“If you ever get some idea you’ve arrived at a certain level,” he says, “you should only be taking it as a cue to work harder and to push farther.”
-Jack White
The people I know who, from my vantage point, have “made it” usually don’t feel that way. Studies seem to bare this out: when “affluent” people (usually people with over a few million dollars in investable assets) are surveyed, they consistently define rich as 20-30% more than what their own net worth is, whether that number is $10M or $100M. This might be a chicken/egg thing: I’m not sure if those people are successful because they have that view or they have that view because they’ve had a taste of success and know they can make more. Seeing that written out, I think it must be both, but the people I know that are truly successful didn’t get there by feeling that they had arrived at some point along the way.
Now, maybe somebody like Zuckerberg thinks he’s arrived. But, I would bet more often than not, even guys like that don’t think in these terms. I’m sure he feels financially secure. So in that sense maybe he feels like he’s arrived. But, he still works his ass off every day. He still wants to accomplish, to build, to expand. In terms of where Facebook is and where it can go, it certainly seems like even Zuckerberg is taking his success as a cue to work harder and to push farther.
If Zuckerberg’s still doing it, why aren’t you?