Success Was Never Meant To Carry Your Identity
Later this afternoon I will have my 110th coaching session of 2025.
110 coaching sessions with individuals, groups, departments, organizations. (Not including a lot of classroom hours as a professor in my “day job”).
110 coaching sessions with leaders from the highest level of college athletics in the Big Ten, ACC and Big 12 all the way to leaders in their first year on varsity. Business executives leading hundreds, to first year managers leading a handful of their former teammates.
‘Coach of the year’ recipients, and first year head coaches.
In 110 sessions with high performers at all levels, I’ve found one commonality.
Every high performing athlete, coach or leader is wildly interested in one term.
“Success”
This one term dominates most of the thinking for high performers. The attainment of it drives much activity and produces high output, discipline and sacrifice.
This edition of How To Flourish is about how you define success.
In all of the collective dialogues around success, I’ve noticed a handful of things.
Most relate to the term in a way that is utterly soul crushing, yet they don’t know any other way.
A very few have found a way to pursue high performance in a posture that enhances their soul & well-being, while they achieve success.
A great deal of the term success is actually subjective (we get to define it on our own terms if we have enough courage).
There is inevitably a material reality to defining success that dominates most perspectives due to our material culture.
How we pursue success is 100% in our control and we’re either pursuing it with a counterfeit approach or an authentic approach and the two lead to wildly different experiences.
Counterfeit Pursuit of Success = Identity Rollercoaster
A sure sign a person is engaged in a counterfeit pursuit of success is when their entire identity is informed and defined by three things. What they have (Material). What they do (Status). What “They” Think (Others’ Approval).
Anything counterfeit is a fraudulent imitation of the real thing. A cheapened version of the real thing. I call this counterfeit success because it is a cheapened “half truth” of true success. It doesn’t tell the full story.
You can tell you’re relating to success this way when you find your ambition chasing this statement. “If only, I can just ________, then __________”
“If only I can just make a little more money, then I will have made it.”
“If only I can become a director or VP, then I’ll be satisfied and can settle down”
“If only I can become a head coach, then I will be content.”
“If only I can make it to the Power 4, then I will be a success.”
“If only I can win a championship, then I will belong with the great coaches.”
It’s the battle cry of the exhausted high performer who’s been chasing success for years.
It totally works if it’s going great. But this approach will betray you. I’ve talked to many former head coaches who had it rolling, only to be fired by administrators and then sent back down to climb the ladder of “success” again.
Three ways I know I’m engaged in a counterfeit pursuit of success:
When I consistently have to “prove” myself or “hide” who I really am to feel like I belong.
When I become a slave to outcomes, status, or other people’s approval
When my ego is only puffed up, or under threat. Never settled.
Living and leading in this way is problematic if we’re honest with ourselves.
Riding the identity roller coaster in which our ego makes us puff up and feel like everyone should be thanking us for our presence one day. Then the next day feeling so insulted that someone isn’t recognizing your uniqueness, brilliance, excellence, appreciating you, or whatever else you want to be noticed for.
An ego puffed up, then under threat constantly is a recipe for exhaustion.
Dallas Willard famously said, “When the ego swells, the soul shrivels.”
Another spiritual giant, Pete Scazzero warns, “The very things people will applaud in your life will wreck your soul.”
There’s more going on here than just “leadership development” or “mental performance.”
110 coaching sessions with high performers have emphasized one major thing in my view.
We must bring a holistic, soul grounded approach to pursuing personal success or we will continue to see talented leaders blow up or flame out, chewed up by a success culture that feeds counterfeit definitions at the expense of true well-being.
True Tension With The Authentic
I was in session with a Big Ten basketball coaching staff last week discussing this very concept and we all agreed that success must be held in tension. The problem with a counterfeit definition of success is that it’s half true. Of course success is defined, to a degree, by what you do (Responsibility). What you have (Means). What they think (Reputation).
But it’s not a great approach in totality. It’s missing the other side of the tension, authentic success. It’s missing a higher standard. It’s missing any mention of who you’re becoming.
Performance psychologist Dr. Jim Loehr famously said “Who are you becoming as a result of the chase?”
An authentic pursuit of success is very concerned with WHO you’re becoming along the way. The development of your character and the fulfillment of your true identity as you pursue achievement.
It is my belief that authentic success is built on a foundation recognizing that all human beings are made in the image of God. And with that, there is an inherent dignity that fulfills every soul level need to feel loved or known, valued, and that you belong. This is especially true when we are connected to this life source.
Feeling loved and truly known.
Feeling like we add value and contribute
Feeling a sense of belonging
My work with leaders this year has reinforced my view that these three things are at the core of what every achiever is hoping to attain through counterfeit success. Most of us are clinging to the counterfeit (What I do, What I have, What they think) in hopes it will create some identity security. But like any counterfeit item, it will not deliver.
“But what about wins and losses?”
“What am I supposed to say to my bosses when we fail?”
“Is this like lowering what success really is?”
An authentic pursuit of success doesn’t lower the standard. It isn’t some mental gymnastics to morph pressure packed stakes into some alternate reality where there is no scoreboard.
It is an approach that I’ve come to believe is actually a performance advantage.
In our world of chaos and disorder, one of the greatest skills for peak performance is actually a very settled, secure, and grounded identity. I’m not sure we fully understand and appreciate how rare this actually is.
What would it look like for you to enter every arena you compete in with an identity that felt secure?
Unfortunately a lot of high performers are so accustomed to running on dirty fuel (Insecurity, Fear, Ego) that it can be hard to imagine what it would actually be like to compete freely with clean fuel (Deep Contentment, Peace, Joy).
But it is possible.
Five ways we can tell if we’re pursuing authentic success.
We feel like we have permission to pursue success FROM a healthy internal posture
We chase success from a position of strength, not to gain a position of strength
We realize we don’t need to change who we are to get what we want
We want to achieve, not for ego, but for the pure representation of mastery
We enjoy an inner life that flourishes instead of shrivels as we long for an outcome
Your Identity Either Forms or Follows Your Definition of Success
Success is a big deal. As a high performer, your identity is almost always linked to your relationship with success. It’s so easy to intertwine the two in our success driven culture - especially if you work in athletics or high stakes business.
An occupational hazard for a high performing leader is to wrap their entire identity around their definition of success & their performance.
Like a moth to a flame, high performers are drawn to pinning their entire identity on a counterfeit relationship with success.
Every occupation has hazards.
Builders could have steel beams fall on their heads. So they wear helmets and rely on safety protocols.
Skyscraper cleaners could fall from great heights. So they wear cables and harnesses to prevent free-falls.
Firefighters can get burned. So they wear protective layers to deflect the flames.
Coaches and leaders can wrap their identity in their definition of success. So they should engage in regular introspection and deep work to ensure their pursuit of high performance doesn’t cost their inner well-being.
As a high performing leader, what are you doing to prevent your ambition from drifting? What protocols do you rely on to keep your definition and pursuit of success in tension between the counterfeit and the authentic?
How are you guarding your heart and mind, to ensure you aren’t swept away toward less than optimal leadership performance and a mediocre life of ego, self-centeredness, and counterfeit success?
As I have whispered close to 110 times to high performers in 2025 I will say to you as you chase success today…
Who you are becoming is more important than what you’re achieving.
Stay The Course,
JB
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