Shownotes
Redefine Success: Don't Let Google Decide for You
Are you constantly asking strangers on the internet to define your success?
Hi, I’m Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach.
On this episode of The Weeniecast, I’m asking if you're letting Google dictate what success should look like for you.
That needs to change.
It's time to break free from societal norms and craft your own definition of success.
Many of us have asked, "Why can't I be successful?"
Usually, after a setback or when the fear of even trying takes hold.
By relying on external benchmarks rather than defining success on our own terms, we set ourselves up for disappointment and confusion.
I’ll share my own journey of shifting from an “ideal self” to my “favorite self.”
This shift not only redefined my personal criteria for success but also amped up my happiness and fulfillment.
Listening to this episode, you'll pick up some actionable insights on redefining what success means to you personally, how to align it with your values and passions, and some myth-busting around wealth and doing good in the world.
Time to stop taking cues from Google searches and start crafting a path that resonates with who you truly are.
By the end of this episode, you’ll not only have the tools to define success on your terms but also feel more aligned and motivated to pursue your aspirations.
Make this the moment you shift from being dictated by societal norms to living by your own meaningful path.
Listen in and let’s redefine what it means to be successful, together.
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Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- answerthepublic.com
- Gay Birthday Club
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcripts
I'm going to ask you a question.
Katie McManus:Why can't I be successful?
Katie McManus:Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and welcome to the OUI cast.
Katie McManus:There's this great tool that you can use for creating content, and it's called answerthepublic.com you can pay for a membership and you can do as many searches as you want, or you can use their free membership.
Katie McManus:It's fine.
Katie McManus:You just are limited to how many searches you can do.
Katie McManus:But basically what you can do is you can put in keywords like business coach or social media or HR consultant, anything that has to do with what you do for your clients, and it'll come up with the most commonly asked questions on Google and how they're phrased and what are the questions that are asked, and you can actually take those questions and use them as content.
Katie McManus:And this is actually not even the point of this episode, but I shared this with you because I want to talk about this, because I was using this tool to frame up some of the ways that we look at success as a concept in the wrong way.
Katie McManus:I was using this tool to see what kinds of questions get asked about how to be successful.
Katie McManus:So I put in the search criteria, be successful.
Katie McManus:And some of the questions that came out that have a very, very high score for being asked are, can I be successful in life?
Katie McManus:Can you be successful without college?
Katie McManus:How to be successful in life, how to be successful in business, how to be successful in college, how to be successful in school?
Katie McManus:When will I be successful in life?
Katie McManus:When will I be successful in general?
Katie McManus:Oh, this one I love.
Katie McManus:When will I be successful?
Katie McManus:Astrology.
Katie McManus:I don't know if that means that they're, like, wanting to be an astrologer or if they're, like, wondering if, like, there's something in their stars that are going to mean success coming up.
Katie McManus:And along that vein, which zodiac signs will be successful?
Katie McManus:Why are businesses successful?
Katie McManus:Why can't I be successful?
Katie McManus:And I think we've all asked this question before.
Katie McManus:Why can't I be successful?
Katie McManus:And it's usually after a failure.
Katie McManus:It's usually after something didn't work out, or maybe we were even just too chicken to try.
Katie McManus:And I think we're asking the wrong questions when we're asking about success.
Katie McManus:Because to ask how to be successful, you have to first understand what the definition of success is.
Katie McManus:And that's different from person to person.
Katie McManus:And a lot of people have never actually thought about what their own definition of success is.
Katie McManus:We just Kind of take at face value that being successful, quote, unquote, is about how much money you have or how big your house is or how fancy a car you drive.
Katie McManus:We connect being successful with, you know, what university did you go to?
Katie McManus:Was it an Ivy League?
Katie McManus:Do you have an advanced degree in business?
Katie McManus:We talk about how successful people are by how much money they make and maybe what kinds of clients they have and how good their branding is and all that jazz.
Katie McManus:In relationships, we even assign success.
Katie McManus:People who are married are deemed successful in their relationships, when I know a lot of married people who would not necessarily agree with that.
