1.0｜Chapter 1 What is Success

Introduction: From "Technique-Based Success" to "Divine Success"

Chapter 1 | What is Success: From External Results to Internal Structure

Successology, naturally, is the study of "success." Therefore, before I begin to recount my Divine Successology, we must first define a most fundamental question: What is success? What is the actual object of our research?

In the human world, the word "success" seems simple enough: earning money, getting promoted, buying a house, buying a car, having power, becoming a star, being envied, being recognized...

In recent years, I have been invited to conduct several offline success courses in Silicon Valley. Every time I stand before dozens of engineers and executives from Apple, Google, Meta, and TikTok, I ask the same question:

"What is true success in your mind?"

Their answers are surprisingly consistent:

"Success is financial freedom."

So, I follow up with a second question:

"Why do you need financial freedom?"

They fall silent for a few seconds, and then speak a more honest truth:

"Because then I wouldn't have to work for a living. I could be free to do what I want to do."

I nod and continue with a third question:

"But if you had a vast amount of money yet only three days left to live, would you consider yourself successful?"

The entire classroom goes silent. No one speaks.

Bill Gates once said something deeply poignant:

"I might be the wealthiest poor man in the world."

Because he can no longer enjoy a meal with a real appetite as he did when he was young, nor can he travel everywhere as he did in his twenties. He can only sit in a magnificent, luxurious mansion, yet do nothing. At that moment, you realize: what humans truly need is not wealth, but freedom.

The freedom to do what you want; the freedom to live the life you desire; the freedom to become the person you were originally meant to be. Wealth is merely the "shortest path to freedom" that humans mistake for reality.

But true success is never a number. I have seen too many people with million-dollar annual incomes who are deeply mired in anxiety, depression, and loss; I have also seen people earning tens of thousands of dollars a year who are freer, more relaxed, and more secure than most of the wealthy.

The Three Layers of Success: Results, Capability, and Identity

Through my countless dialogues with students, as the questions unfolded layer by layer, I gradually heard the true, collective voice behind their answers about "wealth." There are only three things that people truly want from success:

• Freedom
• Health
• Being Loved

No matter how much you earn, no matter which industry you are in, and no matter what age you are, these three things are the ultimate aspirations of every human being.