984. What's Your Definition Of Success Really Costing You?

When you hear the word success, what do you think of?

Most people think of results. Wins. Outcomes. Money. Titles. Validation.

Very few people think of peace of mind.

In this episode, I challenge that definition—and honestly, I challenge myself. Because tying success to results is one of the fastest ways to lose control, stay unsettled, and carry unnecessary weight from the past.

Here’s the reframe:
 Success isn’t a result. Success is peace of mind.

I break down the three disruptors that quietly steal that peace—the past, your current positioning, and your phobias (fear)—and why obsessing over outcomes keeps you stuck. You’ll hear why you can do everything “right” and still lose… or do everything “wrong” and still win… and why that alone proves results can’t be the scorecard.

This episode is about effort over outcomes, becoming over arriving, and learning how to end the day with self-satisfaction—knowing you made the effort, regardless of how it turned out.

If you’ve been restless, unsettled, or measuring yourself by wins and losses alone, this is a reset.

Success is peace of mind.
 The question is: do you have it?

Transcript

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This morning I got to thinking about. Success. Like what is success? And when I was thinking about it, I realized, you know, maybe I'm looking at it in the wrong way because most of the time you tie success to a result, right? Like, did it work? Did I win, did I get what I wanted? And if the result didn't show up the way that I hoped, well then I wasn't successful. And that's false because success isn't a result. Success is peace of mind. It's that inner peace. A lot of times we don't have that peace of mind, and I believe there are three disruptors to having success when you equate it to your peace of mind. And they all start with the letter P, the past, your position, and your phobias. So when you tie success to a specific outcome, you give up control. You're hoping for, I need this to validate who I am. But when you tie success. And this is, this has just challenged me. When I tie success to peace of mind, it becomes, I don't know, in a strange way, liberating, and it becomes controllable. Like literally, you can control your success. I can't control the outcome, but I can control my inner state my peace of mind, and that's where success really lives. So let me unpack the three disruptors to your success. Success is in peace of mind. Again, the past, your positioning, which is in the present, and then your phobias, your fears. So let's talk about the first one, the past. The past is the first thing that steals your peace because you know yourself better than anyone. You know your failures. You know your shortcomings. You know all the times that you've blown it, the should, could've, would've. And when you end up carrying that forward, it weighs you down. The losses don't just stay in the past, they bleed into your present. They affect how you end up showing up today. They affect your confidence and they affect how you position yourself. And that's the second piece. See, these are all linked together. Again, your past, your positioning, which is your present, and then your phobias. So that past is linked to your present, which affects your positioning. You gotta understand something, man. You're either working yourself into a position or working yourself out of one. No two ways about it. And so when you link your present to your past, it ends up amplifying the damage. It becomes easier to play yourself out of a position without even realizing it. It's like, it's really like a form of self-sabotage. This is why you gotta do hard things. Hard things. Nobody likes doing them. They're uncomfortable, but they're reminders that you can do hard things. This may be the hardest it's ever been, but it's not the hardest it'll ever be, and so doing hard things, Carter rises the past and works yourself into a better position, but it takes time. You didn't work yourself out of a position overnight, and you're not gonna work yourself into a position in an instant. It takes time. Time is a wonderful storyteller. So the simple question to ask yourself every day, did I put myself in a better position today? That's it. And truthfully, you're the only one. You can rationalize it. You can tell it, you can. You can explain it all the way to me. Deep down inside, you know what the real answer is. See, when you don't work yourself into the best possible position that day, you end up pulling back. You end up getting these little, it's death by a thousand cuts, these little thin slices to your confidence. And that feeds into the third point, which is your phobias. That's your fears. The past affects your position, and your position affects your confidence. The absence of confidence is the presence of fear. And what do you fear? You what if yourself to death? You fear the outcome, you fear the rejection, and you fear what happens after you fail. And that's a lot of times like once I get told no, like I don't know what I'm gonna do. So we self-sabotage ourselves. We tell ourselves no and assume a no instead of being brave enough to hear a no. That's part of doing hard things too. It builds that courage. And so. When you, when you have these phobias, these fear of rejection, fear of the outcome, you hesitate, you negotiate with yourself, and you what if yourself to death. And then when you get the result, you use that result, you wear that result as an identity, failing is a process, not an identity. You don't wear the failure. It's not a, it's not who you are, it's where you are. So when you have that result, you analyze, you adjust, you learn from it, and then you move forward. You can't tie success to a specific result. Because you can do everything statistically right, and it still come out wrong. I mean, you had it by the, by the numbers. You painted by the numbers. You did everything you were supposed to do, and it still doesn't come out right. You can do everything right and still get it wrong, yet you can do everything wrong and somehow still get it right. So why are you so worried about the outcome? I know it's easier said than done, but this is the part where you just gotta, you gotta zoom out sometimes and really challenge what success looks like to you and what success really is. Look if results were the only measure of success. No one will be successful if you think about anybody that you admire, anybody that you've emulate. The reason why they're a success now is because they failed more than they succeeded, yet they still kept going. They didn't tie it to their past. They're constantly working themselves into a better position, and they didn't fear the outcome. They just learned from it and they kept going because you know what? They can't all say no. That's how you gotta look at it. Peace of mind doesn't come from the result. It comes from knowing that you gave a hundred percent effort in the moment. That's, it sounds so cliche to say, but it's so true, and this is the part when you give a hundred percent effort, okay, it may not have had the right, the expected result that you wanted, but it compounds because you keep learning, you keep iterating, you keep evolving. I love what Coach Wooden said. Coach John Wooden said, success is, I did a whole podcast on this. Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self satisfaction in knowing that you made the effort to do your best, to become the best that you're capable of becoming. Bro, just put that on a Post-it note. Lemme read it to you again. Success is peace of mind. There it is again, which is a direct result of self satisfaction. It's probably the only time to be satisfied that self satisfaction knowing I know that. I know that. I know that you made the effort. See, he didn't say gave the effort because you can. Half ass gave, but you made the effort. When you make something, it's a finished product. When you made here, I made this. That's, that's the result. Okay, so I made the effort, may not have been perfect, made a, may not have resulted in the outcome I wanted, but I made it so I have that self-satisfaction. It's a peace of mind, direct result. The direct link, self-satisfaction and knowing I made the effort to do your best. It was your best in the moment, it's not the best. It's not the best it'll ever be, but it's not the worst it's ever been either. So it's the best in the moment to become, become as important because it is a shaping. It is fluid, it is alignment to become the best that you're capable of becoming. That is no comparison to anybody else. I don't care who did it quicker, faster, longer, better than you, younger than you, who cares. Everybody's incline is different. Everybody's track is different. Some people can start off in a blaze and blow themselves up. Some people can take forever to get started and skyrocket to the top. You don't know. So why worry about them? Just focus on you a hundred percent effort. See, when you tie something to a goal, I mean, what do we always say? I mean, you, you, you, you do the goal, you set the goal. I just did a episode on fine about being fine. That means go back and listen to it. That means like, I'm fine. Means that you define what fine looks like. Man, if I could only get to this, okay man, my life will be fine. Boom. Then you gotta redefine it. You gotta level up. So that's why I'm saying like that doesn't equate to a success. That's just a goal. And goals are fleeting. Goals come and go, goes ebb and flow. So why tie yourself to a goal? It's important, but don't tie. Your identity to a goal. You strive to have that peace of mind. You push yourself hard, you do hard things. You learn from the past. You're constantly working yourself into a position, and I have no fear of the outcome. Whatever it is, it's gonna be what it is. I don't control the result, but I can heavily influence it. Based on what I do, based on learning from the past, not leaching off of it, learning from it and working myself in a better position. Okay, I get it. I got it. Understand. Lemme reanalyze that. How did that happen? What did I do? What were all the events that come to that? See that's positioning, and then I go again, let's go. And as I got to thinking about this with peace of mind, the reason why, like you and I, sometimes we can't sleep and we can't shut off because we just like unsettled. It's because we're tying it to a result and normally we're tying it to a result and it's linked back to our past. So we validate. I knew, I mean, I'm always losing never happens for me. I can, I can't, you know, if I couldn't buy a win, if I want, tie it to our past. We worked ourselves out of a position. So that's ownership. That takes agency. When you say, okay, that peace of mind, even though you're not in the right position, if you know where you need to start positioning yourself over time. Remember the game we're playing. Remember the timeline we're on eventually, and ultimately, eventually things are gonna turn in your favor. Ultimately, you will succeed. Okay? Gotta have that peace of mind. But we're not settled. We don't have the peace of mind because of the past, because of the positioning. And then we fear the the outcome. Like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Look, you're proof right now that you have survived. All the hell. I mean when all the chips were down, when you're like, if this don't happen, man, I'm going under and here you are today. Lo and behold, some of the best moments in my life came from repositioning after the worst moments of my life. I couldn't, it was too, it was too painful to continue to hold that past, and I just had to reinvent myself. I had to just start over. Okay. And I had to put myself in a better position, which my positioning every day is reading every day from a random book writing, unpacking my thoughts, really giving it some thought, sharing it, and then living it. That's the challenge today. Okay. I, I want peace of mind Some days, man, I'm, I'm just like you some days, man, it's just like, I, I feel like I'm just getting older and, and getting softer, and I'm like, oh, man. Is your unsettled mind linked to your current position? You can rework yourself into a better position. Not immediately, but over time, or is it linked to a phobia? You fear the rejection, you fear the result, so you don't confront what's it tied to. That's the only thing that matters Today. The only thing that matters is did you give a hundred percent effort in the moment? I know it sounds cliche, but that's it. And the only way you can give a hundred percent effort if you really think about this is. Not letting your past dictate what you're gonna do next. Okay? Other than the lessons that I learned. Carry the lessons over, not the losses, and then reposition yourself. And then don't fear the outcome you can hate to lose. You just don't have to be afraid of it. Just get to the end of the day, win the decision, go to the next decision, win that decision. And I didn't say like, it's gotta be the right outcome. I'm just just saying. You, you had the choice. You could back down. You had the choice where you could negotiate. You had the choice where all of a sudden your, your past is starting to creep in there and, and bang away in your mind, and you could have feared the outcome, yet you push forward anyway. You laid it on the line, you made the effort, self-satisfaction and knowing you did your best. Sometimes some of the information you don't get until after you take the risk. You take the risk, it blows up in your face, and then you're like, oh, had no idea. Okay. I am gonna share something with you later on. Uh, once this, once the full story comes about, then I'm gonna come back around and tell you about all these assumptions that I made and blew right up. I thought I had it going on, and then, so it's coming just probably in a few months. I gotta play this thing out. Gotta I, I gotta reposition and then I gotta go at it again. Okay. I'm living this just like you are. Okay, I'm going through this just like you are, but I just refuse man to sit here and not have a peace of mind to be unsettled. And so I think this episode is just like a good check back for you where you can say, bro, why? Why are you uneasy right now? Why are you escaping to vices? Why are you eating so much? Why are you drinking so much? Why are you getting like cathartic? Why are you edgy? Why are you pissed off at everybody? It's the disruptors of peace of mind. It's your past, it's your positioning, and it's your phobias. All of those are disruptors and you have complete control over that. Okay? I can't control the outcome, but I can control my peace of mind. That's all that matters. All right. With that, let's get outta here. Keep it simple. Keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. Peace.