Speaker 1: Are you really chasing success or just trying to prove
Speaker 1: you're not a failure? Think about that for a moment.
Speaker 1: We live in a world where success has become a performance,
Speaker 1: a spectacle. It's no longer something you quietly build through
Speaker 1: years of purpose and self respect. No, now it's something
Speaker 1: you broadcast, something you wrap in filters, taglines and humble brags,
Speaker 1: and if you're not careful, it'll swallow you whole. Look around.
Speaker 1: Every scroll on social media tells you the same story.
Speaker 1: The twenty five year old millionaire, the digital nomad sipping
Speaker 1: cocktails in Thailand, the productivity guru who wakes up at
Speaker 1: four thirty am, journals, meditates cold plunges, and somehow runs
Speaker 1: three businesses by lunch. Success today looks like private jets,
Speaker 1: Rolex watches, ten thousand dollars, masterminds, and TikTok ready lifestyles.
Speaker 1: Everyone's crushing it, everyone's living their dream. Everyone's got a
Speaker 1: side hustle and a six figure income stream, or so
Speaker 1: it seems. But here's the question. If so many people
Speaker 1: are winning, why does it feel like we're all losing?
Speaker 1: Why are burnout, anxiety and depression at an all time high.
Speaker 1: Why are people in their thirties, forties, and fifties, people
Speaker 1: who've built careers, raised families checked all the boxes, quietly
Speaker 1: battling exhaustion, emptiness, and a haunting sense that none of
Speaker 1: this is enough. In twenty twenty three, a major US
Speaker 1: study found that nearly half of high income earners, people
Speaker 1: making over one hundred thousand dollars a year, still said
Speaker 1: their lives lacked meaning. Think about that. They did everything right.
Speaker 1: They worked, they climbed, they reached the top of the
Speaker 1: mountain and found nothing there. Because here's the brutal truth. Success,
Speaker 1: as society defines it has become a moving target. You
Speaker 1: hit one goal and it shifts. You buy the car,
Speaker 1: Now you need the house. You hit six figures, now
Speaker 1: you need seven. You get the body, now you need
Speaker 1: the brand. It never ends. It's like pouring water into
Speaker 1: a cup with a hole in the bottom. No matter
Speaker 1: how much you pour, it's never full. And that's by design.
Speaker 1: Modern success is not built to satisfy you. It's built
Speaker 1: to sell to you. It keeps you running, performing comparing.
Speaker 1: It turns your life into a scoreboard. And if you're
Speaker 1: not playing to win, you're playing to not lose. That's
Speaker 1: not freedom. That's a prison in disguise, And the worst part,
Speaker 1: most people don't even realize they're trapped. They think they're
Speaker 1: grinding for their families, chasing dreams, building legacy, but deep down,
Speaker 1: what they're really chasing is approval, validation. That brief high
Speaker 1: that comes when someone sees you and says you made it.
Speaker 1: That high wears off fast, and like any drug, you'll
Speaker 1: need a bigger hit next time you know it you've
Speaker 1: felt it. That ache in your gut when someone else
Speaker 1: seems to have more, that shame when you feel like
Speaker 1: you're not measuring up, that voice in your head that
Speaker 1: says you should be further by. Now, that's not inspiration.
Speaker 1: That's insecurity disguised as ambition. So let's stop pretending. Let's
Speaker 1: stop pretending that more success will finally make you feel
Speaker 1: enough that more followers, more dollars, more clout will silence
Speaker 1: the doubt. It won't because the more you chase success
Speaker 1: to prove your worth, the more you disconnect from what
Speaker 1: actually makes you worthy. So again I ask you, are
Speaker 1: you really chasing success or just running from the fear
Speaker 1: of being a failure, Because right after this we're going
Speaker 1: to expose how society redefined success and why If you
Speaker 1: don't reclaim that definition for yourself, you could spend your
Speaker 1: entire life trying to win a game you were never
Speaker 1: meant to play. If this content is making sense to you,
Speaker 1: click the subscribe button and subscribe to the channel. Thank
Speaker 1: you for your support. Somewhere along the way, we stopped
Speaker 1: defining success by who we are and started defining it
Speaker 1: by what we have. It's subtle, but it changes everything.
