Hey friends,

It’s been a while.

I’m back from my summer in Korea, where I faced a series of personal challenges that I’m still navigating today. At some point, I might share them with you in the hopes that its resulting lessons may be useful. Thank you to those that have sent me messages asking if everything was okay; hearing from you was truly heartening.

In brighter news, the big writing project I’ve been teasing throughout the year is nearly complete, and I plan on announcing it in October. I can confidently say that it reflects my best work, and I’m excited to get it out into the world. As a reader of this newsletter, you’ll be among the first to know.

But for today, I have a new post on a topic we all think about.

Success is our greatest desire, yet we rarely take a moment to define what it really is. Oftentimes, we outsource that definition to the minds of others, allowing cultural norms to dictate what we pursue. And when the crowd dictates what success means, we’ll default to chasing something measurable because that’s the only way to determine your standing.

Today’s post is a look into the other side, where success resides in a terrain that is devoid of measurement. Because in the end, the successes we tend to overlook are the ones that will matter most:

​Metric-Less Success​

The main thing I want to highlight today is today’s post, so instead of the usual stuff I include in the newsletter, I’ll be putting the opening section of the story below. If you enjoy it, feel free to share it with your friends, family, or audience.

And as always, if you have any thoughts on today’s piece, hit reply to let me know. I love hearing from you.

Have a great rest of your week!

-Lawrence Yeo

P.S. Hundreds of students have now taken The Examined Writer. If you want to learn how to write posts like the one I shared today, you'll get a lot out of this program.

If you want to get a sampling of the material first, just click here and you'll get immediate access to a free 3-day email course. Enjoy =).

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​Metric-Less Success​

In my early twenties, I had this phase where I was enamored with the idea of success. What did it mean to achieve it, and how do people work their way to it?

In an attempt to understand this phenomenon, I subscribed to a magazine that I hoped would unlock something for me. The name of the magazine was, quite shockingly:

Well, it only took an issue or two to figure out how the editors of Success Magazine defined that word. In short, it was all about quantifiable wealth. Each profile would start off with some headline on how much the individual was worth, or the sales price of their most recent exit. A large number in the opening sentence seemed to be a pre-requisite for inclusion, as any verbiage that came afterward would be contingent upon the validation of that number.

At first, I didn’t see anything odd about this. After all, as a recent college graduate, I was used to seeing the world through the tradeoff of promising opportunities with paltry salaries. There was an understanding that I’d be trading my youth for experience, which I would hopefully convert to wealth in a decade or two. So seeing the big numbers associated with these older individuals made me want to pay attention in an attempt to accelerate my timeline to success.

But in one of the magazine’s profiles, I came across a quote that made me re-think this all.

The profile was on an entrepreneur and author who sold a large number of books. While much of the piece orbited around his wealth creation principles, there was a small part where he discussed his thoughts on living a meaningful life. And in it, he recounted something his father always told him growing up, which has remained in my mind ever since:

When I first heard this quote, I was taken in by its eloquence. But as I let it sink in further, I realized that it was highlighting a paradox about success.

When you want to gain respect through success, then yes, it’s usually done through quantifiable variables. We respect people that have made a certain amount of money, built a sizable audience, or have won a number of awards. These are common entry points that make us want to learn more about the person at hand, which was why I was reading this person’s profile to begin with.

But when you want to gain love through success, it cannot be achieved through anything quantifiable. The people that will be crying when you depart the world are not doing so because of any number that is tied to your name. They are doing so because you were a loving partner, a caring friend, or a shepherd of kindness. You are dearly missed not because of what you’ve earned, but because of what you represented.

This highlights the distinction between traditional success and metric-less success. Traditional success will get you on magazine covers, but metric-less success will get you on family albums. While society as a whole worships quantifiable success, what will ultimately matter most to the individual is everything that can’t be counted.

Here are some examples of metric-less success that are often overlooked, but impact our lives more than anything:

Marrying the right person

No decision will have more consequence in your life than whether you marry, and to whom you marry. There’s an enormous difference between living by yourself, and committing to living with a partner for the rest of your life. (And it’s not just your living situation either; it’s an intertwining of everything. As Kevin Kelly says, “You don’t marry a person, you marry a family.”) Nothing I say here can adequately describe how different those two scenarios are.

With that said, if you do decide to get married, then one of the greatest success stories of your life will result from it being the right person. If you marry well, then everything is better. You’ll have a person who loves and supports you through your triumphs and challenges, and you’ll learn how to do that for them as well. You’ll have a continuous reinforcement of your values, knowing that the person you’re with also shares them too.

Happiness is amplified through this shared understanding of what’s important, whereas sorrow is alleviated through your partner’s presence during the hardest of times.

This kind of relationship can’t be derived through calculations on a spreadsheet; it can only be defined as metric-less success.

Maintaining a healthy body

The anthropologist Ernest Becker once wrote that we are “gods with anuses.” What he meant was that human beings are equipped with godlike minds that can compose beautiful music, build towering skyscrapers, and send rockets into space. But at the same time, this mind is housed within a body that’s been inherited from our monkey ancestors. It is a body that excretes, secretes, and inevitably decays. We are all constrained by our biological lineage, as even the most brilliant minds will be rendered non-functional in a container that can no longer operate.

This means that everything we value flows downstream from our physical health. Money is desirable only if you have the vitality to pursue it. A career is meaningful only if you have the energy to keep it going. Even time with family can be vibrant only if you’re free from pain.

Our desires are often directed outward because that’s where we’re most aware of what we lack. But all those desires will be leveled to zero if what you lack is access to your physical faculties. So by retaining a strong baseline of health, you are placing yourself in a position where any pursuit is achievable.

A body that exercises regularly, sleeps adequately, and eats well is one that allows its mind to retain its godlike properties. The feeling that emerges from this clarity is one that can’t be derived through digits on a spreadsheet; it can only be defined as metric-less success.