How to Redefine Success

00:00:01 - Andrew Dewar

Welcome to the five year Youth podcast, a show dedicated to helping you become the best version of yourself one day at a time. I'm Andrew.

00:00:09 - Catherine Collins

And I'm Cat. And we promise to keep it raw, real, and relatable.

00:00:15 - Andrew Dewar

Are you ready to grow? This podcast is intended to entertain, educate, and inspire you on a personal journey towards your best self. We are in no position to give advice and our hot messes on the best of our days. Clearly, we're in no position to offer health or medical advice or really any life advice, but we want to entertain you. Just a reminder, this is not a replacement for proper medical care or therapy. If you are struggling, please seek help from a qualified health professional. Let's jump in. Today's episode is called Redefining success. Our intention for you is that after hearing this episode, you start to think about what it truly means to be successful on your own terms and no one else's.

00:00:57 - Catherine Collins

I love that.

00:00:58 - Andrew Dewar

It's a new way of looking at things for me. I know, Cat, what does that mean for you to redefine success and what's been your experience?

00:01:06 - Catherine Collins

Yeah, I'm glad we're doing this episode because I think that it's a culmination of many different episodes that we've done. The name of our podcast, of course, is five year u, and the goal is to help you become the best version of yourself in five years. We've talked a lot about in past episodes who's holding you back. And in that episode, we talked about maybe some of these preconceived ideas or cultural expectations and family expectations of what you quote, unquote, should do, the kind of person you should be in order to be a successful human. And we are constantly in our own lives and in these mediums, encouraging people to continue to question and rethink all of these norms and pressures and to take the time to decide what you actually want to do in this life, what would actually make you happy.

00:02:06 - Andrew Dewar

Yeah, I like that. And I'll add that you said should a few times in there, and my first thought was, we all really need to stop shitting on ourselves.

00:02:15 - Catherine Collins

I still, like, think about the first time you ever said that to me. And I thought you said a different s word. It was like, pretty early into us working together, and I'm like, what did you say? And every time you say it, I still think you're saying the other s word. I'm like, okay, shooting. Shooting on yourself. Got it.

00:02:34 - Andrew Dewar

Yeah, shooting with an l, then a d. I think a lot of us, we define success by what everybody else defines it as, or has really, it's just a prescription for misery, if I'm being honest. I mean, I know for myself I chased after all the things that I thought were going to make me happy, and they didn't work. It's only once I recognized that I was defining success by what everybody else said. With material possessions and trips to certain places or certain people that you're friends with, all these different things, all these kind of what I'll label brand label type experiences didn't actually make me feel good when I was successful. And now I've redefined that for myself. It's a bit of a struggle at first because you have to think on your own. And when you follow the masses, it's kind of like that one buffalo going against the herd. It just doesn't feel great at first, but eventually the herd passes and you're in the field by yourself and you're like, wow, this is pretty amazing, but it takes a bit to get there.

00:03:44 - Catherine Collins

Yeah. What I really hope people take away from this is I want to encourage you to pause and to think about what they actually want out of this thing that we called life, this human experience, and to really question where all of these messages are coming from. Because right now in North America, if you were to ask anyone, what do people who live in North America think success is? They would say, you grow up, you go to school, buy a house, have some kids, have a nice car, go on nice vacations. And if you can look at someone and they have all of these things, then they must be successful marriages for 40, 50 years, which I think is, you know, remarkable and wonderful. But these ideas of what things are supposed to be like sometimes keeps us trapped in things that we don't actually want to be in the house is for sure one that I recently had to deal with.