Speaker 1: Success used to mean living in alignment with your values,
Speaker 1: being a person of integrity, building something meaningful even if
Speaker 1: no one clapped for it. But that's not the world
Speaker 1: we live in anymore. Today success means having more than
Speaker 1: the next person, more money, more recognition, more influence. It's
Speaker 1: no longer about becoming the man or the person you respect.
Speaker 1: It's about becoming the image others will admire. We chase
Speaker 1: validation not because it feeds our soul, but because we've
Speaker 1: been trained to believe it proves our worth. Think about
Speaker 1: the kind of success that gets celebrated now. It's not
Speaker 1: the teacher who changes lives. It's the influencer who builds
Speaker 1: a brand. It's not the father who's present and steady.
Speaker 1: It's the entrepreneur with the Lamborghini and the passive income funnel.
Speaker 1: The message is clear. If you're not being noticed, if
Speaker 1: you're not collecting attention, you're losing. This shift didn't happen
Speaker 1: by accident. The psychologist and philosopher Eric From warned us
Speaker 1: about this decades ago. He said, we've moved from a
Speaker 1: culture of being to a culture of having. We no
Speaker 1: longer ask who am I? We ask what do I own?
Speaker 1: What do I earn? What does my lifestyle say about me?
Speaker 1: And it's in that shift from being to having that
Speaker 1: we begin to lose ourselves. When having becomes the goal,
Speaker 1: then owning more becomes the measure of a good life.
Speaker 1: You don't buy a ten thousand dollar watch to tell time.
Speaker 1: You buy it to tell the world I'm winning. You
Speaker 1: don't drive that car because it gets you from A
Speaker 1: to B. You drive it because of what it says
Speaker 1: when you pull up in front of the restaurant. The
Speaker 1: object isn't just an object anymore. It becomes a symbol
Speaker 1: of value, a prop in the performance of success. And
Speaker 1: the more you play that game, the more your identity
Speaker 1: gets entangled in things you can lose. Your sense of
Speaker 1: self becomes fragile, dependent on external symbols your title, your
Speaker 1: bank account, your appearance, your follower count. Take one of
Speaker 1: them away, and suddenly you feel like less of a person.
Speaker 1: That's not success. That's dependency. What makes this even more
Speaker 1: dangerous is that most people never stop to question it.
Speaker 1: We grow up in a system that teaches us what
Speaker 1: to chase, and we mistake that conditioning for personal ambition.
Speaker 1: You think you want the big house, the brand name,
Speaker 1: the admiration. But is that truly your desire or just
Speaker 1: the echo of society whispering in your ear. Here's the
Speaker 1: hard truth. If your idea of success requires someone else
Speaker 1: to approve of it, you don't own it. They do.
Speaker 1: And if you don't reclaim your definition of success, you'll
Speaker 1: keep trying to impress a crowd that doesn't even know
Speaker 1: who you are and wouldn't care if you disappeared tomorrow.
Speaker 1: This is the deception. Success isn't about becoming more of
Speaker 1: who you are. It's become a race to outperform everyone else.
Speaker 1: And the irony is the more you try to stand out,
Speaker 1: the more you become like everyone else running the same
Speaker 1: tired race. So if you're tired, if you're feeling empty.
Speaker 1: If you're quietly asking yourself, why doesn't this feel like enough?
Speaker 1: You're not broken, You're just waking up because deep down,
Speaker 1: a part of you still remembers success isn't something you prove,
Speaker 1: it's something you live. There's a hidden cost to chasing
Speaker 1: success the way we've been taught, and it's not just burnout,
Speaker 1: stress or sleepless nights. It's something deeper, something harder to name.
Speaker 1: The cost is your sense of self because when you
Speaker 1: start using success to prove your worth, it stops being
Speaker 1: a reward and becomes a burden. You can't pause, you
Speaker 1: can't breathe, You're always performing. Every milestone just raises the bar.
