Ondřej Šmída's Key Ideas from The Success Myth
by Emma Gannon

I started the podcast because I wanted to know the secrets to success.

All these people, with their glowing Wikipedia pages, financial security and full award cabinets, happier and more fulfilled than everyone else? Do they feel as though they’ve ascended to another level of life?

 I quickly realized that most of the time, in short, the answer is no. No matter how high up the ladder of society’s definition of success people climb, I’ve seen the same insecurities, doubts, health problems, domestic stress, creative block and uncertainty over the future.

I’ve seen people reach their life’s goal and realize that instead of a marching band celebrating the long-awaited milestone, they just want to crawl into bed in a dark room for a week. I’ve had people admit that when they finally reached their dreams, it was then that their life started to fall apart

I’ve heard stories of how influxes of money can tear relationships apart, and about how money makes you paranoid.

And now I feel compelled to open up the conversation. Is being outwardly successful everything it’s cracked up to be?

There is a reason a rags-to-riches story sells. We want to hear that it’s possible to change our whole life in three simple steps and live happily ever after. We like happy endings.

This is what I was wanting from these interviews: for people to say that there is a moment of relief at a ‘finish line’, a comforting assurance that one day we will find the treasure at the end of the rainbow and live happily ever after. But not once did I ever get the sense that there is that golden, everlasting moment.

In fact, on the other side of the ‘success’ coin, there was something much darker lurking. A loss of self. A loss of relationships, or relationships that became purely transactional. A loss of trust. Mental health problems. Boundaries being overstepped. A skewed sense of self-worth. Online threats and trolling.

None of this impressive stuff has made my inner problems go away.’* We still struggle to believe this because success is so seductive.

Success changes from culture to culture, but on the whole, when I asked podcast interviewees, friends and strangers a series of questions about success for this book, including ‘What did you think success meant, when you were growing up?’, the answers that came back were along the same lines:

 • Obtaining material things.

 • Getting a degree.

 • Buying a house.

 • Getting a good job.

 • Finding a life partner/getting married.

 • Having kids.

Towards the end of the book I include a list of the things that my interviewees say feel like success now

If someone acts like they have the answers to what you should do with your life, be wary of them. Everyone is the sole custodian of their own life, and blanket ‘formulas’ miss out a key point: the world isn’t set up to allow everyone to thrive equally.

There are seven billion of us, we absolutely need equality of opportunity, but if we are *all* striving to be *the* next superstar, by default many of us are going to be disappointed.

We simply cannot have it all in just one life. We cannot be in two places at once. Admit it. From an early age, I’ve made peace with knowing I won’t be having it ‘all’. I’ve realized that sacrifices may need to be made in order to live the life I want.

Life is finite, so every time we make a decision, something else has to give. By doing one thing, we are by definition letting go of another. By choosing one thing, you are ultimately not choosing something else. And there are many situations in which we cannot choose, because circumstances and logistics have already made the decision for us.

When I was in my early twenties, someone tweeted me to ‘check my privilege’.

I was in the mindset, where you believe that you have worked hard for everything you have and it is just you and your ‘work ethic’ that got you there. It’s a condition in which you feel like you got absolutely everything because of your own tenacity and gifts to the world. (The experts call it ‘self-enhancing bias’.)

In fact, of course, the privileges I had, and still have, are endless. Roof over my head, financial support, I am able-bodied, English speaking, living in democratic country etc.

This doesn’t take away from hard work, it’s just admitting that my efforts were more likely to get me somewhere. Society’s inbuilt prejudices gave me a solid foundation to benefit from. It’s important to acknowledge these things when talking about success.

Luck is a bit like when you’re riding a bicycle, when the wind is against you, you feel like bad luck is pushing you back.

When the wind is at your back, you are flying down that path. That’s an example of good luck.

You won’t really notice it any more. You’re much more likely to say that it’s all you doing the hard work cycling down this hill.