00:04:48 - Andrew Dewar

Right. And I agree with you wholeheartedly with all of it. I think that when we look at our experiences and the things that have happened, I think when we look at success, fortune and fame are kind of the two that, like, become this pinnacle when we're trying to decide what we were going to talk about today. I had just heard this story from, about Ariana Huffington, and she was, I guess, a couple years into Huffington Post, and it was like going great. She was working 18 hours a day, seven days a week. You know, I'm going to butcher this story. But she fell down. She passed out from exhaustion. She hit her head on the table. She woke up in a pool of blood and realized that this is not success. She said having fame and fortune for success is a two pronged stool. You can't sit on it. You'll fall over. And the part that was missing for her was wellness. I think that's a part that we kind of ignore. Like, you know, everybody talks about health, but not in a success way. It's just kind of that thing we should do. I think health and wellness comes at this huge sacrificial cost while we go after the quote unquote, american dream, north american dream, whatever it is. I think my challenge for the past few years is to kind of sit back and think, what does success really look like to me? What do I want to go to bed thinking and feeling that I have achieved that is valuable to me, not. It doesn't matter if it's anybody else. If my version of success is sitting down and having all the time in the world to do a puzzle, a new puzzle every day for every day of the year, that that's my version of success. That's fine. It should have no impact on anyone else, but that's going to be the thing that makes me happy. So I should follow that. I don't even think pursuing it is the right term because I feel like when you're pursuing it, you're never really arriving. You can feel successful in the moment.

00:06:46 - Catherine Collins

Yeah. Something to work towards, I guess. You know, if the five year version of yourself is somebody who maybe has the freedom of time to spend how you please, you will feel successful. When you can wake up each day and decide on a puzzle or doing a podcast or reading a book or taking a walk, then that's successful to you. And look, it's easy for all of us to sit here and dream up what success would look like. What's hard is all of us really want our families to be happy for us and support these decisions. Or, you know, we want friends to, like, say what a cool thing. But the thing is, when you go against the grain and you do things that people don't normally do, it's really hard to find that support. And so part of this redefining success is to give yourself permission to dream up whatever version you want, whatever it looks like, and have enough confidence to live your authentic life and to actually go for the things that you want and to make a life plan that incorporates those things regardless of what anyone else thinks or says.

00:08:06 - Andrew Dewar

That's right. I think when we pursue stuff and even experiences to a certain amount, I believe that what we are going for is a state feeling when you go after something like fame, I'm not dissing it or anything else, because a lot of things can happen when you have a larger platform and you can help more people. But I will say it does kind of make sense to think about the emotion, that quality behind the thing you want, if you want to be famous, I think digging into it is worthwhile. Like, for me, I want to be a best selling author. I want to have an impact on millions of people. I know this is our joint mission. We want to help a million people become the best version of themselves over five years. I feel like that is my calling. Whereas before, I also want a TeSLA because I don't have one. And that is more just for acknowledgement. I want people to look at me and go, wow. You know, like, wow, nice Tesla, or something like that. Like, the things you want are the things you want. We're not dissing any of that. What we're saying is, when you know why you want the success you want, it will propel you forward or it won't motivate you enough to keep going. And both are good things because you learn more about yourself. But it really does come back to these feelings, these states that you want to be in on an ongoing basis and a successful state is, for me, it's fulfillment. I don't know. What would you say it is for you? Have you redefined your success, Catherine?

00:09:43 - Catherine Collins

Oh, yeah. I think that really, in the last few years, I've really had to rewire my brain and dig deep to break some old patterns, to be frank. Like, my family's definition of success. And the family I was raised in, my siblings were raised in is education and achieving, like, professional fulfillment and having careers that make an impact. But in order to get those careers, it was definitely this expectation about college. And both of my siblings and I went to graduate school. All three of us are what I would describe as, like, high achievers with intense drive. And I had to really take a step back and ask myself why I define success that way. Because I did reach, you know, this twelve year marriage, and I did have a beautiful home that was, you know, very Pinterest and Instagram worthy and a beautiful family in a dual income family. And it all fell apart. And I thought that I was sort of heading the same way as my parents were in, that both of them had long, successful careers and they'd been married for 40 years. And I wanted to have that success that they had their definition that works for them. And I had to really sit back and think like, now I have the opportunity to write this whole new script for the rest of my life. I thought I was following this path so many people follow because I thought that would lead to success, financial success, relationship success, family success, you know, the american dream and all the little checkboxes, including the boy, girl, twins. There's no little picture perfect family that you could find more than that. But I had to completely upend everything and really battle against a lot of those societal norms. Like, I sold that absolutely gorgeous home. And I remember thinking and telling my realtor, like, I just want to walk around one more time because I don't know if I'll ever live in a house like this again. And, like, she took it to mean that I thought, like, I would never be able to buy something like that again. She's like, oh, no, girl. Like, you're such a hard worker and you can. And what I really meant was like, I don't know if this is something that I want anymore. I don't know if this is the result that I actually need to have to feel successful, happy, content. The feeling that I'm looking for is peace. That is how I know I've reached where I want to be, is when I have continuous peace. And I know I'll feel peaceful if I am financially independent. Not to go buy designer bags or to have certain things, but because I know, like, I'm good and no one can take it away from me, you know, it's a feeling of, like, safety and contentment. I know I don't need those things to be happy because I found a lot more peace without them. The stuff of life is kind of stressful to maintain, I've learned.

