Redefining Success: Why I've been super successful TWICE in my life

I recently had a “moment” while on holiday last week, when i was stood on the top of a 120m high sand dune in Namibia and I wanted to share it here.

I’m a VERY successful woman / human.

Professionally and personally - I built an incredible career in consulting, and then in an internal leadership role in my firm. I’ve got a brilliant family life, husband and three kids, and waaaaay too many rescue pets (16 at the last count). I live the expat lifestyle - nice house in Dubai, a cottage in the UK, decent cars, nice holidays each year. I’m not trying to brag, because if you’ve ever done an #IamRemarkable session, you’ll know it’s not bragging if it’s based on fact. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed to say that at the age of 40, I’d have been the epitome of your leaning in, having-it-all successful career woman.

And then I gave up my corporate role and walked away from “Having-it-All”.

Why? Because I realised that the vision of success that I was living up to was everyone else’s, and it was taking EVERYTHING out of me. I was exhausted, on the edge of burnout and had lost sight of what mattered to me. I constantly felt like I was spinning plates, juggling an impossible number of balls and that it was all going to come crashing down. So, I’d work harder, sleep less trying to keep “The Successful Sophie Show” on the road. Which worked, but at a huge personal well-being cost. So since 2022, when I decided to leave the corporate world, I’ve focused on redefining a vision of success for myself, and last week at the top of a massive sand dune in the Namib desert, I felt successful again, and in none of the ways that I was taught to expect growing up.

 

Growing up I was blessed with successful parents, and an incredible role model in my mum. Unlike most of my friends’ mums she had her own growing business, travelled the world on cool projects, juggled two children and work - another great example of a “Had-it-All” woman. My parents gave me fabulous opportunities and told me I could be whatever I wanted to be with my excellent education and some hard work. Expectations were high, but I felt empowered and supported to meet them, so I got on with it, and followed in their paths - a career woman like my mum, but in consulting like my dad. For 20 years I slogged away, racking up achievements and success milestones. Promotions, new jobs, moving abroad, marriage, homes, kids, new roles, big annual pay rises and bonuses, more promotions.

Then at 40 a couple of things happened. I found myself in a new leadership role, with a huge team, and a huge mandate to deliver. I was pushing myself more and more, working harder and longer, and getting more exhausted. 14-hour days were becoming 18-hour days, and I was spreading myself thinner than ever trying to carve out time for my kids, my husband and occasionally myself. I was on track for my next big promotion to partner, and as part of that development step I was put on a selective leadership programme. The first day we were asked about our ambition and what our next goals and longer-term aspirations. And I had nothing to put into questionnaire we had to fill out.

Why? Because when I stepped back and looked at what I had achieved, and the life I was living, I couldn’t possibly have asked for more. In fact, I would say I had achieved more than I could have ever wished for. To want more, felt unnecessary, perhaps greedy, and definitely empty. Turns out, I was the only person in my group that felt that. Everyone else wanted promotions, pay rises, houses, cars and more. The second day we looked at our values, and I connected with mine immediately, and then in the next moment realised I wasn’t living them - I wasn’t having enough fun, impact, being creative or developing myself, and while I was connecting with people at work, not with my loved ones outside of work….because I was always, always working.

It didn’t take me long to sit back and ask myself “Is this it? Is it really success if it means that I don’t have space for the things that are important to me, that I don’t get to live my values authentically, that I have to give up so much of myself to be successful now and more so to continue to be successful in the future?”.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one who felt that way - 3 more of my cohort left like me for the same reason within 6 months of that module. We all left because they were exhausted and burnt out, trying to be “more successful”, not living our values and ultimately not being happy.

 

 

Some instagram posts that captured me working at the "height" of my success. Combining work with self care, all nighters and weekends in the office. Opening my laptop during a 2 day staycation. Having to get a taxi to work as I was too tired to drive safely. And yet I kept going....

Since I left, I’ve focused on my own personal vision of success based on my values: enjoyment, impact, creativity, connection, and development. For the last two years, I've built these values in my new career and my company, Growth Pod. Although I'm not as financially successful, (not even close!) - I'm happier than ever.

It took sitting on top of a sand dune last week for me to take a breath, reflect and realise this. Sat up there with my out-of-office on for the first time EVER, no laptop in my bag (or my husbands), no work mobile phone, and no iPads. Watching my kids run and roll down a huge hill in the dawn of the Namibian Desert. My first proper, uninterrupted family holiday, ever.

It’s not been easy though, and I know I’m beyond lucky that my husband and I can afford for me to start a new career and not financially contribute in the way I used to. Personally, I’ve had so many people (as have my friends and clients who have done the same) judge me, question my choices, ridicule me as a born again hippy, and express disbelief that I could be happy with no longer being “successful”. Others have told me that I’m a disgrace to feminism for not pushing ahead in the corporate world and being a female leadership role model. Others who told me that that choosing yourself and your family is traditional and outdated, and that I’m doing womenkind a disservice. Yes. Really.

My response to them is that what I did was not only brave but perhaps one of the most feminist things I could do.

• I made a choice. Feminism is about making sure that all women have the right to choose in any field or space they want.

• I was brave. I chose to step back from expectations and make the right choice for me and my family against convention and norms.

My choice was an informed one, to choose a different type of success this time round. One that I alone create and measure by my own metrics. I would love to earn more money and be less financially dependent on my husband, but not at the personal costs I bore before. I certainly have no intention to try to earn my old salary anytime soon. That took me 18 years to achieve, and what I’m building now won’t get me anywhere close for the foreseeable future! Instead, I now measure client impact, daily joy and referrals / recommendations. And you know what? The more I focus on making sure that I’m successful at delivering on these, the more clients I attract, and the more income I’m starting to make.

I’m proud now to look at my detractors and confused ex-colleagues and tell them I am successful; I am happy and fulfilled; I am making an impact; I am fully enjoying each day; I’m healthy and looking after myself for once; and most importantly I am a great role model to my children. After my experience, I will encourage them to think carefully about what success looks like for them, and to follow that and that alone. I won’t tell them to aim to “have it all” and then whisper in their ear in 20 years’ time, that “yeah, it’s actually a bit sh*t really” (like my mum did when I was struggling with the juggle). I’m not going to normalise and encourage burn out culture like my generation did with our one-upping celebration of all-nighters and working weekends. I’m going to make sure that whenever my children (and my clients) come to me with a big ambition, that I make sure they know their values and how they can keep hold of what’s important to them in making that vision a successful reality. Their successful reality, no one else’s.

Because I now know that there is no better feeling than sitting on top of a sand dune, proud of the success that you’ve defined and built for yourself, and not giving a sh*t about what anyone else thinks of it.

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts, especially if you've left the corporate world and redefined success in your life. Leave a comment below.