Why Successful People Will Struggle to be Wise
Five ways to bring the pursuit of wisdom back to everyday life
I am lucky to have met people from all walks of life in my life and it’s my guilty pleasure to observe their conversations like an outsider.
Having spent years in the hard-core elite finance industry, partying with extremely successful people and hanging out with incredible entrepreneurs, hippies and even conspiracy theorists at the same time (!), I found proof to my hypothesis:
Many successful people aren’t the wisest.
They might be quick on their feet, hardworking and super intelligent, but they are not the wisest.
With the popular discourse moving towards mindfulness, equality and work-life balance, these intelligent, successful people might dominate the conversation (either because they are well networked, or their credentials gain attention), but I suggest that their views shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Here’s why, and how to be wise.
The default trajectory of successful people
The first time I realised that there are limits to being successful is when my super high-achieving childhood friend was forced by himself to pick a high profile job and gave up his dream to be a flight attendant.
Because he was so clever, he received scholarships for university and job offers from big banks and top companies kept coming in. The specs were so good that my then 21-year-old friend felt it would be stupid to turn it down.
Over 10 years had gone by, and whenever he got really drunk, his narrative switched from showing off his money to how he was absolutely trapped. The more he drank, the more tears fell down his half-open eyes. If he could choose again, he would at least spend one tiny year to fulfil his dream as a flight attendant. It’s too late now.
The moral of the story is that many successful people were born outstanding. Their parents, teachers, society and even themselves have high expectations of them. They always have to be doing their best, achieving more and aiming higher.
This upward trajectory of life pushes them very far, but when we are trying so hard to do more and better, we can easily forget the things in life that matter.
So many overachievers are psychopaths/sociopaths, many of them are burnt out and struggling with their mental health (or even physical health), but most importantly, they have left wisdom out of the equation of success.
No time to seek wisdom
The funny thing about wisdom is that it is abstract but it takes up a lot of our space.
The famous Minimalists duo Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus were successful, fat and unhappy businessmen before their lives turned upside down and they found that throwing away most of his clutter will finally create space for a life of fulfilment, wisdom and freedom.
This is how much space it takes for us to have clarity of mind. If we are bothered by cluttered, household chores, errands, work, client calls, responsibilities, targets, budgets, numbers, the next promotion, etc, etc, we will have no space of time to have clarity of mind.
High achievers don’t normally do jobs that allow them to switch off at 5 pm. It didn’t happen to me, an ordinary accountant, and it won’t happen to doctors, judges, lawyers, actuaries, architects whatsoever. Their work and demands from the world take up their own life, leaving no space behind.
The whole point about yoga retreats, meditation or even a hermit life is about creating space for thinking clearly. So no, intellectual people who are constantly engaged in the nitty-gritty of living will be great at those things, but bad at living consciously, which is what wisdom is all about.
Outside of work, there’s still no space for wisdom
Based on my fieldwork, it’s quite amusing what they think and talk about when they aren’t talking about work.
Because work and life responsibilities take up so much brainpower, time and space in their lives, you will find that many high achievers struggle to switch off outside of work. Many of them have a tendency to pursue a hobby over seriously (I know a retired partner who couldn’t let go of working so he found companies to manage his hobby of art collecting), or they over-complicate life errands.
Just yesterday, in a dinner with a bunch of doctors, one of them spent their entire weekend sterilizing jars to go to zero-waste stores for grocery shopping. It takes their entire weekend to do grocery shopping ‘the right way’ before another 3 nightshifts come in at the A&E.
I love zero-waste shopping, but the said doctor has lost perspective about how to rest. By making basic chores like grocery shopping so complicated, she has not allowed any space to slow down and just be in the present moment.
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Five ways to seek wisdom in everyday life
My fieldwork has established that overachievers are conditioned for constant upward growth, so busy that they have no space to think, and even when they have time to rest, their upbringing makes it hard to be in the present moment.
The result of this conditioning is often discussed in the media. Their interest is short-term, they are goal-focused, they neglect people who are less privileged, they are overly righteous, they expect perfection, they burn out. Worse, they take shortcuts and commit crimes (think Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes).
It’s true that we can seek therapist help or even take medication to calm our nerves, but true freedom, mindfulness and sustainable living, simply require wisdom. The philosophy of living is knowledge, a knowledge of wisdom.
So here are five ways to put the pursuit of wisdom back to a successful person’s busy life:
- Rest: honestly, stop making days off so busy that there’s no time to just chill. At the height of my anxiety disorder when I was also working 100 hours a week, I was unable to physically stay in the bathtub for longer than five minutes. I had the time, but I was too restless to not be checking my phone and my brain was racing through my to-do list. Learning to rest is important, I just did a yin yoga practise with Yoga with Adrienne, may be worth trying.
- Take a hard look at yourself: I know people who use work to shy away from bigger problems in life — a failing marriage, an addiction, a lack of purpose. It takes a lot of space to forgive, accept, and look at what’s happening with ourselves. If you are able to rest, then slowly work towards looking at yourself objectively (don’t rush it, seeking wisdom equals a journey of creating space). Don’t fake it until you make it, this motto doesn’t work for well-being.
- Stop making quick judgements about life matters: Managers are used to reviewing things with a critical eye, over time, we can become cynical and too quick to judge. Emotional perception leads to biased judgements, this happens again and again in history (if you want to contemporary discussion on this topic, watch the dark humour movie Don’t Look Up by Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence and Meryl Streep!). A wise person thinks slowly and talks even more slowly, as they want to listen and learn first.
- Connect with nature: I spent two years in the rural Wye Valley (a national forest in Wakes the UK) at 17 years old. The closeness to nature gave me, a Hong Kong supercity girl, a completely new perspective about what truly mattered in life. I dare say my pursuit of wisdom started there and stayed with me even when I moved to London for work. Last year, when I reached the limit of my busy city life and moved to the seaside, the proximity with nature again created perspective and hence wisdom. When we see the vastness of nature and how small we are, we get to feel our exhaustion to be bigger than who we are, and we are able to surrender to the universe as a humble people.
- Shut up: sorry to be rude but successful people are either expected to opine or can’t wait to speak up. Our voice sometimes overtakes the space. Trust me, our opinion doesn’t matter most of the time and listening (including to our children and older people) are more important than trying to speak. Try the book Quiet by Susan Cain, it will give you a new perspective on why introverts are more powerful than extroverts at times.
Every time I finish writing an article, I invite quietness and stillness to my life. It grounds me and gives me a fresh pair of eyes, then I read again what I wrote, make some adjustments before I hit publish.
I do this because when I was in a high-stressed job I kept making mistakes. Then I thought I was useless and stupid, I also checked whether I had dyslexia or ADHD. I might be all of those things, but I’d say things have improved tremendously ever since I was able to rest, relax, shut up, listen and observe.
We are all too tired, really, too tired.
So tired that we forgot what truly matters. Next time, when you are aimless scrolling through social media or online shopping websites. Just put your phone aside, cocoon yourself in the darkness of your duvets, and count your breath.
Choose wisdom over achievements.
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