Speaker 1: You run faster, work harder, achieve more, not out of inspiration,
Speaker 1: but out of fear. Fear that if you stop, even
Speaker 1: for a moment, the illusion will crack and people will
Speaker 1: see who you really are. Carl Jung called this the persona,
Speaker 1: the mask we wear to survive in society. It's not
Speaker 1: who we are, it's who we think we need to
Speaker 1: be to gain approval, to fit in, to be seen.
Speaker 1: And the more success you build on top of that mask,
Speaker 1: the more disconnected you become from your true self. You
Speaker 1: might look like you're thriving. You've got the title, the car,
Speaker 1: the followers, but deep down you know it's not real.
Speaker 1: It's not coming from your core. It's not built on authenticity.
Speaker 1: It's built on performance, and because of that, it never
Speaker 1: feels like enough. You reach a goal and the feeling fades,
Speaker 1: so you set a bigger one. You hit that and
Speaker 1: you feel the same emptiness creeping back in, so you
Speaker 1: double down. You think, maybe I need more money, maybe
Speaker 1: I need to reinvent myself. Maybe I just haven't pushed
Speaker 1: hard enough. But the problem isn't the size of your goal.
Speaker 1: It's the hole it's trying to fill. And that hole
Speaker 1: can't be filled by achievements. Because the more you rely
Speaker 1: on success to validate your identity, the more fragile your
Speaker 1: identity becomes. Your self worth starts hanging on outcomes. Your
Speaker 1: confidence gets tied to applause. Your piece depends on metrics
Speaker 1: you can't control. It's like pouring water into a cup
Speaker 1: with a hole in the bottom. No matter how much
Speaker 1: you pour, it's never full, and the more it leaks,
Speaker 1: the more desperate you become to refill it. You work harder,
Speaker 1: you sacrifice more, You silence the parts of yourself that
Speaker 1: don't fit the image you ignore, the whisper inside that
Speaker 1: says this isn't me. But that voice that's the real you,
Speaker 1: the part of you that's tired of pretending, the part
Speaker 1: that doesn't care about being in press, only about being whole,
Speaker 1: The part that remembers what it felt like to be
Speaker 1: fully alive before success became a mask you couldn't take off.
Speaker 1: That's the invisible weight most people carry. It's not the
Speaker 1: pressure to win, it's the fear of being seen without
Speaker 1: the armor, of being ordinary, flawed human. But that's where
Speaker 1: freedom begins. Because the goal isn't to be perfect. The
Speaker 1: goal isn't to win every game. The goal is to
Speaker 1: be real and build a life that doesn't collapse when
Speaker 1: the performance ends. So ask yourself, is the version of
Speaker 1: success you're chasing actually yours? Or is it just the
Speaker 1: most acceptable mask you could find. The world doesn't need
Speaker 1: more perfectly polished success stories. It needs more people willing
Speaker 1: to take the mask off and live from a place
Speaker 1: of truth, not fear recognition. It sounds harmless, just a
Speaker 1: little validation, a little praise, but in today's world it's
Speaker 1: become a drug, and most of us are hooked without
Speaker 1: even realizing it. We scroll through highlight reels, we post,
Speaker 1: we wait a like, a comment, a share. It hits
Speaker 1: just for a second. We feel seen, valued, like we matter,
Speaker 1: and then it fades, so we chase the next hit.
Speaker 1: We sharpen the image, tweak the caption, tell the story
Speaker 1: in just the right way, not for ourselves, but for
Speaker 1: the gaze of others. Modern society has quietly rewired us.
Speaker 1: It's shifted our focus outward. Success is no longer something
Speaker 1: you feel. It's something others must confirm. It doesn't count
Speaker 1: unless it's visible, measurable, and praised. It's not about how
Speaker 1: deeply you live, but how well it performs on a screen.
Speaker 1: And here's the trap. The more you rely on others
Speaker 1: to reflect your worth back to you, the less you
Speaker 1: trust your own reflection. You stop asking do I feel proud,
Speaker 1: and start asking do they think I'm impressive? You stop
Speaker 1: building a life that feels right and start curating a
Speaker 1: life that looks right. The worst part, it never ends,
Speaker 1: because no matter how much recognition you get, it's never enough.
