It's what's on the inside that matters, it's what's on the outside that counts. A pleasant exterior, your own polished brand, that is one of the quick keys to success. How could it be otherwise when success is not defined as a journey, but a destination - and as society designates, the journey to it should be at maximum short. So we seek quick fixes. That might be dictated by society, or it might be dictated by our mortality - yet we are still in the great competitive race. Except this is not the Olympics, so malicious determination is what is rewarded. But rewarded with what? Only with material gain (& usually just a prospect of such, a ghost), while all else is sacrificed in the great race, considered a ballast which keeps people from getting ahead. Success is a destination, but do people know where it is? Seemingly so, but once we get there - it always appears to be just a little bit further. And then in the end you get old and lose, just like all of the parties involved.
Fortunately, that isn't always the case. Some people realize that its not one point that they have to reach in life (the point of ultimate satisfaction is quite a mirage), that its a direction that they have to set for themselves. And I want to make my parents proud to have raised me, my kids proud to have me as their father, and to avoid wasting the potential I remember thinking I have as a child. And for that there is only one direction - up. And it's all achievable - one just has to deny vanity entry into oneself, or else they risk building a personal Tower of Babylon, where man thinks he can reach God.