The Highest Standard
I came across Marc Randolph's note on his definition of success. I want to see where my head goes when I apply it to myself. It keeps going back to what my mom said to me when I was around 13.
"The greatest success in life is serving others to the highest standard." Initially I thought this meant treat people how you want to be treated, or leave things better than you found them. Very easy things you hear at that age. As I got older, people from different worlds kept arriving at the same answer about success.
My mind first went to Aristotle. His belief was a good life is one spent exercising your greatest virtues in service of something real. That's true. But I think Rumi took it further. The most impactful greatness has to be bigger than yourself or it isn't greatness at all. If what you built disappears the moment you're gone, was it really greatness?
I was assisting classes as a volunteer for two or so years and I just wanted to do more than just hold paddles. I was helping with a 4 to 7 year old class and an all ages beginner belt class, both led by the school owner and head instructor. One day he said to me I can't teach either class today, you have to. I felt this was my time to shine.
What was odd about that beginner class was there were people a few years younger than me, people the same age as me, and people much older than me, sometimes 30 to 40 years older. I was a teenager standing in front of all of them.
I stayed with that group of students all the way to black belt. National champions in point sparring. NASKA competitors. Champions.
That experience never left me. And when I read Randolph's note it made sense why.
What Randolph's note got right was that work alone will never be the thing that makes you proud or happy. The moments that stay are the ones where you knew you were someone in a community. Where you helped make it bigger, stronger, more memorable than it was before.
That's what my mom was pointing at when I was 13.
Success is what happens when you dedicate yourself to helping others grow.