What you admire is your success. It’s not all $$$, popularity, luxury…
By: Cory Decker
Tags: Success, Stoicism, Beauty, Philosophy, Lifestyle

If it’s beautiful to you, it’s your path to success

For my cat Sookie, beauty is a crystal Christmas ornament

I’m currently a nomadic bootstrapper. I’ve had one failed and one successful business. Before striking out on my own, I worked as a an amateur classical pianist, then a reformed theologian, a home automation engineer, a copywriter, an editor, an instructional designer, a product manager. I’ve been successful at every one of these jobs — even when I failed. Why? Because I focused on building something beautiful. But when the beauty faded, I moved on.

Beauty is that which delights, inspires awe, and connects you to a greater truth beyond yourself. It is one of the rare things in life that is valuable in and of itself. For the beholder, it is without compare. It remains beautiful long after we are around to admire it.

Yet, beauty is subjective, relative, and fleeting. What I find beautiful today may change in 2 months. Yet the truth remains: what I find beautiful leads me to uncovering and further understanding my philosophy of success.

Success is that which drives me, motivates me, pushes me to be better. It is not necessarily more money, more space, more followers, more muscle mass, more users. Success is what keeps me going when failure appears.

So what do beauty and success have to do with one another?

I have found that if we look at what we find beautiful, we’ll also understand why we admire, envy, and go after a particular kind of success.

I love reading. A well-articulated and novel idea encapsulated in the written word is breathtaking to me. Ariel and Will Durant’s The Lessons of History is an unrivaled example of this.

I love classical piano music. Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto №2 transcends the corporeal and lifts me to a universal plain of beauty. I disappear and only the music remains.

What does this tell me of success? It shows that what I admire is also what I aspire to create. What I find beautiful is where I find success.

So perhaps, instead of searching for success, I should focus on understanding what I find beautiful and why. Then drop everything I find ugly and work voraciously towards making something beautiful. My own beauty.

So what is your beauty?

A truth discovered?

A theory proven?

A book beloved?

A film revered?

A beauty desired?

A mind envied?

A net worth unequaled?

A legacy written

A record unbeaten?

A trophy won?

A criminal convicted?

A life self-sustaining?

A fanbase expanding?

A monetization model scaling?

A remote job unbound?

An online business profiting?

A novel anticipating?

A painting studied?

A gadget addicting?

A TV show enrapturing?

A concerto enthralling?

A condo admired?

A surgery perfected?

A theory discovered?

A life saved?

A virus eradicated?

A job-creating small business?

An industry disrupted?

A crop of peaches devoured?

A family bonded?

A physique distracting?

A song chart climbing?

A student driven?

A luxury car collected?

An app sold?

An ROI exponential?

A meal photographed?

A life nomadic?

A policy controversial?

A following religious?