Speaker 1: There's always someone with more, a bigger platform, a louder cheer,
Speaker 1: a shinier trophy, and so you hustle harder, not because
Speaker 1: you're inspired, but because you're afraid to fall behind. Schopenhauer
Speaker 1: once wrote that human beings are driven by a blind will,
Speaker 1: a force that pulls us endlessly toward what we don't have,
Speaker 1: while making us forget what we do. We want success,
Speaker 1: and once we get it, we want more. We want approval,
Speaker 1: and once we taste it, we crave the next dose.
Speaker 1: It's a loop, a treadmill, and the moment you step
Speaker 1: on it starts speeding up. That blind will doesn't care
Speaker 1: about your peace, it doesn't care about your purpose. It
Speaker 1: only wants movement, more, next, again, and if you're not careful,
Speaker 1: it will run your entire life. Recognition becomes the god,
Speaker 1: not fulfillment, not meaning, just applause. You start performing for
Speaker 1: the crowd, dimming the parts of yourself that don't get cheers,
Speaker 1: exaggerating the ones that do. You stop living from the
Speaker 1: inside out and start living from the outside in. And
Speaker 1: the scariest thing, most of us don't even know we're
Speaker 1: doing it. We think we're chasing goals. In truth, we're
Speaker 1: chasing permission, permission to feel worthy, to feel seen, to
Speaker 1: feel like we finally made it. But here's the question
Speaker 1: made it to What if your success only exists in
Speaker 1: someone else's eyes, is it really yours? Recognition isn't evil?
Speaker 1: We all want to be seen, and being seen becomes
Speaker 1: the only thing that makes you feel real. You've lost
Speaker 1: touch with who you actually are the moment your worth
Speaker 1: depends on applause. You've handed your life over to strangers.
Speaker 1: So maybe it's time to stop asking how many people
Speaker 1: approve and start asking whether you do. We've been taught
Speaker 1: to think of success as a mountain, a climb, a summit.
Speaker 1: You hustle, you grind, you sacrifice, and one day, if
Speaker 1: you're lucky, you reach the top. But maybe we've had
Speaker 1: it all wrong. What if real success isn't a peak.
Speaker 1: What if it's a pause. Not the point where you
Speaker 1: have the most, but the point where you stop needing more,
Speaker 1: not where you prove something, but where you finally don't
Speaker 1: need to prove anything at all. That's the shift. Success
Speaker 1: isn't about climbing higher, It's about knowing when to stop climbing.
Speaker 1: It's the quiet confidence of someone who no longer needs
Speaker 1: the world to clap for them, who can sit in
Speaker 1: a room alone, unfiltered and still feel whole. It's not loud,
Speaker 1: it's not flashy. It doesn't need an audience, because real
Speaker 1: success is not what others see. It's what you see
Speaker 1: when you look in the mirror. Do you respect the
Speaker 1: person staring back? Do you know them? Do you trust them?
Speaker 1: That's rare in today's world. We're so busy being what
Speaker 1: others want us to be. We forget who we are.
Speaker 1: We put on masks, we build personas, we become characters
Speaker 1: in our own story, polished, impressive, hollow. Karl Jung called
Speaker 1: this the persona, the version of ourselves we present to
Speaker 1: the world. But behind it always is the shadow, the
Speaker 1: parts of us we hide, deny, or reject. And here's
Speaker 1: the paradox. The more you ignore your shadow, the more
Speaker 1: it controls you. The more you avoid facing yourself, the
Speaker 1: more lost you feel. Even in your brightest moments. True
Speaker 1: success comes not from escaping that shadow, but from turning
Speaker 1: toward it, owning it, integrating it. When you stop running
Speaker 1: from the parts of you that feel unworthy and start
Speaker 1: accepting them, you become whole. And that's when the chase ends.
Speaker 1: Let me give you an example. There's a man who
Speaker 1: spent years building a career that impressed everyone, top school,
Speaker 1: high salary, perfect resume, but every night he came home
Speaker 1: feeling empty. He couldn't explain it. He had everything he
Speaker 1: was supposed to want, but none of it felt like his.
