When early success stops you from moving forward
written: October 18, 2025
Published: November 5, 2025
The other day, while checking my Facebook, I stumbled upon a familiar name. A man I knew back at university; not a peer, but a student from later years who used to teach first- and second-year students maths. Those were notoriously tough years, with high failure rates. He was brilliant at what he did, and very young when he started earning well from tutoring.
It has been 27 years since I took a few lessons from him, and there he was, still advertising the same classes. My first reaction was surprise, almost disbelief. After all this time, he is still exactly where I left him. Of course, I don’t know his full story. Maybe teaching maths is his great passion, his chosen life’s work. Maybe he found meaning there and never felt the need to leave.
But what struck me was how different our paths turned out. In the same 27 years, I worked three jobs after university, held big corporate roles, built a company, moved countries, got married, became a mother, and kept evolving. His story made me think about the danger and privilege of achieving early success.
When you’re very young and earning well, it’s tempting to stay where things feel secure. Why risk moving to a corporate role, where you become just one small piece in a larger system? I remember my own decision in my early twenties. I left a role as Finance Manager at a renowned Science Museum in Venezuela, a prestigious job with a great salary, inspiring leadership, and responsibility far beyond my age to join Colgate. I took half the salary, sat in a cubicle, and did bank reconciliations. On paper, it looked like a step backwards.
But it was the right step. It built the foundations for everything that came later. It forced me to start again as a beginner, to trust that short-term sacrifice could unlock long-term growth. That decision was one of the dots that connected me to where I stand today.
It is hard to give up success, harder still to let go of comfort. Yet growth often asks us to do exactly that. I believe we have to keep questioning ourselves; not getting stuck in what once worked, but aligning every decision with the long-term vision of who we want to become.
So the real question is: what is success for me right now, and am I willing to step back in order to keep moving forward?