Katie McManus:We assign success in so many areas of our life.
Katie McManus:But is it your definition of success or is it this kind of, like, amorphous society definition that it looks a very particular way?
Katie McManus:My definition of success recently changed.
Katie McManus:And this has actually been almost like the North Pole shifted in the world for me.
Katie McManus:And it happened when I realized that I no longer wanted to follow my ideal self.
Katie McManus:I no longer wanted to turn to this idealized version of Katie in my mind to see, okay, well, what's the next rung up for success?
Katie McManus:Like, what's the next win I should be going for?
Katie McManus:It shifted when I started looking at my favorite self.
Katie McManus:What is my favorite self?
Katie McManus:Who is she?
Katie McManus:What does she like?
Katie McManus:What does she enjoy being?
Katie McManus:What does she enjoy doing, and how does she see success?
Katie McManus:I want to go into that deeper in a moment.
Katie McManus:But first and foremost, we need to bust a myth about success.
Katie McManus:Oftentimes people think of success and they associate it with how much money you make, and it becomes this.
Katie McManus:Either or.
Katie McManus:You can either be successful and wealthy, or you can do good in the world.
Katie McManus:It's almost like we've all internalized this whole model, you know, created by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, where if you wanted to become a nun or a priest or a monk, you know, to enter the church, you had to give up all of your worldly possessions.
Katie McManus:You had to release any claim, you had to property.
Katie McManus:You had to donate all of your clothes, all of the things that you hold dear.
Katie McManus:We've taken that model and we're like, yeah, absolutely, that's how we should do it if we want to really be a good person in the world.
Katie McManus:We want to make a difference.
Katie McManus:We want to help others.
Katie McManus:We also have to be poor, completely discounting the fact that the Catholic Church is like, what, a trillion dollar institution?
Katie McManus:Like, in real estate, in money, in artifacts that they own.
Katie McManus:I mean, the paintings that are in the Vatican Museum alone create a massive fortune.
Katie McManus:So if you were to give up all your possessions back in the day and go and essentially work for the Catholic Church, you'd have your housing covered, you'd have food covered.
Katie McManus:You'd basically have all of the needs that you have as a human being covered in the here and now.
Katie McManus:If you want to be a helper and you have this paradigm that you can either be a good person and donate your time and have a real impact on others and make a difference, we have this belief that you have to do so while poor, you know, forgetting that we don't have this institution taking care of us.
Katie McManus:And also, that's not true.
Katie McManus:Absolutely not true.
Katie McManus:You do not need to be poor.
Katie McManus:You do not need to struggle.
Katie McManus:Can you spare some change if you want to make a difference in this world?
Katie McManus:It's not an either or.
Katie McManus:It can be both.
Katie McManus:And actually, when you make it both, things get so much easier.
Katie McManus:Few of the things that I've really explored with this whole model of the favorite self is like, what does my favorite self love doing?
Katie McManus:And what does she want more time to do?
Katie McManus:And a few of the things that came up is running my nonprofit, the Gay Birthday Club, which is about to launch.
Katie McManus:I'm really excited for it and getting involved politically.
Katie McManus:Not running for office, don't worry, I'm not.
Katie McManus:I don't think I could handle that.
Katie McManus:But supporting others who are.
Katie McManus:Who are running for office, volunteering, helping them strategize, doing marketing for them.
Katie McManus:And let me tell you, when I first had the idea of my nonprofit, I played small.
Katie McManus:I talked to a bunch of people.
Katie McManus:I felt out the idea.
Katie McManus:I bought some books on Amazon on how to start a nonprofit.
Katie McManus:I then felt really guilty that I had these books, books lying around my house and I wasn't reading them.
Katie McManus:And I started doing some research online.
Katie McManus:I got really overwhelmed until I finally said, no, no, no, no.
Katie McManus:Like, this is not working.
Katie McManus:If I want to make this happen, I have to make this happen.
Katie McManus:And I'm not making this happen by trying to figure it out on my own.
