Success is less about money than about how your life feels: waking up with anticipation, having enough, being free, and living in a way you would never trade. Everyone wants to be successful, yet most people cannot define it, and the script says most would get it wrong. It also makes the claim that beyond $125,000 a year, money no longer adds to happiness or fulfilment.
So what does success actually mean? The video offers 15 definitions to serve as a north star, each starting with the same words: success is when. A bonus on the love of the game closes it out.
Watch the full video here, or skip to the breakdown below.
The 15 definitions at a glance
- Waking up with anticipation for the day ahead (0:30)
- The young you is beyond proud of who you have become (1:12)
- You raise the value of the room because you are in it (1:54)
- Having enough (2:38)
- Mastering the five pillars of a good life (3:31)
- Your children want to hang out with you as adults (4:59)
- Others want to be you when they grow up (5:42)
- Going beyond what anyone thought was possible for you (6:28)
- Belonging (7:46)
- Your mentors and idols become your peers (8:47)
- No other person holds control over you (9:38)
- You do not have to pretend to be someone you are not (10:13)
- Seeing yourself as successful (11:12)
- Creating something that outlives you (12:15)
- A life nobody could buy from you (13:28)
- Bonus: the love of the game (14:44)
1. Waking up with anticipation for the day ahead
You wake up rested, in a comfortable and safe home, knowing you have a great day coming. You are no longer rushing somewhere, because you have already arrived.
You wake with anticipation instead of obligation, like a kid on Christmas morning about to see what gifts are waiting. It feels amazing to live without stress, anxiety, pain or fear.
There is a contentment in knowing the day ahead holds purpose and delight, as if the universe had arranged it.
2. The young you is beyond proud of who you have become
At some point the person you have become exceeds the hopes and dreams of the child you once were. That is when you know.
True success, in this view, is when your present self is the hero your younger self imagined. Despite the years, you kept the spark alive and stayed true to your beliefs and goals.
You turned a far-away wish into something real. You understand the world better and have become wise without losing the child inside.
3. You raise the value of the room because you are in it
Your presence brightens the room you walk into. People gravitate to you, your words carry weight and you can shift perspectives. You know what you bring to the table, so you are not afraid to eat alone.
Yet your table is long and filled with people whose lives changed through being close to you. You help them see past the horizon into a future that would be out of reach without you, and they feel part of something bigger than themselves.
That is why they respect you and stay loyal, as you were loyal to them.
4. Having enough
Success is when the pursuit of more gives way to the realisation that true wealth is needing nothing beyond what you have. Most people get caught in the trap of always wanting more.
The problem, according to the script, is that every desire is a contract we make with ourselves to be unhappy until the desire is fulfilled.
You have to help yourself before you help others, and the catch is knowing when you have helped yourself enough. When your belly is full, share what you have. At that point accumulation turns into distribution, which is how impact should be measured, and going after more costs too much.
5. Mastering the five pillars of a good life
Five pillars come first. Finance: be rich enough to escape money problems and to alter the world around you. Health: without it you cannot enjoy the world. Intellect: without it you cannot understand the world. Relationships: without them life is lonely. Emotions: you need peace and balance so that life is a smooth ride and not a stormy sea.
The Alux team says it took decades to define the five pillars of a good life and map how they interconnect. They did it for themselves, to find the most effective allocation of time, effort and resources to get the most out of life.
The Alux app is built on that work, mixing large-scale academic studies with time-tested advice to guide people towards a better quality of life over the longest possible time horizon.
6. Your children want to hang out with you as adults
Success is being present while your kids grow up. A parent’s role is to raise strong, independent children who can go into the world and thrive.
The intellectual and emotional investment of raising children is among the most fulfilling and rewarding work you will do. We are biologically programmed to be happiest when we have a strong bond with our kids, the script says.
Watching them grow and even surpass you is, in its words, the epitome of human existence, because that is how society moves forward.
7. Others want to be you when they grow up
Your life becomes a blueprint of wisdom and freedom, a story others dream of living. Just by example, you give others hope that they might do the same.
Despite humble beginnings, challenges and neverending hardship, you found the strength, courage and wisdom to come out the other side victorious.
You mature when you realise a life well lived is not a list of accomplishments but a legacy worth emulating, where you lay the first steps of a path for others.
8. Going beyond what anyone thought was possible for you
Starting out, you have a wild belief that you are destined for more. Society does not see what you see, thinks you are like everyone else and warns you against trying. You try anyway.
It may take years of effort, public embarrassment and doubters patting themselves on the back. Then one day it all clicks and life starts spiralling upwards, like the staircase in a wealthy family’s home. The more progress you make, the more potential you see.
Success is self-actualisation: revealing to yourself what you are capable of. Your doubters will boast about having known you, and your haters will say you got lucky, not knowing you crafted your own luck. Eventually you move away from them and find the right people.
