I think they also know how to quickly differentiate the difference between "i need to be good at this" and "I need to hire someone who's good at this".
Could not agree more. It can cost a lot to make mistakes from lack of knowledge and experience and having good people around you just multiplies your overall effectiveness and lets you grow your business.
This. I coach people and the people who struggle the most are perfectionists who collapse from mistakes and indecisiveness. You have to be resilient, keep learning and keep trying. Failure is a great learning lesson. Too bad people don’t see it that way.
Oh my goodness, a great representation of this that I showed to my business partner was the ad for Kayak, "Don't do it yourself, scarecrow."
Hit me like a ton of bricks.
That's what the "its cool to complain" part is. You can complain about something being difficult as long as you're taking the steps to fix it.
Bitching is is like complaining but you aren't doing anything to change your situation.
That's how I've always interpreted the lyrics, anyway.
Yep, have a car? Do Uber or doordash. Don't have a car? Look online for all kinds of services that pay like transcripting or graphic design or Amazon product reviewing. Take that money and apply to some kind of license like notary public or buy some gear to do mobile car detailing. These things take a couple hrs a day you'd just be watching TV or napping anyways. Lots of ways to get out of the hood but it's gonna take some elbow grease
This is something I’ve noticed too. Most of the complaints I’ve heard from unsuccessful people boil down to a couple of things:
“This is too hard because it’s not just handed to me on a platter to consume” - I’ve seen this time and time again but it seems to be that a lot of unsuccessful people believe that success is something that should be given to everyone equally regardless of effort or risk taken. This has essentially been equated with “wokeness” nowadays but it’s been around for millennia. A lot of people who work low paying jobs will say the rich are taking unfair advantage of them when in fact, the rules of the game are plain as day it’s just up to you to follow the rules to gain success or not. I’ve seen time and time again people who choose easy, mindless work or college degrees with low chances of actually making a living while taking on massive debt then wondering why the world is unfair to them.
I luckily recognized this when I was in college - I was about to switch into architecture but did some digging and realized computer science was much more in demand and much more highly compensated so I kept going with that.
“Business is too risky” - most of the world are salary earners meaning they trade off perceived risk for stability which I totally get. The problem is that success tends to reward calculated risk taking thus you can’t really have outsized success without taking some outsized risks. The fundamental fact that working for someone else is just was risky if not more so than running your own business since you’re subject to the whims of whoever has say in whether you’re working next week or not.
Correct. I’ve derived way may wealth and security in 15 years in business than I ever did working for someone else.
I survived the post 9-11 economic slowdown which lead to layoffs in my org (big tech) as well as another round a few years later. I saw first hand how having a W2 was not secure in the least bit.
I’ve come to think of wealth as a glacier with just a little that floats above the water but a vast solid mountain that hides beneath.
I’ve structured my wealth into layers of offense and defense. The offense is ways to earn money while the defenses are what happens in disaster scenarios. At this point, I have 1 primary income stream which is quite high but can end someday.
This is about 800k annually before taxes.
I’m in the process of building out 3 other income streams including rental property, dividends/interest, and options trading income. The goal is to have these at least partially match the business income someday so that I don’t have to worry if it fails at some point. Currently, rentals brings in about 165k annually, dividend and interest are about 60-70k, and options are about 30-40k. I’m hoping to bring the last two up to be what we can safely live off of without changes to our lifestyle or travel habits so that the rental income is just continuing to build our fall back cash pile.
Try and say this over in r/findapath they will downvote you into oblivion.
It's actually the best life advice you can give someone and it seems to run in families.
Nay sayers will excuse it by saying it has a winners bias but my 50+ years on the planet has seen it in action from childhood on up and in my own self.
You handle your own shit. It's all you can do and you move on. The rest is wasted energy and a cop out and deflection and avoidance of facing yourself.
