Earlier this year, I decided I wanted to come up with a list of personality characteristics that defines successful people. So, in order to do this, I sat down with pen and paper and asked myself (and Spirit), “What Makes people successful?”, in the assumption that Spirit would remind me of what I already know. Here is what I came up with.

Successful People do what unsuccessful people are NOT willing to do.

I’d actually already seen this before, when reading Jeff Olson’s book “The Slight Edge”. Basically, the gist of this is best summed up in the famous quote, “I will do today what others don’t, to have tomorrow what others won’t.”

Successful People Perform Simple Daily Disciplines

This is also another concept from The Slight Edge”. Basically, each decision we make every day is either taking us CLOSER or FURTHER from our dreams, goals and desires. There is no middle ground. We either perform daily disciplines or daily errors in judgment. The choice is ours.

Successful People make Positive Use of the Infinite Network

This is a concept from a book co-authored by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen called “The One-Minute Millionaire” (aff). I absolutely LOVED this concept when I first learned of it. Basically, the Infinite Network comes up because the average person personally knows about 250 people. If you made a list of everyone you know, including people like the mailperson, the guy across the street, and so on, you should be able to come up with about 250 people for your list.

Taking into account that each of those people on your list each know about 250 people, that gives you direct access into a network of people totalling about 62,500 people (250×250). Taking that one level further, and you have access to about some 15.2 MILLION people (62,500×250). It’s no wonder that there are only about 6 degrees of separation.

Successful People do not feel sorry for themselves or others.

Self-pity and pity of others falls into the category of sympathy, which I’ll cover shortly.

Successful People provide the road map for others to follow.

The path of success is often built on the shoulders of the giants who came before you. The cool thing about this is, as you become more congruent with success, you also become a giant to scores of future success stories.

Successful People question their way to the top.

If you don’t know the answer to something, or are in need of a solution to a certain situation, don’t be afraid to ASK. Sometimes you have to stand on the shoulders of other giants, too.

Success People have a mission statement, which they review daily, and perform their daily actions accordingly.

This falls squarely into goal-setting. I remember reading a book on Mission Statements written from a Christian perspective. In the opening chapter of that book, it is mentioned that in the military during certain campaigns of war, if a soldier approached his duty post, he was challenged to repeat the mission statement of the company. If the person approaching didn’t know the mission statement from heart, they were shot on the spot. Pretty effective way to keep out distracting influences. Always know where you are going in life.

Successful People know when to inspect what they expect.

This is a great tip for anyone building a business team. By constant checking and adjusting of the systems that are in place, the Successful Person is more likely to be able to walk away from that situation with full confidence that the team will stay on task. If you were building a house, would you give the architect blueprints along with the cash to build the house, and then leave until it’s finished? As for me, I’d feel much better if I did regular checkups on the progress, in case anything unexpected came up that needed some attention.

Successful People are masters of empathy, rather than sympathy.

The difference between the two is subtle. Sympathy is knowing how someone is feeling in a certain situation by becoming a congruent match for the other person’s state. Empathy is knowing how they are feeling without being sucked in with them. Sympathy is akin to trying to rescue a drowning person by jumping in with them. Empathy is rescuing them by offering a life preserver.

Successful People are masters of the mundane.

Every great venture or enterprise is built upon fundamentals. In order to be wildly successful in anything, you must first master the basics. In a marathon, a wild amount of training goes in to being able to run the long distances required. The basics, however, of the marathon are, one foot in front of the other, over and over. With time of mastering the basics of that, the training just serves to amplify and build on the basics.

Successful People make their primary associations with like minded successful people.

This is touching some more on the Infinite Network. For a more in-depth of some of the concepts behind this, read my article about the power of Mastermind Groups.

Successful People learn to model those that have the success they seek.

More about standing on giants, etc. Modeling is by far the most powerful success strategy there is. Rather than trial-and-error to get where you want to go, why not build on the already-done trial-and-error that today’s successful people have done?

And, lastly….

Successful People respect the value of their own dreams and goals.

When it comes down to it, who are we here for? Ourselves. I’m not talking about some ego-based devil-could-care attitude here. I’m saying that if we don’t take care of ourselves and serve ourselves, how can we ever expect to be able to serve anyone else? Keep yourself refreshed daily with a healthy dose of Personal Development.

Posted in Spirituality, Personal Development, Business, Financial Freedom, sales, selling |

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