Speaker 1: One day he left, not in some dramatic blaze, but
Speaker 1: in a quiet, intentional step away. He started painting again,
Speaker 1: something he hadn't done since college. No one clapped, no
Speaker 1: one cared, but for the first time in years, he
Speaker 1: did That. Man didn't give up. He woke up chasing
Speaker 1: the version of success the world sold him and started
Speaker 1: listening to the version that spoke from within. That's freedom
Speaker 1: when success is no longer about achievement but alignment, not
Speaker 1: about being impressive but being authentic. It's about knowing your
Speaker 1: value even when no one's watching. It's about feeling enough,
Speaker 1: not because someone said so, but because you finally believe
Speaker 1: it yourself. And that kind of success it doesn't come
Speaker 1: with a trophy, It comes with peace. So maybe the
Speaker 1: question isn't how do I win more? Maybe it's what
Speaker 1: can I finally let go of. Maybe real success isn't
Speaker 1: the top of the mountain. Maybe it's the moment you
Speaker 1: stop climbing and start coming home to yourself. So let
Speaker 1: me ask you something. When you wake up every morning
Speaker 1: and chase what you call success, are you doing it
Speaker 1: for you or because deep down you're afraid of what
Speaker 1: you'd be without it. Are you building a life you
Speaker 1: truly believe in, or just trying to outrun the fear
Speaker 1: of being seen as a failure. Most people never pause
Speaker 1: long enough to ask that the treadmill moves too fast.
Speaker 1: Slowing down feels like weakness, And in a world obsessed
Speaker 1: with performance, the worst thing you can do is stop performing.
Speaker 1: But if you always need success to feel valuable, what
Speaker 1: does that really mean? It means somewhere deep inside you
Speaker 1: don't believe you're valuable without it. If you constantly need
Speaker 1: the next milestone, the next win, the next applause, just
Speaker 1: to feel okay, then what you're chasing isn't purpose. It's relief,
Speaker 1: relief from that quiet fear whispering without success, I am nothing.
Speaker 1: That's not drive. That's fear dressed up as ambition. That's
Speaker 1: a prison with golden walls. And it's dangerous because as
Speaker 1: long as your sense of war is tied to what
Speaker 1: you achieve, you'll never feel safe. Unless you're achieving, you'll
Speaker 1: never rest unless you're ahead, and you'll never feel free
Speaker 1: because even in victory, you're still trapped, trapped in a
Speaker 1: game where the rules keep changing, the goal posts keep moving,
Speaker 1: and the scoreboard never stops blinking, trapped in a life
Speaker 1: that looks impressive on the outside but feels hollow on
Speaker 1: the inside. The world won't help you see this. In fact,
Speaker 1: it'll encourage the opposite. It will keep handing you new
Speaker 1: goals to chase, new people, to impress, new masks to wear.
Speaker 1: But you can step away from that. You can reclaim
Speaker 1: your story. You can remember that real success isn't about winning.
Speaker 1: It's about arriving. Arriving in your life, fully present, without
Speaker 1: needing to perform. It's about knowing who you are when
Speaker 1: no one's watching, and liking that person, trusting that person,
Speaker 1: standing with that person even when the world turns away.
Speaker 1: Carl Jung said that true freedom comes when we face
Speaker 1: our shadow, when we stop hiding the parts of ourselves
Speaker 1: we were taught to reject. That's where real wholeness begins,
Speaker 1: not when you've made it, but when you no longer
Speaker 1: need to. Not when you finally get what you want,
Speaker 1: but when you finally understand you were never lacking to
Speaker 1: begin with. So here's the real question. Are you chasing
Speaker 1: success for yourself or just trying to escape the shame
Speaker 1: of being seen as a failure. Be honest, because if
Speaker 1: you need success to prove you're worthy, then maybe you've
Speaker 1: never really believed you were worthy at all. And if
Speaker 1: that stings, it's okay. Let it. Sometimes the truth hurts
Speaker 1: before it sets you free. But that freedom is waiting,
Speaker 1: not in the next trophy, not in the next post.
Speaker 1: It's in you right now, waiting to be remembered. So
Speaker 1: don't scroll past this. Sit with it, let it work
Speaker 1: on you, and if it speaks to something true, live
Speaker 1: like it. You don't have to keep running. You already matter.
Speaker 1: Now act like it.