The idols of success: why money, fame and power leave us empty
Arthur Brooks's four idols, Khabib's warning about the trap of success, Peterson's lure of power and Oprah's sense that there's got to be more all point to the same danger. Recognizing these idols helps readers aim for meaning and humility instead of chasing the next win.
Money, power, pleasure and fame are not evil, but a life aimed at them tends to leave you empty. Four very different people describe the same trap, and their shared advice is to know which reward pulls at you, hold success in your hands and not your heart, and aim at meaning, love and humility instead of the next win.
Arthur Brooks, a Vanderbilt professor and Harvard Business School senior fellow who studies happiness, calls them the four idols: money, power, pleasure and honor. Each can do great good. The problem comes when one becomes your primary goal, because it promises to finally make you happy and costs you love, which he calls the secret of happiness. Most people do not know which idol owns them, so he has students eliminate them one by one until one is left. His own is honor: at 62 he still wants people to love him. He also explains why winning disappoints. Satisfaction comes from struggle, and reaching a goal ends the progress we are wired for. A wealthy, unhappy executive told him why she had not changed: "I've always chosen to be special rather than happy".
Khabib Nurmagomedov, who retired from the UFC undefeated, describes it from the top. Fame and money are distractions; champions start missing workouts, and those who trained with hunger to be the best no longer know what to do next. The morning after a title, everyone goes back to their own lives. His rule for wealth: "If money stays in your hands and not in your heart, that's a good thing." Success, he says, reveals character, and he keeps perspective by remembering that everyone ends in the same kind of grave.
Jordan Peterson warns against power as the idea that unifies a life, and against comfort as a goal. He points to adventure and responsibility instead, and answers envy with gratitude and with comparing yourself only to who you were yesterday.
Oprah Winfrey, who has acquired the most, says that at 72 what she has acquired matters less than who she has become. Her biggest mistake came from trying to please people. She now measures legacy by the mark you leave on others.
They agree that the rewards are not the enemy, that winning does not fill you, that the antidote involves other people, and that something beyond the self keeps success in its place. They differ on ambition. Khabib trained fanatically and keeps humility out of the cage, Peterson urges young men to earn status, and Brooks is warier of strivers who never stop to enjoy anything. All three hold that effort is good but the reward must not become a god. They also name different idols.
There are caveats. Money matters when you do not have it, and Brooks and Huberman acknowledge they speak from financial security. Ambition is not the problem; what it serves is. And several of these answers rest on religious or spiritual conviction.
What to do with it: play the elimination game to find your idol. Ask why you are pursuing your current goal. List the people your life matters to and check your calendar against the list. Decide how your money will flow to others. Before a big goal, plan what comes after. Compare yourself with yesterday, not with other people. Watch for people-pleasing, and practice gratitude daily.