Defining Success

Defining Success 

Nov 17, 2021 by Ted Lamade  Managing Director at The Carnegie Institution for Science

What does success look like these days? Is it obtaining a certain number of followers?  Getting a specific number of “impressions”?  Becoming a YouTube sensation?  Passing a piece of legislation purely along party lines?  Doubling or tripling your money on a meme stock or an NFT?  Generating first quartile (or better yet, first decile) performance for a trailing twelve-month period?

Before you answer that, let me tell you about three people who appear to have very little in common, but are all connected by achieving a unique type of success that is too often overlooked.

The Highest Grossing Actor of All-Time

If I asked you to name the highest grossing actor of all-time, who would you guess? Tom Cruise? Julia Roberts? Tom Hanks? Each has won an Oscar and was the highest paid actor in Hollywood at some stage, but none are even in the top ten. That title goes to an actor who has never won an Oscar, has made far less per film than other leading stars, and whose films have on average grossed roughly half of Cruise’s, Roberts’, and Hanks’.

So, how did he do it? By sustaining a successful career for more than four decades through remarkable stamina and flexibility.

Samuel L. Jackson’s films have generated more than $20 billion dollars (and over $27 billion if you include cameos and voice acting roles). For comparison sake, films starring Cruise, Hanks, and Roberts have generated roughly $10.5, $7.7 and $6 billion respectively (link).

The secret to Jackson’s success? Starring in a lot of movies that have done better than average, a few blockbusters, and in a wide variety of roles, from action blockbusters to dramas, comedies, superhero movies, and animated films. This means roles such as Carl Lee Hailey in A Time to Kill, Zeus Carver in Die Hard, the voice of Frozone in The Incredibles, Nick Fury in Marvel movies, and of course, Neville Flynn in Snakes on a Plane.

PGA Money Leader

Around the same time that Samuel L. Jackson was hitting his stride, a golfer on the PGA Tour was doing so as well. Yet, if you ask any golf aficionado who the most successful players in the 1980’s were, they would likely rattle off names like Tom Watson, Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, or Nick Faldo. Few would say Tom Kite.

On the surface this is understandable. Physically, he was unimposing at 5’9 170 pounds and wore coke bottle glasses. He didn’t win a single major during the decade and won far fewer tournaments than his peers.

Yet, he still managed to finish near the top of the money list each year and was the first golfer to amass $6, $7, $8, and $9 million dollars in career earnings. So how did he do it? Like Samuel L. Jackson, Kite simply showed up more often than most, was willing to try new approaches (i.e., club combinations, fitness regiments, psychiatry, etc.), and almost always finished “in the money”.

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