Katie McManus:So I did what I do best.
Katie McManus:I threw some money at the problem.
Katie McManus:I asked my incredible lawyer, David Freyman, to find an attorney that he could refer me to because it's not his specialty, to help me set up a nonprofit.
Katie McManus:By the way, there are very few lawyers who do this.
Katie McManus:It took him months to find someone.
Katie McManus:And not.
Katie McManus:Not because he wasn't doing it, because literally there are so few attorneys who do this.
Katie McManus:So if you're an attorney and you want to do something that there's need for, you know, you might think about that niche, but money made it easier to get started, right?
Katie McManus:Because attorneys cost money, and especially for a nonprofit that's not designed to make money.
Katie McManus:And I will be able to pay myself back for what I've invested so far.
Katie McManus:It's not, it's probably not going to happen anytime soon, but I'm, I'm years ahead of where I would be if I were trying to figure it out on my own.
Katie McManus:And actually, like, let's talk about this.
Katie McManus:My favorite self wants to make a difference.
Katie McManus:She wants to make sure that everyone knows that they are loved and celebrated, especially on their birthdays.
Katie McManus:And she's so excited for this idea of the gay Birthday club, where folks in the LGBTQ community can sign up to get a phone call on their birthday singing them Happy birthday, Happy birthday to you.
Katie McManus:And I could have absolutely spent another six months to a year trying to figure it out on my own, second guessing myself, trying stuff, getting it wrong, filling out forms, having them sent back.
Katie McManus:And here's what would have happened.
Katie McManus:Most likely, I would have given up.
Katie McManus:In business, you'll hear this phrase kicked around a lot, because it's true.
Katie McManus:Time kills deals.
Katie McManus:If you're in a sales process with someone and too much time goes by, the chance that they are going to say yes and sign on the dotted line and pay, the money goes down dramatically.
Katie McManus:And just like time kills deals, time also kills ideas.
Katie McManus:You may have an incredible idea for some kind of good initiative that you want to put out in the world, but if too much time goes by from having the idea to actually making it real, you're going to lose interest, you're going to lose the energy in it.
Katie McManus:You're not like the goose is going to get juiced and there's not going to be any left.
Katie McManus:Love that saying.
Katie McManus:Again, my Canadian listeners, if you know if that's a Canadian saying or just that one person who shows up to my Brave Biz lab calls who says it from time to time, I want to know.
Katie McManus:It's easier to have a massive impact on the world and to help people and to really make a difference when you have money, when you make lots of money.
Katie McManus:When I did some reflection with my favorite self on what I really want my business to be, this podcast to be, and the rest of my life to be, everything revolved around being the help that others need.
Katie McManus:And here's the beauty of it.
Katie McManus:You can have a business that helps other people that makes you lots of money.
Katie McManus:You could then use some of that money to start a nonprofit that helps lots of people and has an impact and hopefully at some point become something that exists separate from you so you don't have to put too much time and effort into it long term unless.
Katie McManus:Unless you really want to.
Katie McManus:When you make more money, you also have more freedom and flexibility to go and do other passion projects, like, for instance, getting involved in your community, maybe running for school board, or helping certain elected officials get elected in the first place.
Katie McManus:Because you believe in what they stand for, you can donate to causes that matter to you.
Katie McManus:Hell, I mean, if your idea of success is you want to go to Costa Rica for two months out of the year and go surfing, guess what makes that a lot easier?
Katie McManus:Having a business that is successful in making lots of money.
Katie McManus:So all those people who are Googling, how do I be successful in my business?
Katie McManus:How do I be successful in my life?
Katie McManus:The answers they're getting are not useful.
Katie McManus:Right?
Katie McManus:Because how does Google know what your definition of success is?
Katie McManus:It doesn't.
Katie McManus:It has no way of knowing that at the point that artificial intelligence gets to the stage where it can read your mind and understand what you mean.
Katie McManus:I mean, I think we have some bigger things to worry about.
Katie McManus:But when we ask questions like that, when we ask for guidance without understanding what we're trying to get to, we're actually keeping ourselves small.
