I already know I have made it when my son snuggles into my chest to read books before bed. When my husband phones from work to say he loves me. When I am drunk and laughing champagne out my nose on a night out with my girlfriends. When the sun is shining nd I am lying on the beach in my safe and cruisy Sydney suburb.

Count your blessings today and look forward to more is my motto.

Kelly

My work is very interesting, and I’m too active to sit around. Even a lottery win would help me start up a small company helping others; would love to have spare cash to invest in some start-ups and give others a chance.

Good question, JF.

Cheers,
JC.

For many years, I had very concrete goals about what I’d need to “have” to feel like I’d finally made it. In the early days, my goal was to simply have $5 million in liquid assets that would generate $250-$500,000 in fairly stable interest income. And, the standard nice house, all sorts of other stuff that shows up on many “vision boards” these days.

But, my thinking has evolved a lot, right or wrong, to embrace the notion that making it is largely about your ability to do what you love, be with you you want to be with, see and embrace what’s right in your life more often than what’s not and be consistently lighter and more present in everything you do. To spend more time creating, rather than responding to life.

I don’t see it so much as an accumulation of money or stuff thing anymore, because that can all go away in the blink of an eye and, in my mind (which bounces between Eastern philosophy and NYC street wisdom), making it isn’t really making it if one bad market crash, business issue or illness can take it all away.

Some years ago, Professor Richard Easterlin surveyed a group of people and asked them a similar question and most listed a litany of benchmarks, from money saved to cars to houses and more that they believed they’d need to feel like they’d finally made it. 20 years later, those same people were interviewed. Many had accumulated exactly what they strove to accumulate.

They’d gotten exactly what they believed, 20 years earlier, would make them feel like they’d arrived. Only now, they didn’t feel like they thought they would. In fact, they now thought they’d need substantially more to feel like they’ve made it.

In fact, I’ve known many millionaires, and even a few in the $100 million range and most of them don’t yet feel like they’ve made it. So defining making it by what you have is a very slippery slope.

Does that mean I don’t care about money? Of course not, I want to live comfortably in the world and be able to do and share in experiences. It’s a piece of the puzzle that’s still very much a work in progress for me. It’s just not at the core of how I’d define making it.

Success is such an interesting notion to contemplate. Everyone has a different definition. Some people want a million dollars, personally it’s not the money that i desire but money can equal freedom. People who say money doesnt equal happiness have obviously never had to scrimp and save to pay the buills and hang on to the mortgage while trying to have a decent kind of life.

But to answer your question, I’ll feel that I’ve “made it” when I publish my novel. Hopefully I’ll be able to make some money out of it and leave my day job, or at least work part-time so I can focus on my creative endeavours. Butif I died and my novel had been published, that would be enough for me.I would have “made it”