Kiwis' secret of success

Don't force it: Claire Wadey says success comes from doing what you are passionate about. Photo / Supplied

In the course of our work, we have met or worked with royalty and rogues, millionaires and billionaires, movie stars and mavericks, priests and paupers. But in that myriad we haven't met any whom we've admired - let alone liked - who have been motivated by money for its own sake.

Against that, we have liked and admired many who are rich in every sense of the word - they are successful and happy in their chosen fields because they simply love what they are doing. Success has come for them as a result of passion and commitment, not as an end in itself.

There are many yardsticks for measuring richness. The following homily on success, attributed to various sources, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Robert Louis Stevenson, but most likely written in 1905 by one Bessie Stanley, contains some useful thoughts:

"He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory a benediction."

It's important to emphasise what we mean by richness. To us it's about abundance in the widest sense, not simply monetary wealth. As we said: measurement of richness has many rulers.

It is a truism that the best things in life are free, a fact we often forget in a busy and complex world, particularly when we are in tough economic times. However, the notion of what richness truly means comes into sharp focus when hardship or stress makes us re-examine our values and aspirations.

Although monetary wealth may result from living an enriched life, richness itself lies in purpose and the ability to attain the really good things in realising our potential. Good health, knowledge, laughter, fun, happiness, and the love of friends and family are the true rewards in life. The collapse of the world monetary system between 2007 and 2009 not only caused economic turmoil but also resulted in widespread public revulsion as many stories of greed and corruption were exposed. The breathtaking fraud of Bernie Madoff in New York exemplified the profligate excesses of commercial legerdemain. While the resulting 150-year jail sentence he received will be small satisfaction to the thousands of investors his company has bilked, it has highlighted the ignorance and powerlessness of most ordinary citizens in the arena of high finance, when enormous financial resources are concentrated in the hands of a few oligarchs with questionable ethics.

Another equally galling case is that of high-flying lawyer Marc Drier, reported by Associated Press in late 2009. In an atmosphere of rampant greed, Drier says, "I lost my perspective and my moral grounding, and, really, in a sense, I just lost my mind". After he was convicted of losing more than US$400 million of clients' funds with bogus claims of safe investments, he stated that he had been driven to deceit through envy, seeing some of his colleagues and clients doing much better financially and consequently seeming to be enjoying more status.

With examples like this becoming legion, we are witnessing a sea change in the way success is viewed. In the Western world, many people are becoming disillusioned with the fruits of material success and are looking for deeper meaning and authenticity in their lives. LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) is a term now used to describe a new and fast-growing category of people - in commercial terms it accounts for around 35 per cent of US consumers, a market worth more than US$300 billion. LOHAS consumers are willing to spend money for products that let them feel they are acting in a socially responsible fashion.

As an example, the sales of Fairtrade products, a major subset of goods that appeal to the LOHAS market, is growing rapidly. At present the largest markets for Fairtrade brands are in Europe, with the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Germany and the United Kingdom being the largest of the individual markets. Money doesn't buy happiness. There is a mountain of literature indicating average human happiness alters little as income rises. A number of studies have shown that happiness is influenced more by relative than total income, once grinding poverty and financial desperation have been eliminated.

A 40-year study in the United States found that despite real, inflation-adjusted incomes trebling in value, the number of people reporting that they were "very happy" stayed constant, at around 30 per cent of the population. There is also plenty of both anecdotal and recorded evidence that lottery winners, after a relatively short period of euphoria, sometimes lasting months, sometimes years, are no happier and sometimes less so than they were before their wins.

In his classic Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl shares his experience as a concentration camp survivor and tells how he coped and survived in the face of gruesome tragedy and the unspeakable cruelty of the Nazi guards. His testament underscores the resilience and adaptability of the human psyche. He postulates that it's not what we do, but the way we do it, that makes us happy:

"Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.

"Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run - in the long run, I say - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it."

Again, there is plenty of evidence that says if all we do with an increase in income is buy more material things, a bigger house or a newer car, we end up no happier than before. But if we use an increase in income to improve our lifestyles, spend more time with friends and family and avoid stressful situations - like being forced to spend too long in traffic jams or working in an unhappy environment - our health and happiness can increase markedly.

For instance, there is ample evidence that people in poorer countries are just as happy within their own groups as people in wealthy countries are in their groups, provided their situation isn't abject. For regardless of the country in which we live, whatever situation we are in, we are happy enough if we feel we are in it together.