For much of his early career, David Wilder measured success the way nearly everyone is taught to: by what he accumulated. The title, the numbers, the next rung on the ladder. It is a natural way to keep score, and for a long time it worked.
Then, somewhere along the way, the scoreboard stopped making sense.
The Satisfaction That Faded Too Quickly
Wilder is candid that reaching the goals he had chased did not feel the way he expected it to. The satisfaction was real but thin, and it faded quickly, replaced almost at once by the next target. As a result, he came to suspect that a definition of success built entirely on acquisition would never truly arrive anywhere, that it was, by design, a race with no finish line.
So he changed what he was measuring.
A Better Target for Ambition
These days, David Wilder judges a good year less by what he has gained and more by what he has been able to give: the people he has mentored, the doors he has opened, the community he has helped make a little stronger. It is not that his ambition disappeared. Instead, it is that his ambition found a better target.
Why This Is a Practical Idea, Not a Sentimental One
This is not a soft or sentimental idea, in his telling. Rather, it is a practical one. Success defined only by accumulation has no natural end; there is always more to get, and the goalposts move the instant you reach them. In contrast, success defined by contribution behaves differently. It pays out immediately; you can see the difference you are making, and it keeps compounding in the lives of other people long after you have moved on to something else.
The Pull of the Old Scoreboard
Wilder is quick to admit he has not perfected any of this. The pull of the old scoreboard is strong, and he feels it like anyone does. However, he has come to believe that the leaders worth following are the ones who make that shift deliberately, who decide, on purpose, that the point of doing well is ultimately to do some good.
The Challenge He Puts to Others
His challenge to others is a direct one. If your definition of success is one you can never actually satisfy, it may be worth asking whether it is the right definition in the first place. Ultimately, David Wilder found a better one by looking past what he could hold on to, and toward what he could hand to someone else.