Your Paycheck Isn’t An Indicator of Success

Getting paid a large salary right out of b-school might not be the biggest predictor of your future success.

At least, that’s what Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria believes.

In an interview with Business Insider, Nohria says he judges a Harvard MBA grads’ success by looking at where they’re working between five and 10 years after graduation.

“What we want is to have students, 10 years later, be at an arc in their lives where they really feel that they’re gaining increasing responsibility,” Nohria tells Business Insider. “They feel ready to run a company; they have progressed a lot in terms of their own aspirations, how they want to build their career.”

Salary Is Not The Best Measure Of Success

Nohria is a strong believer that your pay does not equate to your success.

From a financial standpoint, Nohria says “jobs that pay the most in the near term don’t always pay the most in the long run.” Furthermore, he says, graduates don’t necessarily stay at the same first job for many years.

In terms of satisfaction and fulfillment, Nohria says, “just because they pay a lot doesn’t mean that you’re going to be the best at them or you’re going to find the most fulfillment in them.”

And that sentiment seems to ring true among many successful people.

Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington says that while money and power are the two traditional indicators of success in America, she believes there should be a third metric.

“To live the lives we truly want and deserve, and not just the lives we settle for, we need a Third Metric,” Huffington tells Forbes‘ Dan Schawbel, “a third measure of success that goes beyond the two metrics of money and power, and consists of four pillars: well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving.”

Bill Gates, one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, once said that success is a measure of your impact on society, not just a paycheck.

“It is also nice to feel like you made a difference — inventing something or raising kids or helping people in need,” Gates says in a Reddit AMA.

Sources: Business Insider, Business Insider, Forbes, Reddit