00:13:11 - Andrew Dewar

Yeah, I would agree with that. I would say the things you own eventually own you, and you become slaves to them in so many ways. I know we've talked about this before, and I'm sure people won't mind too much with me sharing this, but, like, a big house is, it really is a peak for a lot of people. And then you get into it and you're like, this is a lot to maintain. Like, it's a lot to clean. It's more taxes, it's more everything. That's great if you like doing those things, or your income will cover the cleaners and all the stuff. But if you're at a point where you're like, I do not enjoy spending my time doing these house things, then it's likely your big house isn't your version of success. That was part of my journey, too, was just what I call winning the game. And then looking back on it and going, this sucks. In so many ways, it was beautiful in a lot of other ways. Again, on the outside, it looked perfect. And I think that's probably one of the things with social media and stuff. We'll look at it all and go, wow, everybody's got these perfect lives. Nobody does. We're all dented cans, and we all have our things, and we present this version of ourselves to the world. But what I'm looking for, and I know you are, too, is that authenticity of who I am and myself and contribution versus being the same as everyone else, having the same truck or car or big screen tv or whatever the new fad is. All those things are great, but not when you're using those things to define your success.

00:14:49 - Catherine Collins

Yeah. For me, when you think about having a successful career and what does that look like? For me, it's that peace and freedom again. And I want to give myself a small bit of credit because I tend to beat myself up about everything all the time. I already went against the grain by doing the unusual thing of being self employed and leaving a nine to five job and maintaining it for ten years with all the ups and downs that come with self employment and entrepreneurship. But it gave me the freedom of time. And when I went through my divorce, I got so scared, you know, about income and things like that. And I did apply for jobs, and there was one particular job that I was able to take on as a client in my business because we both really wanted to work together. But I couldn't have the freedom to work with other people if I worked with them. You know, I realized in that moment, it's like, no, my values are, like, firmly in this freedom category, and I can still help them, but on. On my terms, and they can still hire me, but on their terms. It's tough because the minute things, like, went south and the minute I got worried about money, I went right back to that. I got to be safe, and I have to go get a nine to five job with health insurance and a have to go do these things to be safe. It was a great experience to go through and to interview because it kind of reaffirmed. It's like, no, you betting on yourself is the best thing for you, and you always have made it work through all the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. You always figure it out, even if it comes down to the Hail Mary past that. I use that sports ball analogy.

00:16:35 - Andrew Dewar

Those words are in the right order. Yeah.

