade-offs uh I
00:10:44
think if you're going to be pursuing
00:10:46
momentary happiness for example uh then
00:10:48
you're probably uh going to be not uh
00:10:52
working at the sweat of your brow uh in
00:10:55
uh some very labored way or some
00:10:57
important achievement that you're trying
00:10:59
to uh accomplish and by the same token
00:11:03
um you know there are moments when if
00:11:06
you're doing the right kind of work you
00:11:08
can have both a very strong sense of
00:11:10
achievement and a very powerful and
00:11:12
fulfilling sense of satisfaction so it
00:11:15
is the case that there's some things
00:11:17
that we do where we hit a sweet spot and
00:11:20
we can feel both very positive emotions
00:11:23
and also accomplish a great deal but I
00:11:25
think you know the other half of that is
00:11:28
uh you have to choose how to spend your
00:11:30
time and um and I think some people
00:11:33
overdue the achievement side and they
00:11:35
don't remember that they own
00:11:38
intellectual well-being and their
00:11:39
emotional well-being is something their
00:11:41
family is something that they need to
00:11:43
nurture and other people um sort of uh
00:11:47
focus on their personal lives and at the
00:11:50
end of the day may feel some frustration
00:11:52
that they didn't achieve as much as they
00:11:54
would have liked I think your book uh
00:11:56
makes it very clear that success is
00:11:59
definitely a journey and not a
00:12:01
destination can you tell us a little
00:12:03
more about your discovery of your own
00:12:05
personal
00:12:07
success well that's what my students
00:12:09
always want me to talk
00:12:11
about I have them write a paper on what
00:12:13
is success and they say well Professor
00:12:15
sh what's your theory of what success is
00:12:17
and I'm I always resist it because I
00:12:19
don't want them to uh to sort of copy
00:12:21
the teacher uh I think it's their
00:12:23
responsibility to come up with their own
00:12:25
ideas I mean for myself I think um I had
00:12:29
a very um uh strong crisis in my post
00:12:34
colle years I was a a son of a general
00:12:36
in the Marine Corps who was the head of
00:12:38
a college a Military College Virginia
00:12:40
Military Institute I became a pacifist
00:12:44
uh as a result to the Vietnam War so I
00:12:46
had a very very uh rupture ruptured
00:12:50
event in my uh young adulthood uh
00:12:52
breaking with all my family traditions
00:12:54
my grandfathers had both been in the
00:12:56
military too actually in your book you
00:12:58
used the word that you cut the narrative
00:13:00
story of your life right and I thought
00:13:03
that was very powerful it's a very
00:13:04
powerful description to describe what
00:13:06
what you were going through yeah and and
00:13:08
I think when you're whenever you face a
00:13:09
crisis like that and in my case I really
00:13:12
had to just um you know do 180 degree
00:13:15
turn from everything I'd assume success
00:13:18
meant because I was at the time enrolled
00:13:21
to be a naval officer in college I was
00:13:23
going to graduate from college and go in
00:13:24
the Navy and to turn 180 degrees away
00:13:27
from that toward uh being a pacifist and
00:13:31
protesting the war that we were in at
00:13:33
that time it just it just makes it very
00:13:36
difficult for you to remember who you
00:13:37
are and so for me that crisis uh really
00:13:42
ended up putting me on a journey uh
00:13:44
where I just uh stopped uh working I I
00:13:48
left the country I traveled for a couple
00:13:50
of years I um just you know went on a
00:13:54
quest uh to see if I could figure out
00:13:57
you know who I was and what I need
00:13:59
needed to do next and so the book tells
00:14:01
that story it's a it's a longer story
00:14:03
than I have time to tell here but it's I
00:14:06
think I think we are in some sense
00:14:08
defined by the conflicts we've
00:14:11
overcome and that um that story happens
00:14:14
to be the conflict I overcame and they
00:14:16
gave me the seed of my passion for this
00:14:19
subject but I challenge students I
00:14:21
challenged Executives to look into their
00:14:23
own lives and identify the crisis that
00:14:26
have defined them and to draw strength
00:14:28
from that and to draw direction from
00:14:30
that and I think that's a that's one
00:14:32
very good way to make some constructive
00:14:35
use of the you know difficult times that
00:14:37
you've had great when you wrote uh
00:14:40
springboard who did you have in mind as
00:14:42
being your audience or your
00:14:44
reader that's a great question because
00:14:46
it's a very tough one I um I thought at
00:14:49
the beginning that I was going to write
00:14:51
this book based on the course that I
