Your Success Is No One Else’s Business But Yours

October 22, 2025

Let’s get one thing straight: your success does not need a permission slip. It doesn’t need your mother’s approval, your coworker’s applause, or your old high school friend’s validation on Instagram. Success is one of the most personal, self-defined, sometimes messy, sometimes glorious projects you’ll ever take on, and it belongs only to you.

The problem is, too many of us hand out guest passes to the peanut gallery. You finally launch your business, and someone says, “Oh, cute side hustle.” You get promoted, and suddenly Uncle Bob, who hasn’t had a job he didn’t hate in thirty years, wants to critique your “work-life balance.” Everyone’s got an opinion, and most of them aren’t qualified to weigh in. Here’s the truth: they don’t have to like it, understand it, or even notice it. Your success is still real.

Consider Colonel Sanders, who tried on more careers than most of us swipe past in a week. He was a farmhand, streetcar conductor, railroad fireman, insurance salesman, and even ran a ferry boat, and none of it made him famous. It wasn’t until the 1930s, when he started serving fried chicken out of his service station in Corbin, Kentucky, that he stumbled into the idea that changed everything. By 1939 he had perfected his ‘11 herbs and spices’ recipe, and in his 60s he hit the road to sell franchises. Success didn’t show up early or tidy, it showed up battered, fried, and served in a bucket. Full disclosure: I’ve been a KFC devotee since the Blizzard of ’77. Oh great, now I have a craving!

And sometimes, “success” doesn’t look like the glossy magazine version anyway. Maybe for you, it’s walking away from a six-figure job because it was eating your soul. Maybe it’s running a marathon at your own pace (and yes, finishing is winning even if the Kenyan runners lapped you three times). For me, completing six marathons counts as proof that success can be sweaty, painful, and oddly addictive. Or maybe it’s saving for the safe car, knowing you can pay it in full, then testing out your dream car and buying it because you can and playing it safe is boring. Small, big, weird, unglamorous, it counts. It all counts.

Of course, there will always be people who feel entitled to weigh in. Friends, family, strangers online, they all line up like unpaid judges on a reality TV show. And you know what? Let them. Their commentary says more about them than it does about you. People criticize what they don’t understand or what secretly makes them insecure. Smile politely, and then go back to doing the thing they swore you couldn’t do. That’s the best mic drop.

Key Takeaways:

1. Define success for yourself. Don’t borrow someone else’s yardstick. Your measure might be peace of mind, not a paycheck.

2. Stop handing out free tickets to the peanut gallery. Opinions are cheap, but your energy isn’t.

3. Remember the receipts. Sanders, and countless others prove that outsiders are terrible at predicting your outcome.

4. Celebrate wins, no matter how small. Bought the car, finished the race, hit “publish” on your website? That’s success. Period.

At the end of the day, your success is yours, untidy, unconventional, maybe even invisible to others. But it’s yours to own, grow, and celebrate. Let everyone else gossip about who’s dating who or what Taylor Swift wore to dinner. That’s their business. Yours? Is success.