Success... but not at all costs

I’ve been picking up and examining the glass prism of sustainability for years, twisting and turning it and wondering at the different insights I gain when looking at it from different angles. Here’s where I’ve got to so far…

Dr Jane Goodall repeatedly referenced this one important factor to address if we really want to make progress on sustainability. Greed. This really resonates with me as being at the root of a world that promotes ‘more’ as the answer to everything. This also brings the sustainability question back to the individual, the choices that we make, consciously and unconsciously. When we don’t know what the answer is, why do we so often default to, ‘more’? This is a natural question that many ask in mid-life after running on the hedonic treadmill with blinkers on for our 20s, 30s and 40s – what is enough for me?

There’s plenty of research showing that once our basic needs are met, our sense of “enough” becomes relative — shaped more by comparison than necessity. Sustainability begins in the moment we break through comparison and define what “enough” looks like for us individually, what we’re willing to pursue and at what costs.

I started to explore the answer to this question for me during COVID lockdowns (what else was there to do but ponder these existential questions whilst the kids ran their ‘restaurant’ for the 25^th time this month…). I’ve previously written about why it’s important for a whole host of reasons to be clear on what goals I was working toward - what the definition of success is for me - and I quickly realised that these goals had been hijacked by a whole host of things – my own insecurities, attachment patterns formed in early childhood, inherited and unconscious views about security, especially financial security… the list goes on.

Once we question what success really means to us individually, we also start to question what we’re trading away in pursuit of it — and often, we are trading away the relationships that matter most and more specifically, time that we could take actions to cultivate those relationships.

Around this time in my life, I also started contemplating how I was showing up for those closest to me. Again, inherited and unconscious views about work and that this had been an acceptable excuse for a whole host of things for generations of ethnic families suddenly became clearer to me. I realised that this just didn’t cut it for me anymore. But I totally accept why this was a necessary philosophy for generations of especially migrant families and I’m proud of the work ethic it instilled in me. But still the questioned lingered… why was I giving everything to work with so little left in my tank for those I loved at home and around me? How could I start to realign my life to be more consciously living my values and prioritising the people and projects that are important to me every day? How could I pursue meaningful life projects and goals… but not at all costs?

More recently with the rise of AI and the thought-provoking opinions being offered on what it is to be human, the importance of relationships with other humans, being a core part of living a fulfilling and impactful life, is becoming really clear to me. These relationships come in all forms – with my husband, children, brother, my closest friends, parents and in-laws, colleagues connected with my life projects, etc. And as I advise my teenage children on repeat, you can want something, but what actions are you willing to take, and how often, to achieve that thing? What you do each day shows your real priorities and you may not like what you see.

There are many podcasters and influencers who live very different lives to me but to whom I look to on occasion for a different view on life and its challenges. There is nothing like being a wife and mum in the Melbourne suburbs and listening to a handsome, English lad who has risen from Love Island to the dizzy heights of a high-performance-individual-optimisation-guru, telling me about optimising my morning routine! What strikes me as I listen to them or read their ‘quotes’ flashing up on Instagram (especially the ones trying to sell you some course or supplement to maximise your daily routine), is how much of their day is about… them.

I, and many like me, have a plan for the next day that we’ve laid out in our heads the night before, maybe even scheduled in the family calendar. Then before the alarm has even gone off in the morning, a member of the household has had some crisis and out the window those plans go and we now need to just deal with the day, one blow at a time. How much of the day is about me in this instance? At worst, 30 minutes in the afternoon to sip a tea and just breathe. On a good day, maybe 3-4 hours to spend on one of my deeply fulfilling work projects and getting some exercise in.

After deeply contemplating over several years what is enough for me, I think I can say whole-heartedly that I’m really ok with everyday not being about me. And being there for others, as they are for me too, is how we build those deep, life-enhancing relationships with those around us.

This isn’t just about influencers. It reflects a broader shift in the Western world, in particular, toward individual optimisation — where success is framed around personal productivity, rather than the quality of our relationships and shared outcomes.

If you’ve read this far and were nodding along the way, it won’t be a stretch to bring this back to sustainability. To lessen greed, one must contemplate why you want more in the first place and be clear on the costs you’re paying in pursuit of this ‘more’. As they say, there is no free lunch – most things have an upside and downside. What does the ‘at all costs’ mean for the success you are pursuing? A person may work 15 hours a day, have a 2-hour morning and evening routine in the pursuit of the next deal, the next project. But this person may also have no time to cultivate relationships with those humans closest to them, no time to spend chatting with them and going on adventures, which could come with the cost of many missed opportunities to grow emotionally and spiritually as a human. But this is not just a personal dilemma.

Organisations face the same tension — pursuing growth, efficiency or performance, often without fully acknowledging the human and long-term costs. Here it pays to remember that organisations don’t make decisions in isolation — they reflect the incentives and definitions of success set by leaders, boards and investors. By people. By individuals, sometimes collectively. To really break open the potential impact of a decision that is about to be made, the upside and downside must be clear to those making the decision… and don’t let the ‘it’s too hard to quantify’ argument stop you from articulating all of those impacts qualitatively if needed. And another lens that indigenous and traditional communities regularly contemplate – the impact of decisions and actions not just now, but also the impact on those generations who may not even be on this planet yet. 

At its core, sustainability is about trade-offs. And trade-offs are the language of risk — what we gain, what we lose, and whether we are willing to pursue the upside at all costs.

The systems within which each of our organisations operate is large and complicated with many levers and connections. But we all have the individual power to take action in the moment:

• Board directors and CEOs – enter into a dialogue with your funders/investors on why they want more and the true costs of that more. Define a new goal of success that is not at all costs, or at least crystal clear and consistent about the upside you have agreed to pursue and at what costs. Just talk, human to human, about why ‘more’ may not be the answer. What you are likely to discover is a whole host of pressures on both sides skewing your risk and opportunity response.

• Risk leaders – review your consequence/impact table in your risk framework and see whether there is opportunity to adjust it to trigger conversations about upside and downside impacts that are both quantitative and qualitative.

• All sustainability champions wherever you are – when being in conversations about upcoming decisions and actions, or debriefing on past ones, encourage a reflection on not just the upside but the downside of the decision or action. Facilitate a conscious discussion about whether the upside was pursued at all costs.

This is going to require bravery on your part. You are potentially triggering conversations that have rarely been had before. Just remember, your brain and body’s risk response will scream at you, telling you that what you are about to do is unsafe. But it’s not. It’s just new.

We often talk about sustainability as something organisations must solve. But organisations don’t make decisions — people do. And people define success, explicitly and by the cues they give their teams. Your next discussion will offer an opportunity to discuss why ‘more’ may not be the right answer. And if it is, being honest and transparent about the costs we are, and aren’t, willing to pay is the true path to a more sustainable future.