00:14:53
teach which is a pretty simple idea I
00:14:55
have a course I'll write a book um when
00:14:59
when I when I started getting into it
00:15:01
though I realized that uh the course I
00:15:03
teach is very intimate it's very
00:15:05
interactive there's a lot of writing and
00:15:07
my resp responding to their writing and
00:15:09
so with an audience that's reading a
00:15:12
book then you can't see the audience uh
00:15:14
I suddenly realized I had uh I had a
00:15:17
different uh problem to solve in writing
00:15:20
it and as I wrote it I actually began
00:15:23
realizing that it wasn't just students
00:15:25
that I was writing for that's my typical
00:15:27
audience as a teacher
00:15:29
but really anyone who finds themselves
00:15:32
at a point in life where they need to
00:15:34
make a transition and it could be a
00:15:37
student who's transitioning to adult
00:15:38
life after undergraduate studies it
00:15:40
could be a graduate student who's
00:15:42
transitioning to professional level
00:15:44
after Graduate Studies but it could also
00:15:46
be someone who's facing a crisis because
00:15:49
they have to change their career and
00:15:51
retool their goals and rethink who they
00:15:53
are with respect to their work could be
00:15:56
someone who's uh just coming off of a
00:15:58
personal crisis and they have to think
00:16:00
about who they are after a divorce or
00:16:02
after the death of a loved one or
00:16:05
finally people who are coming into their
00:16:06
retirement years and they have to you
00:16:09
know really consider what they're going
00:16:10
to do with their life after they stop
00:16:13
their uh sort of identified career so I
00:16:16
think it really is relevant for anyone
00:16:18
who's asking the question what should I
00:16:20
do with my life
00:16:23
next in at the end of the book uh you
00:16:26
give a pretty good bibliography of other
00:16:29
recommended readings and you acknowledge
00:16:31
that there's many other books on the
00:16:32
market about success what's different
00:16:34
about
00:16:35
yours well that that's another uh that
00:16:37
was another crisis uh for me as I wrote
00:16:40
the book because I think over the time I
00:16:42
drafted it I wrote about five different
00:16:44
kinds of books Each of which was one of
00:16:46
the success types of books um so maybe
00:16:50
by process of elimination I wrote
00:16:51
something that's different but my I
00:16:53
think at the end I intended uh and I
00:16:56
discovered that what I was writing was
00:16:57
not a book about How to Succeed like me
00:17:01
and not a book about the one true path
00:17:03
to success which you might read if you
00:17:06
wrote a you know read a book on goal
00:17:07
setting or you read a book on uh Follow
00:17:10
Your Passion or the many different kinds
00:17:13
of one true answer kind of books my my
00:17:16
goal in writing this book was really to
00:17:18
help each
00:17:19
reader discover for themselves their own
00:17:23
authentic legitimate deeply felt goals
00:17:27
with respect to what assess means and
00:17:30
then look inside and assess the
00:17:33
strengths their personality their
00:17:35
motivations their skills as to how they
00:17:38
can best utilize what God gave them to
00:17:40
go ahead and Achieve that success which
00:17:42
they themselves had defined so it really
00:17:45
is a book about the reader as opposed to
00:17:47
a book about either me or some uh set of
00:17:51
uh you know Flawless answers to the
00:17:53
question how to
00:17:55
succeed as you work across this variety
00:17:58
of audien beginning with undergraduate
00:18:00
students through senior Executives what
00:18:02
do you see as their biggest obstacles to
00:18:05
figuring out their path to success
00:18:08
fear I think it's uh when I look into
00:18:10
the eyes of undergraduates who are
00:18:12
facing their first job after
00:18:15
graduation um they are very very anxious
00:18:19
that they make the exactly right choice
00:18:21
the first time
00:18:22
out uh and a lot of what I do when I
00:18:25
speak to them individually is say look
00:18:28
um relax just do something that
00:18:31
interests you and then use your early
00:18:34
working life as an experiment to learn
00:18:37
more about who you are as you work and
00:18:40
what might interest you and what skills
00:18:42
you have and even senior Executives uh
00:18:46
when occasionally I run into one who uh
00:18:49
is uh at one of these transition points
00:18:52
and they usually come up to me during a
00:18:54
break in our courses or at lunch or
00:18:57
something and they want some uh extra
00:18:59
counseling some extra chance to chat and
00:19:02
what I really see is fear and anxiety
00:19:06
that some very defined part of their
00:19:08
