Many people follow a path through life that ultimately leaves them feeling empty. I meet many ambitious people, and I coach some of them. It often strikes me that modern definitions of success obscure what contributes to human well-being. There is a familiar but misleading social script that equates a good life with wealth, status, productivity, and independence.

However, the strongest predictors of well-being are the quality and strength of human connections. As Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz discuss in their book The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, satisfaction with personal relationships at age 50 has been shown to be a better predictor of long-term physical health than having ideal cholesterol levels.

The Script Vs. Lived Reality

A major contributor to the misleading script is modern individualism, particularly the belief that people should be self-made, emotionally self-reliant, and constantly improving. The underlying message is that relying on others is a weakness. In the United States, in particular, there is a long history of celebrating the "rugged individual." 

At the extreme end of this story is the idea of the "lone genius." This is the ideal of a super-achieving individual who has arrived at greatness through solitary effort. Nobel laureate Martin Chalfie said this myth nearly ended his scientific career. As a young researcher, when his experiments failed, he was afraid to ask for help because he thought it would show he wasn't intelligent enough to be a scientist. It was not until he collaborated with other scientists that his research succeeded.

The lone genius ideal runs counter to what we know to be the truth of human achievement. It takes a team, or a village, to be successful. People flourish when they rely on each other. Historically, humans have overcome major obstacles by working together. As an example, in 1966 at the height of the Cold War the Soviet Union and the United States collaborated to eliminate smallpox, one of the deadliest diseases in human history. The Soviets provided 140 million doses of vaccine annually while the U.S. brought financial and technical leadership. In 1980, the World Health Organization announced that smallpox had been eradicated.

The Pitfalls of Solitude

When people internalize societal messages about pursuing individual goals and material rewards, it can harm them. I have often seen people delay relationships in favor of career milestones or stay in isolating or unfulfilling routines. They may think just one more year will put them in the ideal position to begin to focus on other things—and then just one more year after that.

But always working in solitude robs people of joy found in everyday interactions. One person I mentored told me that he had once been so focused on his work that he went for days without any social interactions. One night he stopped to order take-out food from a neighborhood Thai restaurant. He wound up talking to the waiter who took his order for ten solid minutes. He realized he felt better as he walked home from the restaurant. Even small moments like this accumulate to make days and weeks better, and they are invisible in the accounting of a productivity mindset.

Most damaging, however, is that in the pursuit of status, it is natural to measure self-worth through comparison rather than values. Over time, this can lead to loneliness, regret, and a sense that life has yielded few internal rewards despite outward success. This does not mean rejecting ambition or success but rebalancing those elements with healthy relationships and deeper sources of meaning. 

Rewriting the Script: Practical Steps

There are some practical steps that I suggest to people I have mentored. One of them is to shift a question they ask themselves from "What have I produced?" to "Who have I grown with?" The partnerships that people form in collaborations can last a lifetime.

I also recommend that people keep an eye on the collective progress that they achieve working in teams and organizations rather than focusing only on their own individual advancement. What people often find is that if they put their effort toward moving their team forward, they still achieve all the goals they had for themselves. One person I guided had the goal of publishing a lot of papers in her career. She tried to preserve time to focus on writing but became immersed in research projects. Eventually, she and her team produced so much work together that she coauthored even more papers than her original goal.

Another practical suggestion I offer people is not to think of prestige as an endpoint. What we value naturally changes over time. The things that matter to someone at age twenty will likely be much different in middle age or later. Goals naturally shift as contexts change and holding a narrowly defined goal too closely can limit what we might achieve. Prestige is just a reflection of what someone achieves, not an achievement in itself.

The people I have mentored who found the most satisfaction in their professional lives thrived within their teams and communities. They may have had material success, but it was not the first thing they pointed to as an achievement. Perhaps the best script is the one we write with others that leads us to shared fulfillment that does not just look like success from the outside.

Michael S. Reddy, DMD, DMSc Dean, UCSF School of Dentistry Associate Vice Chancellor, Oral Health Affairs