Katie McManus:Right.
Katie McManus:It's kind of like imagine you live in Boston and you want to drive to California and you go up to someone and you say, hi, can you give me directions?
Katie McManus:I'd like to go somewhere.
Katie McManus:They may think that you want to go to New York.
Katie McManus:They'll give you directions to New York, you'll get to New York and you'll go up to someone else and say, hi, can you give me directions?
Katie McManus:And they'll give you directions to their favorite bagel shop.
Katie McManus:Because it's New York.
Katie McManus:Why the fuck would you want to go anywhere else?
Katie McManus:This is the greatest city in the world.
Katie McManus:That's how New Yorkers think.
Katie McManus:They're not wrong.
Katie McManus:Also, who doesn't love a good bagel?
Katie McManus:But when you explicitly understand, I want to go to California, I need to start asking about going to California.
Katie McManus:You start asking and some people won't know.
Katie McManus:Some people didn't pay attention in geography class.
Katie McManus:They didn't have a geography teacher who was as strict as Mrs.
Katie McManus:Barker was.
Katie McManus:Bingo.
Katie McManus:It's funny, I still see her power walking sometimes in my hometown.
Katie McManus:She wasn't one of the most traumatizing teachers, but she wasn't not one of the traumatizing teachers that I had.
Katie McManus:I think one of the main reasons why we don't get specific about how we want to be successful is because we're secretly ashamed of what our definition of success is.
Katie McManus:And.
Katie McManus:And a lot of this goes into what have we been taught to believe about money.
Katie McManus:We've been given so many different examples of how people who have lots of monies are actually the villains.
Katie McManus:I mean, let's talk about Cruella Deville for a second.
Katie McManus:She's massively successful.
Katie McManus:She is a fashion icon.
Katie McManus:And while I'm sure she could have afforded to buy 101 purebred Dalmatians if she wanted, she instead opted to pay two gangsters to go and steal them and hide them out in a house that I abandoned, house that I'm sure she owns.
Katie McManus:And she's a terrible driver.
Katie McManus:She can afford the insurance costs for her terrible driving and for repairing her own car all the time.
Katie McManus:And I imagine there's also some paying off of the police, because really, I mean, with the amount of accidents that she for sure has, there's no way her insurance would actually keep her insured if the police were actually telling them that she was getting driving points.
Katie McManus:For a real life example, Elon Musk.
Katie McManus:If we're looking for a real life villain, you don't really have to look much further than him.
Katie McManus:He screwed over most of his employees and every single business he has ever owned.
Katie McManus:He's claimed that he founded businesses that he actually did not found.
Katie McManus:He just bought them after they'd already been started.
Katie McManus:And he's dug a lot of them into the ground, claiming that he's trying to do better for the world.
Katie McManus:But there's been scant evidence that that's true.
Katie McManus:Just leave it there.
Katie McManus:When we have these models of people who are really wealthy who are doing terrible things, who are just terrible people, we start associating.
Katie McManus:Oh, my God.
Katie McManus:If you have money, you must be terrible, right?
Katie McManus:And so our subconscious learns this from a very, very young age.
Katie McManus:And we start associating.
Katie McManus:Okay, well, you know, I don't want to be like that.
Katie McManus:So what are the attributes of someone who is truly evil?
Katie McManus:Oh, well, they all seem to have a lot of money.
Katie McManus:Cool.
Katie McManus:So I won't do that.
Katie McManus:I also, you know, won't do this thing and this thing and this thing and this thing.
Katie McManus:And our moral guidance system kind of gets confused, right?
Katie McManus:We start associating stuff with evil that isn't necessarily evil.
Katie McManus:It's just kind of a coincidence that this evil person also happens to be wealthy, you know, in my very first sales job, I had to learn how to ask for a lot of money, right?
Katie McManus:More money than I had ever asked for in my life because I'd never worked in sales before.
Katie McManus:And I'll never forget my now best friend, then just plain old coworker, Jessica Nobriga.