00:16:38 - Catherine Collins

You know, it's okay, sold the house and started renting. It's hard for me. We have all these societal pressures that are like, you are not a successful adult. You are not worthy of respect unless you own this house. And you have. You're in this cute little neighborhood, and everybody can look at you and say, wow, she's killing it. And that's what I want. I wanted to be like, no, I'm keeping this house. I want to. I want to keep the kids in their home. And, you know, you want to portray to everyone that, yeah, you know, my marriage fell apart, but, like, I'm powerful. I'm a powerful, like, boss lady, and I still have the pretty house because I'm making it happen on my own, and I just couldn't do it. Like, the numbers just didn't make sense. I was paying $10,000 a year in property taxes, and I remember deciding whether or not to sell the house. And luckily, my business partner here, Andrew, is an accountant by trade. And I read all the numbers through with you. You were so kind enough to offer to look at them, and we both knew, like, yeah, the math is not mathing here. And, you know, I had decided pretty much, and you were like, I support that decision because, you know, the math's not mathing. And I think a day or two later, I got a letter in the mail that the property taxes were going up, like, 5% or something, and I was just like, okay, I get it, universe. It's not going to work. It's like, I shouldn't have had to, like, say, I swallowed my pride and sold it and downsized and rented. But those are all the feelings, and it's because of all the pressure that we all place on ourselves to look a certain way. And now I'm just kind of like, oh, that put money in the bank, paid off some of the debt incurred from the divorce. I have, like, one third of the square footage now. Still can't keep up with the laundry, whether it was on the same floor in the basement. And I feel like I was, like, cozier and closer to the kids in this house. And even they said it. Even they said, the energy here is better. And we all felt a little bit snuglier and closer, and it's like, oh, man. Everything I thought that was supposed to be, like, wasn't actually the best thing.

00:18:49 - Andrew Dewar

And I think that is, first of all, the thing that's coming to me as we're talking right now is you really do own your queen energy, and you really have stepped into your own these past couple of years since the divorce, I just want to acknowledge that because I don't think you are ever going to acknowledge that within yourself.

00:19:08 - Catherine Collins

Maybe my five years.

00:19:10 - Andrew Dewar

Yeah, five year. You needs to acknowledge this. And five years from now, Catherine is looking back on you and going, like, wow, this is, like, such a pivotal time for you. All the things you're saying, like, I didn't have this, I didn't have that. I don't think you were born with those feelings and thoughts. I think they kind of. They leech in through society, through the people we know and everything. It was the same thing for me. I will shorten this, my story down. But basically, in my divorce, I ended up moving close to my kids. I bought a condo. I'd never lived in anything besides a house before. And I had to redefine how I looked at everything the way I look at things now. And I've said this to you, we're just renting everything.

00:19:51 - Catherine Collins

Yeah.

00:19:52 - Andrew Dewar

You don't own anything. It's. You're paying for the experience of owning the house. You're paying for the experience of renting a car. You're paying for the experience of a certain piece of jewelry or a computer. It doesn't last forever. It's not meant to. You are meant to experience things.

00:20:06 - Catherine Collins

We mean this, like, metaphorically, you know, like, everything is all loan to us from the universe. Because if someone listening is going to be like, no, I own my house and I own my car outright. And you're like, yeah, but, yeah, exactly.

00:20:20 - Andrew Dewar

I do. You know, I own the things outright, but the reality is somebody else will live in this condo later on, the car that I own will eventually be on its own in a junkyard, or somebody else is going to own it. It's all just temporary, and that's okay. So when you start to kind of shift the way you look at things, you can kind of come back to it and go, okay, this is how I'm going to look at things for right now. Maybe not forever, but now I get to define success on my terms. My version of success is having that time, freedom, and being able to know that the things I do contribute to others in a meaningful way. That's what my success is. You've watched me try to have conversations with people I am incapable of having. Nice weather we're having today type conversations. I'm like, nice weather we're having today. How was your family life growing up? And it's just who I am, but I own it now. Whereas before I suppressed that and it's because I truly love everyone. I really want to make a difference in this world. I really want to help people.

00:21:29 - Catherine Collins

He really does love everyone, you guys. And he tells everyone he loves them, even if it's like the secretary or like his acupuncturist. Like, everyone gets an I love you from it.

00:21:39 - Andrew Dewar

Everybody gets an I love you. It's. I think we can live with more love. It's. Life will be better. It's just the absence of fear, and I love that. So what I'm saying is, that's my version of success. It doesn't have to be flowery or drawn out. I want to treat myself with respect. I want to love myself so that I can love others better. That's my version of success. And maybe doing a puzzle every other.

00:22:03 - Catherine Collins

Week, my version of success is peace, because I don't think I have ever felt at peace except for, like, this past year. Because even growing up again, you know, it's not that my parents, like, create an environment that wasn't peaceful or anything like that. Like, I was very fortunate growing up. It's just that my mom will tell you that I have always been hard on myself. Like, I would get in the car, she tells a story about me in 8th grade getting in the car, and I just burst into tears. And she's like, what's wrong? I'm like, I got a 90 on my religion test. And she was like, a 90? Like, she thought she heard me wrong. Like, yeah, a 90. And, I mean, now I'm like, that's pretty good, you know?

