50 new ways to be successful
Unlearning what it means to be good at your job
Hi there! You’re reading the Bonfire newsletter from Kevan Lee & Shannon Deep. Each week, we highlight brand, marketing, and creative learnings from our experience as in-house marketers turned agency owners who think a lot about creativity, our relationship to work, and how all of that impacts our identities. We’ll also feature insights from our digital community of super smart folks (which you’re welcome to join).
Wishing you a great week!
We are in the midst of QBR season, unbeknownst to Shannon and me at Bonfire because we do not follow the Gregorian Growth calendar. We don’t do Quarterly Business Reviews or quarterly anythings, which is a deliberate attempt to heal from our tech careers. But we certainly have friends and readers (like you) who are in the midst of the slog.
It’s QBR season.
It’s end-of-year planning.
It’s Q4 crunch time before the holidays.
It’s anxiety-inducing, is what it is.
These mileposts mean that a lot of people have goals and performance on their minds. They say that goal-setting is one of the most important things you can do at your job, especially if you are in leadership, because the goals that you set dictate the work that you do, the outcomes that matter, and the way that you feel when you see what you’ve done (or not done!).
And within these work rituals, we’re really just trying to figure out the following:
What does it mean to be successful?
This is a question that came up A LOT when I was leading teams at work and trying to judge my worth according to revenue growth and website visits and team happiness. It comes up A LOT in a whole new way now that I’m co-running a business where literally anything is possible for us and we’re the only ones who can decide what success means (although I am of course tempted to look to others and to LinkedIn to tell me what the definition should be).
What I really would have loved is someone to tell me that success, spoiler alert, is relative. And its definition is up to you! Thankfully Shannon tells me this all the time now and so do the sticky notes on my computer desk.
So let this email be a reminder to you, too: Success is relative. Success is whatever you make it to be!
And let me put an even finer point on it by sharing 50 new ways of thinking about success, whether you’re an in-house marketer, an in-the-wild entrepreneur, or something in between.
Feel free to borrow one of these for your next QBR or New Year’s resolution!
(And keep in mind that “wherever you go, there you are.” Proceed cautiously with goal-setting.)
50 new ways to define success
Success can be intricately tied into our identities. We often think of success in terms of “I am successful if/when …”, which makes the outcome inherently personal and ephemeral. There’s always a new “if/when” to chase. Maybe success isn’t about becoming something at all? Success can be about our process, our values, and our meaning, rather than about outcomes.
Because we certainly can’t control every outcome, especially in marketing (*shakes fist at the macroeconomy*).
So what can we control?
Here are some ideas.
For in-house marketers…
It can be tempting to adhere to the status quo measures of success: Did you hit your pipeline target? Did you acquire tons of new users? Did you meet your OKRs? Did you get that raise or promotion? Instead, try these on.
Success is…
Creating safe spaces for people on my team
Getting to do more and more work that aligns with what I’m best at
Showing up at work with the parts of my personality I really love
Allying with people on my team from underrepresented backgrounds
Becoming aware of my privilege and doing something with it
Speaking my mind
No more Sunday Scaries
Coming back from vacation with no existential dread
Learning a new skill that I’m excited about
Understanding myself better: what I like in a job and what I don’t like
Real relationships with the people I work closely with
Giving my team the best version of myself on any given day
Telling a cohesive story about what we’re working on and why
Making room for voices that aren’t always heard
10x’ing moments of surprise and delight
Doing work I’m excited to talk about at the dinner table
Earning more influence at work
Getting feedback from people whose opinions matter to me
Having conviction to leave a role or a project when it’s no longer best for me
Putting my priorities ahead of the company’s priorities
Knowing my worth during performance review season, and advocating for myself!
Launching campaigns I actually want to save in a bookmarks folder
Never chasing validation
Impacting what the company works on, not how much money the company makes
Getting better and better with decision-making
For aspiring freelancers or entrepreneurs…
One of the main goals we hear about people who are striking out on their own is: How quickly can I replace my in-house salary with my freelance salary? There’s nothing wrong with this goal, but depending on your circumstances, this goal might be years away, might never come, might keep you from ever taking the leap, or might prevent you from focusing on other things that matter. Instead, here are some other ways to think about success.
Success is…
Deep impact on 50 people instead of light impact on 50,000 people
Building something that has never existed before
Not giving up when it might be tempting to
Seeing my name on something I really believe in
Making decisions from generosity rather than profit maximization
Having time in my day to do creative work that actually gets shipped
Closing my laptop at noon when I feel like it
Building in public
Giving someone else the courage—and example—to go and do their own thing
Making enough money for me to be happy
Working with my friends
Failing, learning, trying again
Having a client that comes back to work with me again
Telling a compelling story in my own words
Making something weird on purpose
Making something for others that I always wished would have existed for me
Building something that lets me live the life I want
10x’ing the great conversations I’m able to have
Figuring out something that I never would have thought I could before
Knowing when to say no and when to say yes to new work
Taking a risk and surviving it
Never having to answer to a board
Never having to raise money if I don’t want to
Staying true to what I love doing most
Evolving the business into something new
How will you define success?
Your mileage may (and will) vary with these. Feel free to use any of the 50 as a jumping off point to a fully custom version of success in your life/work. Maybe you feel fulfilled bringing humor and levity into situations so you build a success definition around that. Maybe you love the craft of what you do, so success looks like leaning into your craftspersonship. You get the idea!
Let us know what you come up with!
It’d be great to hear from you.
Upcoming Campout events
This week, join us for:
Our first Studio Session, where we work through real-life project problems together. We’ll be chatting with community member Jennifer Betz and ideating on a particular project of hers to creatively brainstorm and problem-solve how to build a strong digital community.
And stay tuned for our next announcements about December events and a New Year’s challenge. 🍿
You can catch up on ALL our past events in the events library in Circle.
In Campout, our digital community, we talk about stuff like this on the daily in our channels and a couple times a month in our live events. All supported by exercises and templates to help you craft a career with purpose and intention.
But wait! There’s more…
Wanna hang out in person?
New retreat dates are coming soon. You can join the waitlist for our next one, coming spring of 2026.
Wanna be friends?
If you love this newsletter and wish it were more interactive, you’re in luck! Join us over in Campout, our digital community for creative marketers and the creative curious.
Wanna work with us?
If you need help with brand strategy and storytelling, fractional brand and marketing leadership, and bringing your brand strategy to life in impactful ways, send us an email at hello@aroundthebonfire.com to get in touch.
As always, you can find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Threads.