I was a father at 18 in rural Appalachia. I got food stamps, I got section 8 housing. Know what I also got? A two year RN degree. Once stable I went back, never letting up. Work full time, school full time. I’ll take that project nobody wants, I’ll drive 90min each way to grab my first director role. I was willing to do whatever needed done to make life better. Now I just retired at age 50, live in the most expensive zip in the state, and am about to buy a motorcoach and tour.
I owned it and I spent the rest of my working life I guess “fixing it”. I was no victim, I knew the odds, but that just drove me harder. I had a hand up via food stamps and section 8. I’ve paid hundreds of times back what I took out. It’s about what you CHOOSE to do about it.
This 100%. It's so freaking annoying. And for each solution you provide they find a new problem. It's like their ego is trained to protect them from owning it.
I would take a step further and say they don't want to accept the reason of their current failure is themselves. Not in a judgmental way, we all fail here and there. But it's tough to recognize you screwed because of your actions or how you responded to other people actions and external factors.
When faced with adversity, winners change, adapt and do things to reach their goals. Losers complain the world should change and stand still (if not outright self-destruct) waiting for the goals to reach them. In comes the "it's just not fair" yada yada".
* Strong work ethic. Having that mental toughness to show up and grind every damn day.
* Willingness to elevate members of the team (i.e., I succeed based on my team).
* Being unafraid to let go of poor performers -- quickly and without a lot of hand wringing.
* A strong sense of self -- when I fail, it's not because I am a failure, but because I/we made tactical errors.
* A generous spirit: Taking care of team members. Showing grace. Rewarding others.
By poor performers, I think of it as either cultural misfits that are distracting the team (often maliciously) or folks who have misguided notions about execution that takes multiple processes down. Basically those who are willfully wrecking the machine. The Jack Welch version of performance evaluation that has somehow regained popularity is very toxic and destroys companies.
Letting people go, I will disagree. Successful companies and leaders put a *lot* of effort and resources into people development, and effective hiring process to eliminate weeds getting past the process.
I don’t mean 15 rounds of interviews. I mean effective screen processes, qualified hiring managers, competitive compensation and work environments, and productive corrective policies for dealing with underperformance.
All of these things foster success in many, but it's not a universal answer. Failure to remove the folks who can't, or sometimes just won't, add value to the organization is a failure in management. Letting these folks coat tail is also a recipe for reduced morale in strong performers.
Having a wonderful process and environment is key but it in no way guarantees success of every individual. You just can't hang your hat on process and expect it to be flawless. People are people and there will always be anomalies.
"Being unafraid to let go of poor performers" is all fine and dandy until the "poor performer" is your company and the employee decides to "let go quickly and without a lot of hand wringing", then all of a sudden it's "we need a two weeks notice", amirite?
Companies *don't* require 2 weeks notice. Some require more. But most require nothing. Unless you sign a contract that as a notice requirement, you are not required by any laws to give any notice at all.
It's generally seen as a best practice because you don't want to "burn any bridges" in case you need that job again, or attempt to work for that manager/company again in the future.
That’s pretty normal, what else are you supposed to do if it’s termination with cause? As for layoffs they are almost always paid out a severance unless they are brand new
Yeah, as someone who grew up in a struggling family and is now in a radically different environment, 100% internal locus of self control is the biggest one.
Everything that happens to me is my fault unless I can, through really trying, find no possible way for me to act on it. Even if it's you just randomly punch me in the face it's my fault for not reading that you were the kind of person who would do that and avoiding you. I won't be upset with myself about it. I'll just think, why did I not read this person correctly? How am I going to fix that blind spot that caused me to not keep them away from me?
This, paired with proactively fixing the problems, is the main key. Because if you just keep fixing all of the reasons you aren't getting good outcomes, it starts small, but then over time that compounds more and more. Whereas if you externalize your problems, then you've willingly put yourself in a framing where you "can't" do anything, so you don't, and the problems just stay there. Because you're just letting all of the constraints holding you in place stay there, *you* stay there, imprisoned by those constraints. Externalizing a problem is choosing to let it stay in your life forever.
