As a young entrepreneur with many ideas it is useful to know why successful people are successful. What do they have in common? Can you identify with their characteristics?
What can you learn from their common characteristics?
Personally I feel that passion and drive is one of the most important things. Almost everyday when I wake up I think of one thing and it makes me smile. Passion. While dating can get extremely boring and make me pretty impassionate about the whole thing, business never does.
Searching the Internet I found a couple of good lists of things that successful people have in common. What do you think?
List 1:
1. Successful people are fast in analyzing situations and making immediate decisions.
2. Successful people think before they act.
3. Successful people consider consequences and possible solutions to any action they are about to take.
4. Successful people do not fear risk, on the contrary they use risk as a tool to reach where others cannot reach.5. Successful people never quit, they hunger and thirst for success.
7. Successful people are persistent even if what they believe in seems impossible.
8. Successful people do not believe in failure. Failure is a sign that there is a mistake along the line that needs to be corrected for success to happen.
9. Successful people believe in their capabilities, and dynamism.
10. Successful people love to see everyone around them succeed.
11. Successful people know that the journey to success has a price to pay and so they prepare themselves for that price.
12. Successful people are non conformists they never never follow the path of everyone; even if they do they always modify it to suit their needs. Each and every one of them has a secret path created for themselves.
13. Successful people use just 1/10th of acquired knowledge on their path to success. That is why acquired knowledge is not a major prerequisite to success.
14. Successful people use general knowledge (common sense) in every step on their journey to success.
15. Successful people surround themselves with like minded people.
16. Successful people are generous and share their knowledge with. others. The sharing of knowledge brings about awareness, more interest and more ideas from outsiders.
17. Successful people are very intuitive, discerning, and positive about the next day but living for today.
18. Successful people succeed where others fail, and they never fail from trying again and again.
19. Successful people do everything to learn whatever could contribute to their success.
20. Successful people could make something out of nothing. Take away a million from a successful man and he will make two, but give two million to an unsuccessful man and he will have non left in a very short time.
21. Successful people are very creative and are successful.
List: 2
1. Hard work. Successful people work very hard and they are keen on practising or rehearsing things until they come out perfect. Their outcome is only the tip of the iceberg; it is only that 10% that people see. The rest of 90% is preparation and hard work.
2. Focus. When they do something, the rest of the world disappears until they stop. All their attention and all their resources work together for a common goal, to complete the current task they are on. Many times, they forget even to eat or sleep, so much they are absorbed into their action. They just don’t let themselves overwhelmed by “urgent-not important” issues that crowd their agenda. They are keen on prioritizing.
3. Passion. They like what they do or they do what they like. Either way you put it, they enjoy their work, they are so passionate about it, that hard work is a pleasure and a must for them. Do you think that Beethoven could have written any of his works without passion? Or Van Gogh would have been able to paint so astonishing if passion was not there? Of course not!
4. Curiosity. Successful people want to know. They want to learn. The questions they most frequently ask are not “What? When? Who?” but rather “Why? Or How?” The best way to repeat a successful action is to know why was it successful, what was that little trigger that generated attraction and recognition.
5. Empathy. Have you noticed how many people like successful guys out there? It’s because their way of coming into resonance with others, their way of establishing rapport. Highly successful people are empathic and often it happens that despite their solitude, many people like them and feel good around them. That is because of their high level of emotional intelligence, because of their abilities to listen and learn from the world.
6. Responsibility. They are fully responsible of their acts. When something happens, they don’t waste time to search for who’s to blame, they rather move on to finding what needs to be done next. They don’t complain and they don’t look for pity.
7. Self-improvement. Successful people work on themselves, they change with the times, they learn from the past. Look at the famous singer Madonna: how many times did she completely change her style? Too many times. Each time when she felt the need to shift to something new. The result: she was appreciated every time by her fans and she’s still in tops after so many years.
8. Humor. They appreciate humor, they live in this spirit, they do serious things with relaxation and joy, they don’t rush or get hurried just to see things done.
9. Creativity. Successful people think out of the box. They search for new ways of doing things, when they don’t find something very comfortable, they try to adjust it to serve them better. Going with the flock is definitely their way of life.
10. Flexibility. There is a saying that in an organization, the most flexible element always wins. It is true. Think no further than your workplace. Which are the colleagues you value most? Aren’t they the ones who are flexible, who can adjust themselves so much that they can understand your point of view? Yes, success comes with a large dose of flexibility, and this does not mean that such people do not have their own opinions. Not at all! It just means that they know how to listen and how to act to see things and actions going their way. They know how to spot opportunities and change them into more joy, satisfaction and success for themselves.
As a successful entrepreneur myself, I think there is a point being missed here. I always had a 'passion' for cooking, and later running my restaurants. The success - critical and financial - I eventually enjoyed, was as a result of my passion. Success was never the aim, it is a by-product of doing something well.
ReplyDeleteIn an example of the degradation of society, most children asked today what they want to be when they grow up answer; 'famous'. Not famous for being a great musician, sportsman or businessman, they don't care for the talent, only the acclaim. It sounds to me that your 'passion' is more for being viewed as 'successful' or 'rich' rather than anything meaningful that might in turn bring success.
Also, points 1 and 2 on your list are quite clearly contradictory.
Hi there, and thank you for your post.
ReplyDeleteFor me it is hard to disagree with a person who is actually successful. Initially I am actually stating that one of the most important things to me is passion and drive (if you read the intro). Still I do think it is important to want to be successful in the field you have chosen. I am not going to hide the fact that I want to be the best in my field and I don't think thats wrong to feel or say.
You are wrong if you think that I just want to be successful in whatever and rich no matter what, and Im def not one of those kids..(smiling).
There is ONE thing I am working on and that I like a lot and that is what I like to become successful in.
If you go back on some of the old posts you will see that I am clearly making a statement about trying to keep this secret for while...
The reason why is because a lot of what I write about is common for all entrepreneurs and not just the field Im working. I don't want people to think they cant follow my blog just because I am in a certain Industry.
There are a couple of points in the list I don't like that much, but then again Im not very experienced, so Im trying not to have opinions about advices until I test them for myself or if people I know who are successful say that they useless.