Chime Celebrates Women’s History Month: Finding your version of success

To celebrate Women’s History Month, ChimeHers, the Chimer Resource Group, which supports Chimers who identify as women and non-binary, landed on the theme of lifting each other up:

Women’s History Month in 2024 centers on our collective ability to lift each other up during our triumphs and trying times. Throughout the month, we’ll investigate different ways to come together in community to celebrate, support, and honor ourselves and each other as we create paths to our own versions of success.

We sat down with a few ChimeHers members to learn what success means to them and how their concepts of success have changed over time. We’ve learned that there are many versions of success — and they should all be celebrated!

The meaning of success

Every day, Molly’s dad would drive her and her siblings to school, and before they got out of the car, he always had them say together: “Have pride in what you do, earn it every day, goodbye, I love you, peace.”

“I repeated that as a kid without really understanding the words until I was an adult — at which point I realized that’s where my idea of success came from,” Molly says. “To me, success is feeling proud of the work I do, like I’ve acted and spoken in integrity with my values, that I didn’t hold back or leave anything on the table regarding what I wanted to do. It’s less about outcomes and more about the approach or process.”

“For me, success is more the journey than the destination,” Sandrine explains. “It’s about finding your journey — your own version of success — and recognizing that it might not look like someone else’s. It’s also realizing that someone else’s success doesn’t equate to your failure.”

To Kira, success is about leaving a place or person better than she found it. “I’m constantly working to make sure my kids understand how important that is, too — that we’re all interconnected and in it together,” she says.

Susun has a similar concept of success, which stems from the Japanese word ‘Ikigai,’ which means ‘reason for being’ or purpose. “Visually, Ikigai is represented with four spheres: what you love, what you’re good at, what you get paid for, and what you do to make the world better,” she explains. “The intersection of the four spheres is your Ikigai. It’s not set in stone, it changes over time. It’s important to allow that change and embrace it.”

The many influences on our definitions of success

Both Kira and Sandrine believed, for a time, that success was a straight line or a ladder. “I always thought success was a ladder movement where your trajectory was laid out,” Sandrine says. “Someone once told me that my career isn’t a straight line; it’s a wall,” Kira offers. “The idea of building a wall — laying one brick at a time in many directions, shifted my view of things. Sometimes, you’re building up, and sometimes you’re building sideways.”

“Someone once told me that my career isn’t a straight line; it’s a wall. The idea of building a wall — laying one brick at a time in many directions, shifted my view of things. Sometimes, you’re building up, and sometimes you’re building sideways.”

— Kira Traore

Both women also recognize that evolving and adapting one’s definition of success is important. “When I had kids, what’s important changed drastically — how I want them to view the world changes how I act and define my own success,” Kira explains.

For Molly, the biggest influence on how she’s defined success for herself has been her temperament. “I’ve never considered myself an ambitious person — I was never totally clear on what I wanted to do, and I’m grateful that, naturally, my temperament has never been driven to achieve something to feel valuable or valued,” she says. “That’s helped me focus on how I meet life on life’s terms and carry myself and navigate the situations I’m in — and seeing wherever I am as an opportunity to learn and grow, understand myself better, and relate to others better. Success has never felt like it’s in the future — it’s more about how I’m showing up in the present.”

“Success has never felt like it’s in the future — it’s more about how I’m showing up in the present.”

— Molly Payton

The people who have shaped our success

Susun has always looked up to Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a woman defining success for herself. “I love that she had significant work obligations but still made time for her family,” Susun says. “We’re all trying to juggle a lot, and hearing that someone at RBG’s level is also juggling, reminded me that we are all doing our best.”

For Sandrine, a manager in her early career had a profound impact on her defining — and finding — success. “As I was beginning my journey in L&D and moving into an instructional designer role, my manager started teaching me adult learning theories and instructional design,” she says. “She helped build a path for me and opened my eyes to the possibilities. While she was just showing me care and attention, the questions she asked me helped me define the path I’m on today. I’m so grateful she spent the time helping me refine my interests and passions.”

Finding success in the year ahead

While success isn’t all about achievement, goals and milestones can help keep a pulse on how we find success in the short, medium, and long term. “This year, success for me looks like believing that I can be the subject matter expert I aspire to be in my new role and investing in myself to become it,” Molly says. “I’m leading the effort on our first ever ‘OMX Together’ internal conference, and I’ve defined success for the event as people leaving with a sense that it was time well spent — and there’s no way we could have accomplished what we accomplished (new business ideas, new bonds, a sense of warmth infused in our teams, new relationships formed) without being part of the event.”

For Susun, success this year is continuing to strengthen our Compliance team and setting others up to shine. Sandrine will be working on developing a continuous education program for Chime agents — an entirely new offering. “It’s uncharted territory for us, but I think it will be of huge value to our agents and Chime — and I’ll learn a lot along the way,” she says.

This year, Kira will find success in the nonprofit she and her husband started. “We incorporated at the end of 2023, and I’m excited to begin receiving grants and giving back to a community in Mali that has given us a lot,” she says.

We love watching and encouraging every Chimer on their journeys to success. Chime in in the comments — what does success look like to you?