00:22:52 - Andrew Dewar

But that's an Andrew 100% yes.

00:22:55 - Catherine Collins

And so, you know, my mom tells me that I have just put this pressure on myself to achieve these levels of perfection my whole life. And, you know, maybe I soaked it in because my parents, you know, worked really hard, and I wanted to be like, who knows? But I just know that, you know, from the time I was very little until just recently, I was always just under stress because I was always just trying to be perfect at everything. And when, you know, one of the biggest things in life, which is, you know, your relationship, your marriage kind of falls apart, it's like the ultimate, like, rewiring for a perfectionist to say, like. Like you said, nothing was ever guaranteed. The future I envisioned wasn't guaranteed. And now I have a chance to say, okay, well, all of that trying to be perfect, all that effort, all that time, all that school, all those millions of applications and jobs and this, that and the other. All the best things in life, and I still wasn't happy. I still was under a ton of stress. So now I get to say, what is success, really? Because the other stuff, all the checkbox stuff, didn't bring me a lot of peace. And now that's, like, all I want. In fact, even when my kids are, like, bickering or something, I'll just be like, guys, this is a peaceful home and you're disturbing my peace. Can you talk it out or separate and come back as guys want to negotiate on whatever it is, you know, whatever show you're watching or something. I'm just, like, so protective of it. And now when I envision peace as the ultimate success, of course there's things under that. Again, financial independence brings peace. Because when I'm sitting there stressed about a $10,000 property tax bill, I'm not peaceful. I don't care how pretty the house is and what a nice picture it makes on Instagram, I'm not peaceful. I'm scared to death, like, trying to get as many clients as I can to make sure that I can prove to everyone that I can handle this life still by myself, husband or not. And now it's just peace. And I feel like I'm talking a lot about myself today that I don't normally do, but it's okay.

00:25:19 - Andrew Dewar

It's okay. I think you have gone through this momentous life change. I think it serves as a really good example for a lot of people listening to, say, wake up. The version of success that we put on tv and Instagram and Pinterest and all these other things. And I'm not vilifying social media, it does play a very heavy role in all of it.

00:25:42 - Catherine Collins

Sure.

00:25:42 - Andrew Dewar

When you acknowledge that, look, the nice house, people look at that and they forget about it. They're too worried about their own story. So if you're doing these things for external acknowledgement, you're always going to be left wanting more because you're never going to get enough. And when you do, it's fleeting. If I say nice car, I'm not going to say nice car to you every time I see you, I'm not going to say, I love your picket fence. Every time I look at your house, I'm going to say it once you've gotten the compliment. And if that's what you need to be successful, you might be playing a losing game. That's why we're talking about redefining success. Who do you want to be five years from now? What does success look like for you? If you could write out today for me, being successful is this. And fill that out to a point where you're like, look, if I wake up tomorrow and I have all these things, I will be happy with my life. I will consider myself being successful. It doesn't mean you stop beings. Our whole point of this is to grow and to expand into the next version. So when you hit that version, it's okay to go, you know what? Now I want these new things. That's life. You're not growing, you're dying. And that's just a fact. So when we can look at things and go, look, my version of success right now is peace. My version of success right now is loving myself and helping others. Whatever it is for you, it can just be, you know, my version of success is passing high school. That's okay.

00:27:12 - Catherine Collins

Yeah.

00:27:12 - Andrew Dewar

It has to matter to you and no one else. And the second you start thinking, I wonder what they will think about it. You're not doing it. You're out. You got to come back to yourself and go, what makes me successful? And if you get to that emotion underneath and you realize that it's something external, come back to yourself. You've been away too long. Come back, find out what it is that makes you successful.

00:27:34 - Catherine Collins

And the most important question that you can ask yourself is not only what success looks like, what does success feel like?

