The Meaning of Success in a Creative Economy

Success for many is a linear path taught to them by bad managers, poor mentors and an education system that fails to train students with imaginary thinking skills.

Have you been told in your career that you should be a vice president by 35 or a CMO by 47? That model made sense in an industrial or knowledge economy but hardly makes sense anymore where technology influences how we learn and create. In today's world, if you can imagine a business, a solution or a service, you can build it.

Have we lost all meaning in what life and work should encompass due to blinders placed on us by archaic thinking? Is our education system that teaches in a knowledge transfer model to blame?

There is no one path to success no matter what field you work in. Don't believe the movie script falsities that only a 25-year-old can create the next tech innovation or that a 65-year-old is digitally illiterate.

The world is complex and dynamic and filled with constant learning and creative problem solving. There is no one path or s-curve to success. You reach no finish line. There is no destination. Life is truly a journey filled with meaning that each individual must seek and find through the help of others. If you give up on learning new skills today, it is basically the equivalent of no longer living.

It's okay to have a coordinator title at age 45. Labels are insignificant. The real question to always be asking is what new skills are you learning? Who are you surrounding yourself with to inspire you? If the answer to both of those is nothing and no one, you need to seek out new fields of discovery and new things to challenge you to learn.

I always wanted to put on my business card at Microsoft the job title of "Always Learning Human" because that's what I am and that's what I will always be.

That's what we all are if you think about it.

Success should never be measured by the size of your purse or the size of your office but what new skills you are acquiring to stay relevant in an economy where software is making many jobs outdated.

I've met C-Suite execs that are absolutely clueless of the customer and technological trends around them because they are mired in spreadsheets and revenue forecasting better left for software as a service platforms. In fact, they are practically replicating what software can do that I advise them all the time to figure out how to fill an area of supply that isn't being met. If there is a downturn and they are blown out (music industry slang for getting laid off), the question they should ask is can they rebound and find another job? Do they have new skills?

They won't if they continue to do what software can do. This makes it extremely important to sharpen soft skills that fall into relating to people and more creative thinking skills that help with differentiation in marketplace of abundance. Creativity is the one skill most likely not to be replicated by software for a long time, if at all ever.

Don't measure success by where you think you should be, measure success on how much you are capable of evolving and adapting in a creative economy.

Don't ask where you are today and feel satisfied about reaching that peak because that job role may not exist tomorrow.

Imagine new skills you would like to learn and then go learn, unlearn and relearn them.

Geoffrey Colon is a Group Product Marketing Manager at Bing Ads/Microsoft. His first book: "Disruptive Marketing: How Data Punks, Designers and Creative Hybrids are Reshaping Brand Strategy" is out in 2016 on AMACOM Books.