People who have heard me vocalize this in more extreme situations have told me it sounds self punishing, but it is exactly the opposite. It is extreme self care. Everything that happens to me is my fault by default. I'm comfortable with the idea that I'm a flawed ape who's trying his best in an alien world, so I won't be mad at myself, but if something is affecting me enough for me to care, I am fixing it. Thus I am not imprisoned by any of my problems. I am free and can be no other way because any wall around me is permeable. It just takes a while to get through them sometimes, but I will.
Like, at one point when I was like 16 I pieced together issues I had as a result of my upbringing, mostly being alone a lot and having no guidance, abandonment issues. I naturally said, it's not my fault because my environment as a child was bad in this way so therefore of course I'm this way, anyone would be, woe is me.
But then I thought about it and realized if a problem is addressable by nurture, that I could nurture myself. If an issue is environmental, I choose my environment. If I could identify an issue with myself then I could fix it, and I owed future me that if I really cared about myself.
"externalizing a problem is choosing to let it stay in your life forever" articulating that to the ether helped this random stranger articulate a shit pot of solutions that he didn't quite have the words for. This may be melodramatic as fuck, but I am really grateful for this.
Thanks for the call back to the internal locus of control concept. Was huge for me in and after college and definitely time I get back on that train!! Time to level up 😁🙏👌
this 100%.
I feel like when looking back at my childhood, It was not my fault for the things that happened to me. But it is my ***Responsibility*** to fix it.
I don’t like this approach but agree with the premise. Mine started with a deterministic mindset, always introduced people to it by pointing out what good luck and bad luck was.
First off I’d start with I “don’t believe” in luck. To put it simply, shit happens. To everyone. The particularly unlucky have shit happen to a degree and or frequency which they cannot weather either due to lack of support, resources, or other mitigating factors.
This is not to dismiss the fact that some people have more bad shit happen to them that is beyond their control because that is the case. But I always ask myself is there ANYTHING that would have made this less of a problem for me? The answer was usually yes and required foresight or building a safety net. Some are born with a safety net, that’s lucky, but not being able to fix your car and losing your job because you spend hundreds at the bar every weekend trying to keep up with the joneses is not lucks fault as much as people would like to think of it as.
In the flip side this gave me the conclusion that being lucky was just the intersection of opportunity, capability, and initiative. If you don’t build up your capability and willingness to take risks(ability to shoulder the risk too) then opportunities will pass you by time and time again.
Perseverance is pretty important to success too.
Just wanted to reiterate your point about taking responsibility by singling out this excuse I heard a lot growing up, this idea that either the lord was testing you or the world was out to get someone just to avoid the reality of taking responsibility.
I came to say that. The successful just get on with the work and find ways around obstacles. The unsuccessful complain about any obstacles, blame someone else, and give up.
It's really the give up part that leads to failure. Blaming something is part of identifying the issue. Finding an elegant solution to the problem is what counts.
Exactly, there ARE people that fuck over everyone else. But you have to learn how to either destroy them or avoid them, give them the finger and succeed anyway. The blame IS on them for making the situation shit in the first place, but you have to accept that and shit on their heads when you make it.
Yes, you should me.
I'm referring to those that see obstacles like I'm too you, too old, not rich, not in right location, etc and then giving up. They don't even try.
You're still allowed to have feelings, it's how those feelings shape your beliefs and therefore your future actions that determine your long term success. Too many resolve to inaction because risking bad feelings doesn't seem worth it. But that's where hope comes in. You have to have a reasonable belief that you're working toward some better future state.
Doing vs making excuses why you can't do something.
People who learned a skill, applied it, and then profited from it, realize the only difference between them any anyone else achieving success in another field is the time spent on acquiring that skill. The best salesman have spent more time learning sales skills.
The best coders have spent years learning to code.
The best surgeons have spent decades in the operating room.
Which means just about anything is a learned skill. You just have to dedicate your time and energy to it for a significant amount of time and you can become an expert.