9. Belonging
You find the people and environment that nourish you. Belonging brings a profound peace, rooted in being understood and not in conforming. Belonging brings the satisfaction of knowing you are valued and your contributions are celebrated.
Belonging is a massive strategic advantage, the script says, that multiplies the value of every other piece of life. True belonging is physical, emotional and spiritual at once, with nothing forced.
A great life is like a great piece of art. It has to be put together harmoniously, down to the place where it is displayed, because even great art can be mistaken for trash when surrounded by it.
10. Your mentors and idols become your peers
Your growth lines you up with people you once looked up to, and admiration turns into mutual respect. There is an elegance in the moment when those you revered recognise you as one of their own, a subtle shift that signals you have arrived.
Picture yourself standing eye to eye with people who once seemed unreachable, a stepping stone away from overtaking them.
Everyone can stand on the shoulders of giants if they find the courage to climb that high.
11. No other person holds control over you
You cannot have success without freedom. It does not matter how expensive the watch is if it tells you when your lunch break ends.
Success is a life so intentionally designed that nobody else can alter its course. Nobody tells you when to show up, what to wear, what to say, what to do or what to trade your time for.
Success also means being able to say no without fear or guilt.
12. You do not have to pretend to be someone you are not
Your growth and fulfilment let you live authentically, unshaken by the opinions or expectations of others. This is framed less as courage and more as architecture: building a life where pretending is not required.
This is the triumph of your authentic self over false identities imposed by society. You no longer try to fit in, because the world shapes itself around you, and the gap between who you are and who you present has shrunk to nothing.
You now excel through your individuality, the very thing you may once have been punished for. Your success is a by-product of finding your own voice and identity.
13. Seeing yourself as successful
Success is a self-fulfilling game, and the only way to win it is to see yourself as successful. It does not rely on metrics so much as on how we interpret them. What looks like overwhelming success to others may be the middle of the road to you.
You have your own standards of fulfilment, and it matters that you define and measure them. Otherwise you are stuck on a golden hamster wheel called the Red Queen’s race, where you run as hard as you can just to stay in place. Daenerys Targaryen’s line about breaking the wheel makes an appearance.
Do what must be done, while balancing who you are and who you are meant to be. You will know you got here when you look in the mirror and respect the person looking back.
14. Creating something that outlives you
In the first half of life you have to speak for yourself to be heard. In the second half your work needs to speak for you.
Technology has not caught up with immortality, but some things live through time: ideas, books, inventions, discoveries, monuments and cultural shifts. Every century a handful of people change humanity’s trajectory and are rewarded with ideological immortality, which is why we know names like Einstein, DaVinci, Picasso, Mozart and Napoleon.
You may not change the whole world, but you may build something that changes your local community. That is why a portion of the revenue from the Alux app goes towards building schools in developing societies, the script says.
15. A life nobody could buy from you
One day you wake up and realise the life you are living, and the feelings in it, are the peak of what happiness means to you. It will not happen at a grand ceremony or while refreshing your bank account.
It will be a casual Wednesday, sitting in bed with your partner while your kids play in the beautiful house you built for all of you. You are still young and healthy, and life is abundant.
True wealth is knowing that the people with the most money in the world would trade it all for what you have right now, and knowing that nothing they could offer, no experience, money, fame or status, would make you swap. If that is you, you have won.
Bonus: the love of the game
Who wins in life? It is those who love playing the game, in the script’s view. You play to win, but you cannot compete with someone who finds real pleasure in the game. For everyone else it is an uphill battle and a struggle to get up and do it.
You get to choose the game and how you play it, and you can shift how you see it in an instant. Then the fact that you get to play is success enough, with no need for outside validation.
The word itself explains it: love is the enjoyment of doing something, and game tells you to have fun while trying to win. Sometimes you win and sometimes you just enjoy playing, and as long as the game is winnable, you keep playing until you get good at it.
Write your own definition
Few of these definitions mention money. They describe how a life feels from the inside: rested, free, understood, proud and content with enough.
Read through the 15 and mark the ones that make you wince or nod. That short list is a better north star than any number in your bank account.
FAQ
What is the real definition of success?
The video gives 15 definitions rather than one, including waking up with anticipation, feeling you have enough, being free of control by others and living a life you would not trade for anything.
Does money make you successful?
The script claims that money stops adding to happiness and fulfilment beyond $125,000 a year, and most of its definitions focus on freedom, belonging and legacy instead.
What are the five pillars of a good life?
Finance, health, intellect, relationships and emotions. The script says each is needed: money for escaping problems, health to enjoy the world, intellect to understand it, relationships against loneliness and emotional balance for peace.
Why is it important to define your own success?
Because success depends on how you interpret metrics. Without your own standard you can get stuck in the Red Queen’s race, running hard just to stay in place.
What does ‘love of the game’ mean?
People who enjoy playing the game of life are hard to beat. You choose the game and how you play, so simply getting to play can count as success.
