Lead Like You

CHAPTER 15Redefining success

When I was seventeen years old, I sat down to lunch with my dad and asked him, ‘Dad, what's the meaning of life?’

With great frustration and impatience — probably because he did not know the answer and hated not knowing — he responded, ‘I don't know. To work hard, be successful and take care of everyone around you’.

There's a set up for a core belief waiting to happen! And I certainly listened to that one. I suspect from a young age, I had already picked up from my parents and grandparents what they saw as successful, and quite unconsciously had a very clear perception of what success did and didn't look like in our family and in my culture.

Interestingly, as I learnt more about my dad from other adults who knew him well, while that may have been what he perceived life was about, I now understand he spent a lot of time feeling dissatisfied, philosophising and searching for meaning himself.

My dad considered himself neither a spiritual nor a religious man. In fact, he was a staunch atheist. But when he was dying of cancer at the age of fifty-three, I gave him The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, which he said he found very comforting and supportive in what was understandably a deeply reflective time for him.

One afternoon, while he could still stand, we went for a gentle walk in the bush together. He looked like he wanted to tell me something important, but seemed uncertain where to begin. He started talking about the book. He ...