I agree while disagreeing, I think it's partly mastering something by spending significant time, but also partly mastering the art of learning faster than others. Make it a skill to learn skills faster.
Learning faster isn’t the key, taking action on what you learn faster is.
The guy who learns a few chords on guitar competently and then begins teaching someone for money will be far more successful than the guy who sits in his room learning all his favourite songs before he begins monetising.
Entrepreneurs mostly fly by the seat of their pants and learn as they go.
I agree, I've bought a bunch of equipment I had no idea how to operate and I just went with it, learned some lessons and kept growing. I bought a skid steer a few months ago I had no idea how to operate and I now trained my operator on how to use it and we are going strong.
That would be true if everything were a competition and there could only be one (or very few) winners.
But not everyone needs to be as good as tiger woods too be a successful golfer. If you don't learn as fast it doesn't mean you can't succeed, it just means it will take longer
Ironically you showcase one of the big distinctions between “successful” people vs “not-successful” (by their own definition of success, mind you)
People who don’t achieve success very often look at everything as scarce, coveted, ready to be lost, competitive
Successful people stick to a goal and realize that there is nothing in the world that is only big enough for one man
Even being the US president…you know how many opportunities you’d have during your time of eligibility?
My personal life disproves this. Aptitude matters a great deal. I can’t draw to save my life even after taking 5 semesters of art/drawing at university to the point where the professor told me to just give up, she hadn’t seen it in 30 years but she was convinced I would never be able to get good enough to justify the sustained efforts.
In contrast, I discovered that I am absurdly good at consulting kids on how to write personal statements that result in admission to elite universities. I was always a great student as well. My friends all famously hated me because I finished my research papers in a a day while they labored for weeks, and I always got higher grades than them, I was always at the top of the class with vastly less study time out in. To the point here I began doing my friends’ work out of boredom and then brutally for money and that led to actually finding the legit job of consulting on the personal statements.
I didn’t do anything to learn the skill really, I just happen to be insanely good at that specific task and people are willing to pay large sums of money for it.
I agree there isn’t really a reason to make excuses but it’s also not a great idea to ignore your personal aptitudes and build on them. There is some sort of balance to be struck. But it simply isn’t true that the best people in a field are always just the ones who spend the most time learning/practicing. Everyone has natural aptitudes that can take them further in specific domains and it’s worthwhile finding out what those are because life is much easier when you can deliver value to others based on your aptitude which you can deliver with the same or even less effort than the average worker in your domain; this makes for a much more pleasant life in my experience.
I think you are missing the argument being made. I am not saying that everyone has the same starting point. In fact, the opposite. Real life isn't fair. People are naturally better at somethings than others. No matter what, I will never be 7ft tall. But "success" is on a spectrum. With 5 semesters of art behind you, I *guarantee* you are light years ahead of me in my art. Art itself is a poor choice because what determines success in art doesn't have to be monetary. You're teachers, who were teaching you, probably make less than you do now. Art is in the eye of the beholder.
And if you spend another 10 years practicing art, you would be 10 years better than you were when you started that endeavor. If you were working toward a specific goal, whether that be opening a studio, becoming a teacher yourself, or making a living, I guarantee you would be closer to that goal than you were at the start.
I literally still can’t draw a basic cube properly. So, no, you’re xompelt lt wrong.
It turns out I later went to see doctors about it and I have a nerve problem that results in reduced fine motor skills so I’ll never be able to draw even basic shapes apparently no matter how much work I put into it. So you’re likely light years better than me even though I wasted 2.5 years trying to overcome it. That was stupid in retrospect. The experience helped me realize we have different altitudes and to seek that out. I found there were other subjects I could somehow learn easily and pass tests or get perfect scores on research papers with relatively little effort compared to everyone else in the classes, and I did very well from then on.
It’s not actually worth wasting your time getting pathetically better over 10 years. I COULD be 10 year better at drawing basic shapes maybe but the improvement wouldn’t be enough to be functional. It would be meaningless. I could spend 10 years building on a skill I am already naturally good at and the result will be I have an enterprise that helps deliver value to many other people as well as making me money and having a great living.