Katie McManus:We were talking about money and like, our beliefs around it.
Katie McManus:And she said, you know, money at its heart just makes you more of who you are.
Katie McManus:And I love that because, you know, if you're a truly good person, money just makes you a better person.
Katie McManus:It makes you better able to do things that makes a real difference in the world.
Katie McManus:So as you're thinking about your definition of success, if there's any ickiness around money, a, that's a sign that you need to do some really serious money work.
Katie McManus:And I hope you have fun with that.
Katie McManus:And if you need any guidance, that's one of the things that I work on with my clients.
Katie McManus:You also have to start finding better models for people who have lots of money, who are doing good things.
Katie McManus:And yes, I am talking about Taylor Swift.
Katie McManus:I've lost count of how much money she has donated to different food banks, every, in every location she's done, her ERAS tour, the amount of money she's given to hurricane victims, and just the general good work that she does and how kind she is in her work and in her interactions with her fans.
Katie McManus:Because once you start unpacking what your beliefs are around money and your fears about what having lots of money will mean about you, and you start shifting the narrative that having more money will allow you to be a better, more influential person who makes a bigger difference in the world, the shame around your own definition of success starts dissipating.
Katie McManus:Right?
Katie McManus:Imagine, and maybe you don't have to imagine.
Katie McManus:Maybe this is absolutely true for you.
Katie McManus:You have a definition of success that says you need to make lots of money, you need to have a big house, you need to have all these things, and you secretly think, well, that would make me a terrible person.
Katie McManus:Are you actually going to go for it?
Katie McManus:Probably not, because it's going to be completely incongruent with who you see yourself as.
Katie McManus:You're not going to feel aligned to it because that's not who you are.
Katie McManus:But when you shift it to say, okay, yeah, I want lots of money and I want a big house so that I can host really amazing fundraising parties for the causes that I care about.
Katie McManus:And with the money that I have, I want to be able to donate to these causes.
Katie McManus:I want to be able to start my own nonprofit.
Katie McManus:I want to be able to do this and this and this and this and really make a difference in the world.
Katie McManus:And that feels in alignment with who you are at your core.
Katie McManus:Now, that's a definition of success that you will be fearless in going after.
Katie McManus:But babes, it's not an either or.
Katie McManus:You don't have to set sacrifice having what you want to be who you want.
Katie McManus:You can have them both.
Katie McManus:And actually, when you give yourself permission to go after them both, they both become a ton easier to get to.
Katie McManus:And if you're not sure what your definition of success is, if you've just taken the definition as it's been given to you from the world around you, and this is kind of your first foray into even questioning if that's right for you, here's a great journal question to ask yourself, and it is a little morbid.
Katie McManus:I want you to write your own eulogy.
Katie McManus:I want you to imagine that you are dead as a doornail maybe, and hopefully this is in the future.
Katie McManus:It's not right now.
Katie McManus:So I want you to imagine we are in the future.
Katie McManus:You've lived a long life.
Katie McManus:You've done all the things that you wanted to do.
Katie McManus:You've had the impact that you wanted to have.
Katie McManus:You've had really, really incredible relationships.
Katie McManus:And then you died.
Katie McManus:You're dead.
Katie McManus:And everyone who's ever known you is showing up at the funeral and someone stands up and gives a eulogy.
Katie McManus:What are they saying about you?
Katie McManus:What are the key moments that they remember that they want to bring up in this final conversation about you?
Katie McManus:What's the impact they want to acknowledge?
Katie McManus:Or what are the quirky, fun loving bits that you want them to highlight?
Katie McManus:It may not make sense right away, but buried in there is your definition of success.
Katie McManus:And once you have that answer of what you want people to say about you after you're dead, you can reverse engineer it into what your definition for success is, which then you can reverse engineer that into what you need to be doing right now to make sure that that eulogy gets read.
Katie McManus:And please, for the love of dog, stop asking Google for life advice.
Katie McManus:I'm having so much more fun.
Katie McManus:I'm feeling like more energy in this.