Dysgradia, a syndrome where there is a complete lack of connection between doing and getting’, sufferers of which find nothing inherently motivating, because whether they work hard or not, they’ll still have access to everything they could ever need. Their ‘success’ is *inherited* through nepotism. It is not actually theirs. This can make people feel unworthy, and, in turn, ironically, not very successful in their own right.

Nepotism and privilege can of course make life easier in terms of material comforts and a quicker path to the ‘top’, but that might not translate to satisfaction.

Naval Ravikant says: ‘A contrarian isn’t one who always objects – that’s a conformist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently, from the ground up, and resists pressure to conform.’

The behaviours and qualities I’ve noticed in successful contrarians include:

• Slight outsiders

• Slight rule-breakers

• Focused on education

• Self-motivated

• Curious

• Solid EQ

• Just enough of self-doubt

• Practicing

• Talented in what they are doing

• Lucky

I often have to remind myself that fun and happiness are different things.

Having fun, in that case, is a brief moment, I call it the *state of escape.* Believe it or not, it’s not a state of happiness.’ Having fun is great – but it’s not going to magically turn into happiness if we chase fun constantly.

Happiness is not something we need to force; we’re more likely to feel happy-like feelings if we actually take the pressure off ourselves first.

Ultimately happiness can’t be bottled and bought and sold – the *idea* of happiness can be, though, and it makes companies billions of dollars.

I’ve often felt like I should be happier or more excited when I’m doing a speaking event or experiencing a big personal moment (like my wedding day) that feels important.

The idea of permanent happiness is a construct invented by the ‘positive thinking’ industry: ‘There are moments of fleeting joy that are not meant to be constant. And they’re not meant to be that frequent, necessarily. We will never achieve a state of permanent joy.’

How to manage negative emotions then? Remember that the physiological lifespan of an emotion in the body and brain is only ninety seconds. But...

It's only once we combine our emotions or anxieties with our inner thoughts, judgements on the world and internal belief systems that they become our ‘feelings’.

And then feelings that are maintained over hours or days become our mood. Feelings that linger over weeks or months become our temperament. If they last for years, they become a personality trait.

You’ll know from experience that it’s not the positive emotions that linger, but instead the spiralling loop of negative emotions. We have a natural bias towards the negative, because we need to be aware of anything wrong in our environment. 

What is the point in getting a sticker for being most productive when you are unable to enjoy other areas of your life and are too tired to function? What’s the point in being so tired at social events that you might as well not bother going? Why is this exhaustion so normalized?

It's all now cloaked in a higher mission. This obsession with meaning, ‘passion’ and purpose is just a ruse to keep us all working harder. No matter its worth to society, output is the holy grail. I think it is a scam, especially if you are working for a big faceless company that would replace you in a heartbeat.

Revenge bedtime procrastination is the act of sacrificing our sleep so you will lie in bed, your eyes aching with tiredness and read, scroll or do anything to squeeze more time out of the day.

Retail therapy revenge’: spending loads of her money on pointless stuff just to feel like the job is worth it. There’s an irony here: in spending so much of income on stuff you didn’t need or like, you probably ended up with the same amount in your account as if you worked fewer hours in a job that would give her more happiness and freedom. The money itself is not making you any happier.

Simply taking a break from work isn’t going to cut it in our productivity-obsessed world. We need to change our idea of productivity altogether.

Many of us feel like everything has to be ticked off before we can stop, and if we’re not being ‘useful’, we feel that we will be punished by someone, even if just by ourselves.

We don’t see rest as a ‘skill’, but it is a skill that needs to be practised.

Some people claim we should make our rest ‘better’ in order to be more productive in the long run, but I want to take a stand against that. We need to find better ways to actually rest for rest’s sake.

It’s no wonder so many of us feel so personally caught up with our jobs. They would often use the phrase ‘work family’ and often gave away perks to deter workers from ever leaving.

These were red flags, and it soon became clear that you were seen as more of a ‘team player’ if you were single and didn’t really have a home life. Early on in your career in particular, it is easy to get sucked in to feeling like your whole self-worth is tied to what you are achieving, the ‘cool’ job you have. You can let the other parts of your life fall by the wayside; you end up not knowing what you do for fun.