Organizing ourselves as a society is one of the greatest ideas that helped humans survive and thrive. Instead of every individual living for herself, we all work together to improve our own chances of survival in the evolutionary game of life. In such an organized society, the idea of being successful is what motivates every individual to contribute something back and help us move forward. It’s no wonder that we celebrate success and successful individuals. It’s in everyone’s best interest to make sure that individuals are sufficiently motivated and rewarded for their contributions.

From the perspective of many individuals, success involves acceptance by society and being rewarded in the form of money, attention or thoughts. Society would like individuals to be successful, just as well as an individual would like to be successful, and yet, there is always struggle in figuring out how to be successful. We know successful people and what they do now, but very little about why they are successful. We incorrectly focus on what actions an individual took for her success, rather than why she took those actions and how members of the society reacted to them. The difference is what dictates an individual’s choice of actions — based on what society needs, or what one likes to do. Even if one were successful, such a perspective makes them to be arrogant and self-centered, for it was their talent to come up with something so incredible, and their generosity to let others benefit from it.

A much better perspective would be to realize that the individual is celebrated not for what she did, but how that helped others. A musician is successful because of how his music makes you feel. An entrepreneur is successful because of how his products helped you live better. A writer is successful because of all the thoughts that are raised in your mind because of her book. It’s not what they did, it’s how that made others feel. Every individual in the society is rewarding you with their money, attention and thoughts, because they benefit from your work, and not because you worked or choose to share your work.

From such a perspective, compassion and empathy are two critical, yet underrated, elements to be successful. Empathy is to be able to put oneself in another persons shoes, and feel how they feel. Compassion is to have a sympathetic concern towards fate of others. With those two, you can continue to contribute to society, even if you had the misfortune of early success, because you feel what others feel and you want to help them.