Random musings: Achieving Success Through the Pursuit of Fulfillment

Today's blog post is based on a podcast on The Art of Manliness:

The standard route to success in modern life goes as follows: work hard in high school, score high on your SAT, get into a good college, do well in your classes, get a good job.

For some people, that path works, but for a lot of people, it leaves them disengaged and frustrated because it doesn’t actually lead to a life of fulfillment.

My guest today has spent his academic career studying individuals who have bucked the standard formula for achievement and found success on their own terms. His name is Todd Rose. He’s a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the co-author of the book Dark Horse: Achieving Success Through the Pursuit of Fulfillment. We begin our conversation discussing what Todd calls the “Standardization Covenant,” including how it developed to serve institutions rather than individuals and why following the standard path often leads to frustration. Todd then explains his idea of an alternative “Dark Horse Covenant” and what it looks like theoretically and in the lives of those who’ve followed it. He then walks us through the steps that dark horses follow to find success and fulfillment on their own terms, including focusing on “micromotives” to figure out where you fit, making decisive choices, creating your own options, and trying new strategies until you find something that works. We end our conversation with how Todd would like to see the Dark Horse dynamic incorporated into our educational system.

I actually thought it was a really interesting podcast. I've written about the educational system before, which is the basis of the standardization covenant...where people are raised to fit into certain roles in society.

It's never too late to find fulfillment in what you do for a living...in fact, it's selfish of you to not pursue what will create the best you that you can offer the world.

Here are the show highlights:

What do people typically think success looks like?
What is the “standardization covenant”?
How higher education fails our search for fulfillment
Successfully pivoting from the standard path to the dark horse path
How to figure out what gives you fulfillment
Knowing what motivates you and the power of micromotives (and how it changes over time)
Balancing risk with practicality in pursuing fulfillment
Picking vs. choosing
Knowing your strategies
Why you should ignore your destination
Utilizing this approach in K-12 education environments