life that they ve they know very well
00:19:10
that they're masters of is coming to an
00:19:12
end and they look out into the future
00:19:15
and they they feel this sort of um black
00:19:18
hole in front of them as to what what's
00:19:20
going to happen next what what should I
00:19:22
do and um so my effort in the book and
00:19:26
in my courses is really to reassure
00:19:29
and to provide
00:19:31
encouragement uh to be thoughtful um be
00:19:34
a little Fearless take some courage and
00:19:38
uh put yourself in motion you know
00:19:39
there's a um if you if you follow
00:19:42
professional ice hockey which my wife
00:19:45
and I occasionally do uh there is a very
00:19:47
good practice uh if you're trying to
00:19:50
score uh in an ice hockey game uh and
00:19:53
basically the advice is keep
00:19:56
shooting uh and good things happen if
00:19:59
you're in front of the net and you're
00:20:00
swinging away trying to get the puck
00:20:02
into the net and I think life's like
00:20:03
that uh you know get out there and just
00:20:06
keep shooting and uh and things happen
00:20:09
people respond new avenues open up uh
00:20:12
and uh and you get a chance to find A
00:20:14
New Path um in your book you devote a
00:20:18
fair amount of pages to a former student
00:20:20
now entrepreneur named Eric Adler can
00:20:23
you tell us a little bit about why he's
00:20:25
so special well Eric Eric when I was
00:20:27
writing the book and I was casting about
00:20:29
for uh role models that I myself
00:20:32
consider
00:20:33
successful um Eric's uh name came right
00:20:36
up front in my mind I taught him before
00:20:38
I actually conceived the negotiation
00:20:40
course I taught Eric negotiation and I
00:20:43
taught him uh another core course and
00:20:46
while he was an NBA student I got to
00:20:47
know him he was a had been a high school
00:20:50
teacher for eight years before he came
00:20:52
to Wharton so he's sort of a
00:20:53
non-traditional Wharton student um he
00:20:56
then while he was at Wharton um got very
00:20:59
excited about a traditional business
00:21:00
career in
00:21:02
Consulting uh and um and left Wharton to
00:21:05
pursue that and I had never really
00:21:07
thought that was the direction that he
00:21:10
would end up in or that I was hoping he
00:21:12
would end up in but you know people take
00:21:14
their own path and I was happy to see
00:21:16
that he you know was engaged but then a
00:21:19
year or so later uh I caught up with his
00:21:21
story and he had moved to Washington DC
00:21:24
he had become very dissatisfied with his
00:21:28
consult
00:21:29
uh career just wasn't working out and so
00:21:32
he had had the courage to um to quit and
00:21:36
I I think um he then went on to go back
00:21:40
and knit together all the pieces of his
00:21:42
life that allowed him to be the most
00:21:45
successful person he could be his
00:21:46
parents were entrepreneurs he decided he
00:21:49
wanted to be an entrepreneur he had a
00:21:51
background in education secondary
00:21:53
education so he started looking for how
00:21:55
to pursue uh a business in secondary
00:21:58
educ ation and he ended up creating a
00:22:01
whole set of model um Public Schools but
00:22:05
they're boarding schools for low-income
00:22:07
students they actually live
00:22:08
residentially and he succeeded in
00:22:10
finding a model to actually um uh get
00:22:13
those kids which who would otherwise not
00:22:15
even graduate from high school and he
00:22:17
has 100% of them going to top colleges
00:22:20
so he really put together all the pieces
00:22:24
that uh I see as going into uh the word
00:22:28
success as I Define it he created his
00:22:30
own goals he looked into his own past
00:22:33
found his own strengths found his own
00:22:35
experience and came up with an original
00:22:37
conception to how to implement that and
00:22:39
I think his life indicates the sort of
00:22:41
trial and error experimental model
00:22:44
rather than you know you you you go
00:22:47
around the marry around and you get the
00:22:48
brass ring and you know game over you're
00:22:50
successful you mentioned one word in
00:22:52
your description of Eric uh that sounds
00:22:55
to me like it began with some level of
00:22:57
dissatisfaction
00:22:59
yeah and do you think that's key
00:23:01
absolutely I think I think that's one of
00:23:03
the dangers of over um focusing on
00:23:07
happiness uh happiness is this if you
00:23:09
think of that as the end State you know
00:23:10
oh I'm I have to be happy uh you're
00:23:13
going to miss a lot because it's from
00:23:15
your dissatisfaction it's from your
00:23:17
unhappiness that you often get the
00:23:19
motivation to do something new something
00:23:22
