What does success mean to you?

As much as P tried to hide it, I’m sure she was disappointed.

Hi guys,

Hope you are well. I’m doing okay, Alhamdulillah.

I write this at 9:17 am on a chilly Sunday morning, but I am in good spirits nonetheless. I spent most of the weekend resting, something I don't do nearly often enough. Between 5 pm on Friday and now, I have refused to do any work, attend any physical events, or even open a book. I love it.

I wonder who came up with the concept of working 5 days a week and resting only for two. We need to rethink some of these things. 😂😂

—————

Every once in a while, I get invited to give a speech or facilitate a session for secondary school students. I genuinely like teaching, and maybe this newsletter is even a subtle demonstration of that. So I love these sessions. I share some of the things I learn with the kids, and they share some of the things they learn with me.

But my problem with these sessions is when they are tied to generic themes around ‘Leadership’, ‘Success’, or ‘Excellence’. Because these kids are used to subjects with clear definitions, they want to hear things like this.

‘Subsistence farming is a type of farming where…’

‘Chemistry is the study of…’

Etc etc.

** side note: Lmaoo I am becoming lazier and lazier about pushing out this newsletter on time. I paused writing in the morning, spent my day on all sort of (very pleasant) things and am now back here at 6:25 pm. From next week, I will be reverting to the old timeline in sha Allah.

And then they look at me, listening attentively with a pen and paper, waiting to receive some definition of ‘sucess’ that they may instinctively write down and perhaps even memorize.

But what does success mean?

Shortly after I completed the coursework for my Masters, one of my family friends, a lady whom I genuinely love and respect as a mother, reached out to congratulate me.

P: Congratulations my dear, barakallahu feek! 😄

Me: Ameen thank you ma 😊

P: Sure you made a distinction, right?

Me: No Mummy 😂😂

P: Ohh…

Me: I didn’t chase academic excellence for my Masters, I focused more on actually learning and benefitting from the experience 😃

P: That’s alright. Barakallahu feek!

Me: Ameen thank you Mummy! 😊

I laughed so hard on this day! 😂😂

As much as P tried to hide it, I’m sure she was disappointed. You see, she has a very fixed definition of what success looks like in a Masters program. And with her previous knowledge of me, there was no doubt in her mind that I would graduate with a distinction.

And she had a point.

But my mindset was very different. Three years into my undergraduate degree, I was 100% sure that I had no intention of practicing what I studied. But I persevered for two more years, running the rat race of studying as hard as I could with only one aim.

To graduate with a first class.

And so I convinced myself to ‘die on the line’ for that goal, and afterwards only engage in academic pursuits I was genuinely interested in, with no regards to external measures of achievement like grade class.

When I began my Masters, I was fortunate to be in one of the very best business schools in the world by any standard. Naturally, this meant every one of my classmates was crazy smart.

In fact, if I remember correctly, the average GRE & GMAT (exams required for admission) scores for my class were in 88th percentile. I really do think it might have been higher, but let me be conservative and assume it was indeed the 88th percentile.

What does this mean?

If you were to randomly assign 100 Masters and PhD level applicants to write GRE/GMAT, the average person admitted to my program scored better than 88 of them.

Wowza.

Image from numeracy screener

And then I found out that graduating with a distinction from my program was not in any way related to your scores. It was not a case of distinctions being awarded to anybody who had all As. Rather, they would award distinctions only to the top 10% of the class at the end of the program.

Note: This was not top 10% of a class of average students. This was top 10% of a class of highly talented students from 33 countries (China, India, Germany, US, etc) most of whom graduated with 1st class in their undergraduate studies.

In fact, I remember one quiz in which I got 95% and I was at 50th percentile - smack in the middle of the class distribution. I quickly realized that graduating in the top 10% of this group would require a high level of focus, hardwork, and effort I was frankly not ready to put in.

And so I determined to give zero regards towards my grades, and focus entirely on benefitting from the experience (meeting people, job search, actually learning new things, etc) - a decision that gave me serious headache a few months later. Story for another day.

So in that scenario, my definition of success was in no way close to what someone else looking from the outside (e.g. P) might have been expecting.

And so you see why it is very difficult to give these kids a definition. Because whatever it is you or I tell them is somewhere between completely invalid and subjective at best.

As you begin a new week, I hope you take some time to determine what success means to you, rather than spending your whole life jumping through hoops to achieve some external metrics.

** Jara content:

With so much talk about success, this verse comes to mind. I also recommend that you look up the verse before it and after it for context. 😊

فَاِذَا قُضِيَتِ الصَّلٰوةُ فَانْتَشِرُوۡا فِى الۡاَرۡضِ وَابۡتَغُوۡا مِنۡ فَضۡلِ اللّٰهِ وَاذۡكُرُوا اللّٰهَ كَثِيۡرًا لَّعَلَّكُمۡ تُفۡلِحُوۡنَ‏

“Once the prayer is over, disperse throughout the land and seek the bounty of Allah. And remember Allah often so you may be successful.” - 62:10

Have a great week. ✨