Episode 44 - Dan Fogelberg & Measuring Success
We talk a lot about mega-success stories like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos, but what about winners who measure success without using money as their yardstick?
There are a few fundamental rules to being a success in America. You should make more money than your father did. You simply must set goals to be a success. And you should end your career at an upward arc. But what if, statistically, very few of us are likely to do these things? How then are we to assess our successes, our happiness, if we never make more money than our parents? Or, if envisioning our goals can be counter-productive, how do we track our aspirations?
Today we’ll talk about how goal-setting and goal-visualizing can actually hamstring our desires. And we’ll explore the career trajectory of music icon Dan Fogelberg, whose mark on America was a bit more subtle than our usual episode subjects. However, we would be hard pressed to find a better model for someone who found their own measure of success in life, or who lived up to it so spectacularly, than Dan Fogelberg.
History Links:
https://www.danfogelberg.com/paul-zollo
https://variety.com/2007/music/markets-festivals/singer-dan-fogelberg-dies-at-56-1117977824/
https://fromthehistoryroom.wordpress.com/2019/02/01/leader-of-the-band-lawrence-fogelberg/
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/06/arts/dan-fogelberg-s-time-has-arrived.html
Science Links:
https://medium.com/@chadbockius/life-lessons-on-goals-9cdbc76f1d27#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20Harvard%20study,bother%20to%20write%20them%20down.&text=If%20I%20bother%20to%20set,more%20successful%20than%20those%20without.
https://hbr.org/2015/02/increase-the-odds-of-achieving-your-goals-by-setting-them-with-your-spouse
https://buffer.com/resources/how-our-brains-stop-us-achieving-our-goals-and-how-to-fight-back/
https://time.com/5373095/self-esteem-highest-study/
https://www.businessinsider.com/winning-powerball-lottery-happiness-2017-8#:~:text=A%20classic%201978%20study%20on,a%202.96%20out%20of%205.