better something more interesting
00:23:23
something more uh educational for you um
00:23:26
you you know have to be willing to be
00:23:28
unhappy in a relationship in order to
00:23:30
find a better one you have to be unhappy
00:23:33
in a current job in order to take the
00:23:36
plunge and seek a better one uh and so I
00:23:39
think there's a lot of power in negative
00:23:41
emotions that uh at least if they're not
00:23:44
overly negative for too long uh are
00:23:47
overlooked in uh the modern culture's
00:23:50
sort of fascination with the whole idea
00:23:52
that you know success equals happiness
00:23:54
what do you see as the biggest aha
00:23:56
moment that students have at the end of
00:23:59
the success
00:24:01
class I think well for under the
00:24:03
different audiences have different ahas
00:24:05
I think the undergraduates have a big
00:24:07
aha because they suddenly realize this
00:24:10
is something they get to Define and
00:24:12
they've been in the business of checking
00:24:14
boxes all through their lives to go to
00:24:17
Great high schools to go to you know
00:24:18
take SATs to get into a great school and
00:24:21
college and and maybe even recruit into
00:24:24
great firms for their first job after
00:24:26
college but I think they really uh begin
00:24:29
feeling empowered when they realize U
00:24:32
that uh this is an opportunity not
00:24:35
something that they have to fear and
00:24:37
that the future is something they get to
00:24:39
shape and Craft um so I think that can
00:24:42
be a big aha moment for them uh I think
00:24:45
for the older people uh I think the AHA
00:24:48
comes with validating for them that life
00:24:51
is uh little bit more uh nuanced uh and
00:24:55
Rich than just their career achievements
00:24:58
we I was teaching a course for Bankers
00:25:00
here on campus about a month ago uh
00:25:03
there were 250 Bankers uh for uh the
00:25:06
stonier business school here on campus
00:25:09
and um I was making a point about uh
00:25:12
sort of when you achieve someone else's
00:25:14
goal in life you recognize it because
00:25:17
you don't feel any satisfaction from
00:25:19
having achieved it and this guy in the
00:25:21
back raised his hand he said you know
00:25:23
Richard that's exactly right I've been
00:25:25
trying to get promoted for the last
00:25:27
three years and a month ago I got
00:25:30
promoted but I didn't feel any
00:25:32
satisfaction from it and I I'm I'm
00:25:34
beginning to realize that I wasn't the
00:25:37
the the promotion wasn't really my own
00:25:39
goal uh so I think the older folks
00:25:42
sometimes suddenly realize that you have
00:25:44
to live your own life and sometimes you
00:25:47
have to take a little time off to craft
00:25:49
what your own goals are and not just end
00:25:51
up feeling empty when you achieve
00:25:54
something everybody else wanted you to
00:25:55
achieve one other question around person
00:25:58
person ality and style do you see a
00:26:00
correlation between certain
00:26:01
personalities and styles and success in
00:26:04
other words do you have to have a
00:26:05
certain style and personality to be
00:26:06
successful or is Success really an
00:26:09
option for anyone well of course back to
00:26:12
the premise you get to define success
00:26:14
for yourself so um so I think it's uh
00:26:17
whatever personality you have that will
00:26:20
probably affect how you define it and
00:26:22
then that's the life you get to live so
00:26:24
um I think if you looked at individual
00:26:27
aspects of success there probably are
00:26:30
some
00:26:30
correlations um for example um uh people
00:26:34
who achieve more are probably more
00:26:37
conscientious uh they're more
00:26:39
self-disciplined uh they're more uh you
00:26:42
know likely to follow through on the
00:26:45
other hand people who are U happier and
00:26:49
they have more positive emotions they
00:26:51
have more sense of satisfaction uh those
00:26:54
people often are are those who are a
00:26:56
little bit more emotionally intelligent
00:26:58
more self-aware and maybe more open to
00:27:01
novel experiences and uh not try not not
00:27:04
so interested in controlling everything
00:27:06
about their environment so those are
00:27:08
personality traits they probably give
00:27:10
you aptitudes for experiencing some
00:27:12
dimension of success but I think no
00:27:15
matter what your personality is you get
00:27:16
to define the balance that you will uh
00:27:20
call success for you and so I think you
00:27:22
know that that's the that's the unique
00:27:24
aspect of it you you get to make your
00:27:26
own adventure Richard thanks so much for
00:27:29
your time and thanks for writing the
00:27:30
book Thank you Dave I appreciate it
00:27:39
[Music]