00:27:44 - Andrew Dewar

Yes. So I think that is so very, very true. So our challenge for you today is to ask yourself, if I redefine success on my own terms, what does it look like? And more importantly, what does it feel like? And when you can clearly and succinctly know what those things are, you're going to find your life starts to move in a different direction, and you're going to feel better. You're going to feel less burdened by society's typical definition of success. So that's our challenge for you today.

00:28:20 - Catherine Collins

It's a good one. All right, Andrew, it's time for the glimmers.

00:28:25 - Andrew Dewar

Glimmers.

00:28:28 - Catherine Collins

If you're new here, glimmers are the sparkly, shiny, happy things that make us smile. It's just something fun that we do at the end of every episode to just share. It could be a book, an app, a funny thing our kids said, but we just like to share it because it's fun.

00:28:47 - Andrew Dewar

You know, my glimmer is, the last 30 days, I have gone through a lot of different changes. I completely. To say I eliminated 50% of my diet is a vast under exaggeration. Under underation. I don't know.

00:29:05 - Catherine Collins

I can't even help you, because I don't even know.

00:29:12 - Andrew Dewar

It's an understatement. That's the word. I got there, so I fasted for a few days. I completely reset my whole body, basically, and I shed a lot of weight over the last 30 days. And what it did for me was made me realize what can happen in 30 days when you put your mind to something. And that all kind of comes back to the success thing of, like, for me, one of my success pillars is feeling good in my body. And, I mean, looking a certain way is great, but I just want to feel good, and I wasn't, and I took action on it, so my glimmer is taking action on feeling better about myself.

00:29:51 - Catherine Collins

I love that.

00:29:52 - Andrew Dewar

How about you? How about you, Kyle?

00:29:54 - Catherine Collins

Well, I did a lot of traveling over march. My kids have a two week spring break, which is just this whole thing. So there was a lot of moving parts in March. And, you know, one thing that we both love to do is listen to audiobooks. And when I travel, I listen to audiobooks on the plane. I mean, I pretty much listen to audiobooks all the time, but I wanted to share something that makes me just so freaking happy all the time. And that is Libby. Libby is a library app. If you have a public library, you don't even have to go into it. You can, you know, as long as you have a library card, you can download. Libby and I pretty much have been telling Andrew about this for years, and he finally got Libby. And it's so nice because you can just download audiobooks. And I seriously delight. And sitting there and, like, going through all the books and picking what I want to read and, like, the little, like, moment of exhilaration when a book I've been waiting for, for, like, weeks is available. It brings me so much happiness. So we both have audible subscriptions, but we also have Libby. So if I can't, if something is, like, months or it's going to be months and months for you to get this book from the library, I will get it on audible, but I kind of like the thrill of, like, which one will be available. And if you've never heard of that and, like, you love books and you want some free books, just know that you can do it without having to constantly go in the library.

00:31:27 - Andrew Dewar

Yeah. And I, again, I'm really proud of the Libby tattoo I got on my forehead after I signed up for Libby. It's such a good find. I have been enjoying it. It's kind of like a little gift that comes to you. You get a notification, you're like, oh, this book's ready. And then you get through it. It's so nice. It's a lot cheaper, too. It's free. And for those of you listening on your drive or whatever, Catherine has been fairly calm this whole time. As soon as she started talking about this, she is jumping up. She's, like, bouncing up and down, and she's, like, just really excited about it. So it really is. I mean, definitely, if you haven't checked out Libby and you like audiobooks, go for it.

00:32:02 - Catherine Collins

Yeah. I mean, nothing gets me as excited as, like, good deals, free stuff and books. That's pretty much the pinnacle. Speaking of peace and happiness, that is my pinnacle right there.

00:32:13 - Andrew Dewar

There you go. And I think that's a great part to stop on. So thank you, everybody, for listening, and we hope you're able to redefine success on your own terms. Take care.

00:32:25 - Catherine Collins

Bye.

00:32:26 - Andrew Dewar

Well, thank you for listening. Remember, it doesn't matter where you started from or where you're coming from. It matters where you're going.

00:32:32 - Catherine Collins

And we are rooting for.