“The money he stuffed into the gaping void of family fell limply through to the floor of a mansion he lived in alone.”
― Mandy Ashcraft, Small Orange Fruit

Over three generations, I saw my family disintegrate slowly. Siblings fought over estates; parents and children over business shares – it was a slow but steady fragmentation of wealth and more importantly, of the bonds and ties that held us together.  

As I watched it happen, I learned a lesson that I will always carry with me: Success happens at two levels.  

The outer, material level – fast cars, mansions, designer wardrobes, and yachts. That type of success is easy to envision, easy to aim for, plan for, and you can check it off your list. These are all the very sweet, enjoyable fruit of success. The fruit the world gets to see you indulge in. They are marks of your growth – they say, ‘Look at me, I’ve made it.’  

But then there’s one more, less tangible level: Let’s call this the experience of success. This success is a significant part of our visions for a better life, but it’s the part we don’t plan for, aim for and you can’t check it off your list until perhaps the very end of your life. 

When you picture your life 10 years from now, you might see more power, more money, more freedom, but don’t you also see your loved ones around you? In that slideshow of future projections, don’t you also see respect, reverence, perhaps even legacy? 

This inner experience of success comes from your ties to the people in your life – family, friends, community. This experience of success isn’t found in the mounting collection of material possessions, but in the mounting respect, love and gratitude that you experience in your life.

And the truth it, without the experience of success, the fruit of success start to become increasingly meaningless. The lack of the experience of success leaves a gaping void that no amount of money can ever fill. 

The Gaping Void

Let’s walk through a textbook success story: You start a business or start to climb the career ladder. You work hard, luck plays a part too, and you start to accumulate wealth. You make a few investments, upgrade your lifestyle, and step into a grander way of living. 

More money, more problems, they say. You might start to experience a spike in business activity or your responsibilities at work and suddenly, your work starts to demand more time and energy. 

Your weekends and holidays get swallowed up by bigger problems, too. You’re meeting new people with bigger houses, faster cars, and you feel that pang of desire. You do have the money after all… 

So, you take the plunge and level up again. Bigger house, a new car, and lavish gifts for your family and loved ones. Business is still thriving, you are adjusting to the new scale of everything in your life, and quite frankly, enjoying your riches. 

You’re trying hard to strike the balances in life that matter: You’re donating to charity, you’re making time for family vacations (but you’re still on call 24/7 now), you’re working hard to remain grounded in your values, but slowly, the balances are skewing. 

Your wealth-generating activities are growing more and more important and a lot more is at stake now if you fail. Your choices need to align with that shift, too, so you choose wealth, growth, and forward movement. You choose to keep replenishing the fruit-of-success bowl, without knowing that it is taking away from your experience-of-success bowl. 

And as a result, a void appears. Your identity as a ‘successful businessperson’ overtakes the identities of father, mother, sister, friend, companion. As the gaping void widens, you might lose sight of what is important, you might even lose relationships that matter. 

Is It Too Late? 

I have clients that never saw the void starting to form at all. They were too busy creating more success to notice. And when the realization, the regret, and the emptiness start to dawn on them, they have one question: ‘Is It Too Late?’ 

That’s a hard question to answer. It depends on how deep the void is. It depends on how big the gap is between your two levels of success. 

And it depends on how committed you are to closing the gap. Are you willing to invest in those relationships that you neglected? Are you willing to knock the pursuit of the fruit of success to second place on your priority list? Are you willing to put people first? 

If you are, then it’s never too late.