World lives in awe of successful people – be it sports, arts or business. Obviously, these successful people are known after they have reached a milestone – winning an Olympic medal, writing a best seller or creating a business empire. Many people get fascinated by the success of others. Rightly so. This opens up a wider question on how did these people reach these heights and what can one do to become like them – and stand out.
After some analysis, I found following traits in all successful people.
- Laser Sharp Focus – Most of the successful people have a laser sharp focus on their goal. And they keep working on it relentlessly.
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- For Sports persons – This focus is to reach the pinnacle of their sporting area. In team sports like cricket and soccer, it is winning the world cup. In individual sports like swimming, it is winning the Olympic Gold. In tennis, it is winning as many grand slams as possible.
- For artists – It is being focused on their project of creativity and completing it. Take the case of James Cameron for completing Avatar (US) or that of engineers and workers of Taj Mahal.
- For business people – It is the problem they are solving. The bigger the problem they are solving, the more successful they are. Whether it was leading the automation of business processes with Windows for Bill Gates or building the world’s largest e-commerce firm, Amazon, for Jeff Bezos. In countries like India, it is the vision of entrepreneurs like Dhirubhai Ambani of Reliance Group, Narayan Murthy of Infosys and Bansals of many e-commerce firms operating in the country today.
It is important to identify your goal and work towards it.
- Perseverance – One of the traits that sieves the chaff from rice in achieving success is perseverance. I remember the famous quote from the great boxing movie Rocky, where Sylvester Stallone says that ‘Its not how hard you hit but its how hard you can get it… and still get up’. There are many anecdotes in the history of mankind when people have hit harder and more successfully after failing first.
It is important to identify your goal and work towards it relentlessly.
- Discipline – Do you know what teams do the next morning after winning the game in night, they assemble in the field again and practice as if nothing happened last night. This is what discipline is. In world full of distractions, having discipline is single most important differentiating factor between the winners and not so successful people. Discipline is sustained practice and practice makes a persona perfect.
It is important to identify your goal and work towards it relentlessly while making progress every day.
- Ability to make system – Any business tycoon or business leader is successful only when they build systems that make money while they are asleep. Otherwise, they can be successful only while they are awake and so would have limited growth. True systems are those that generating value as they start growing, without the tycoons or leaders getting involved in every step of the way. When Henry Ford launched Model T, he got inspired by the assembly line concept used in the meat industry and applied in the automobile manufacturing.
It is important to identify your goal and work towards it relentlessly while making progress every day in a repeatable manner.
- Ability to re-invent – There is an old saying that change is the only constant. How often do we come out of our comfort zone and do something that it different from what we are doing routinely. Akio Morita the founder of Sony Corp, learned playing tennis at the age of 42 because it was popular in the US. He wanted to connect with the US business leaders and found tennis to be the best way to do it. Companies such as 3M, Nokia, Suzuki, Nintendo and many more organizations have reinvented themselves. Lets take case of Kay Roseland, who got laid off at the age of 64 from her job as a merchandiser due to recession. Firm on re-inventing herself, she did two courses on social media marketing and started blogging. With this blog, she was approached by a Product Marketing head of Infor, who then hired her as advisor. Check out Kay’s LinkedIn profile here.
It is important to identify your goal and work towards it relentlessly while making progress every day in a repeatable manner, with adjustments to stay course.
- Strong Interpersonal Skills: Whether it is customers, fellow business leaders, employees or vendors, at the end of the day we are dealing with individuals. Successful leaders have great interpersonal skills. Successful business leaders know message needs to be conveyed when and where. They are relationship focused and not transactions. Consequently, they go far, really far, and not fast in their approach with people.
It is important to identify your goal and work towards it relentlessly while making progress every day in a repeatable manner, with adjustments to stay course, while taking all along.
Grow Daily 