If Opportunity Looks Like Work, What Does Success Look Like?

Ashton Kutcher is well-known at this point for many things, but one of my favorites is his speech at the Teen’s Choice Awards where he gave an excellent speech on the foundation that “opportunity looks a lot like work”. He seemingly singled out millennials who want a quick route to success and cynics who attribute his fame to “getting lucky”. It was an excellent speech, and an excellent quote, but it’s easy for people to believe that Ashton Kutcher may have some kind of secret insight- look at his resume or IMBD page. However, despite how hard I am positive that Ashton Kutcher worked to establish his career, long hours and sleepless nights and weeks with skipped meals (and showers) are not what tends to come to mind when the “That 70’s Show” star walks on stage. Why? Because we didn’t see the work part. We weren’t there for the tedious jobs or the counting dollars to see if he’ll make it through the week. We were there to witness the success. And what does success look like? Put me in a room with 1 billionaire from old money, 1 millionaire who hates his job on Wall Street, and an entrepreneur who just launched his first start up and hasn’t seen a profit yet but can’t stop talking about his last meeting, and l’ll point to the entrepreneur every time. Why? Because success cannot be measured by materialistic means. It cannot be measured by social status or awards or achievements. Success is the way you feel about what it is that you’ve done and what it is that you are doing. Opportunity may look a lot like hard work, but success, to me, looks like passion. The kind that keeps you up, the kind that burns inside with a contagious intensity- the kind that drives you to be willing to do whatever amount of work it takes to reach your goal because it doesn’t FEEL like work. When effort is combined with passion, it doesn’t make you tired- the late nights and long meetings and failure after failure, challenge after challenge actually give you energy. You’re fulfilling intimate parts of your core self. It may not always be “fun”, but it’s almost always exciting and it’s a guarantee that you’re learning something every single day. So yes, I agree with Ashton that opportunity looks a lot like work. But once someone has earned that opportunity they’ve worked for, the passion that they extend to their endeavors is what creates the image (and often extent) of their success.