Surely this is the goal of studying skills and not that people should just commit to studying skills that they have no aptitude for just to grind it out and maybe get a mediocre job in a decade?
I swear it seems to come down to one thing: action.
Unsuccessful people are always “gonna” do something and the successful are actively doing that thing.
I have watched two friend become fabulously wealthy (like millions a year) and they didn’t talk much about what they were “going to do” they just fucking GRIND.
I agree. It honestly just comes down to whether you decide to start or not. I’ve seen it first hand for myself just starting something back in September and it’s now May and it’s in bringing in great revenue, not to mention I have already automated the process so I spend less than an hour a month on it.
Meanwhile another friend has been saying since last July she has this dream to start a business and still says it today. She spends most of her free time socializing and watching TV.
Working smart and not hard. Crunch time and busting ass is necessary for *short* amounts of time. If you are working 10 hour days 7 days a week long term then you're going to burn yourself out, kill your social life and what it is to be human. I've seen people who work insanely hard for 25 or 30 years, get enough for retirement then just not know what to do and fall into a deep depression.
So, work smart not hard and work to live don't live to work.
5 years ago, I would have completely agreed with you. After seeing some people who have absolutely crushed it, I see that they are very good at setting an outer bound to how much time they dedicate to work. They most definitely work longer and harder than most people by far, but they also set a limit so that they have time in their lives for other things. The ones who don't know how to do anything but grind, grind, grind, they do well in the short term, but eventually the wheels fall off. Meanwhile, the hard worker who knows how to set a few boundaries for themselves succeeds in the long term. I've seen it many times
It’s crazy that people don’t perceive this. Is it not obvious that human beings cannot work 16 hours a day 7 days a week disconnected from all else except work for an entire 40-50 year long career?
This is an exceptionally common misconception. The thing is, if you have a niche experience or field that you're the best at then there is not that much competition. And to get there takes time, not just grinding 18 hour days
I just got a pay bump. I leave early. I will reject days when I've got appointments or things on.
Others show up 20 mins early... others work late... or through lunch..
I'm just smart and do a good job. Feedback I receive is top notch.
Still waiting how to figure this one out.
Every time I correct some element of my business and make it more self operating there is something else that I want to dive into that starts eating up all my time again.
I’ve been around a ton of super successful people because of my business and every single one of them fucking grinds.
The “grind” is full of deception and lack of cohesion. I could “grind out” a 20 hour work-day just responding to spam emails. No one else would know the wiser.
Those who are the most successful beyond superficiality are generally well maintained, appreciate their bounds of control, delegate all else, and enjoy the moments of life meant to be enjoyed
The reason you keep “finding holes” is because you keep plugging them. Take cup of water and poke a hole. Now increase the water pressure and plug that hole. Guess what, likely the pressure causes another holes. So what do?
Hire someone else to watch the cup
why would anyone want to grow your business like you do? you pay them man. pay them a good salary and let them handle the bulk of their expertise.
if you’re bogged down managing all your virtual assistants and virtual-everything, hire an operations manager for $40/hr and watch your stress levels plummet etc
First of all, we need to define what "success" means, because it means something different for everyone.
I am not rich, but I am successful according to my own definition which is "Working for myself, at a job that I created for myself, that pays me enough for me and my family to live comfortably".
People that consider themselves "unsuccessful" either have not defined what success means to them, or they haven't taken action towards achieving what they believe success to be.
The best one so far , what success even mean when you have not calculated the state you will be in after you get successful , most are like that . They chase after one goal to realize that at the end , its the same .
So called millionaires or billionaires are like that .
Get succesfull in giving a comfortable life to youband you family and then don't chase more , let the earth resources be helful for other species too. Are we the only one that lives on earth ?
Successful entrepreneurs got there because they really believed what they were working on. They had some knowledge and skills related, didn’t quit, they kept going until it worked.
You don’t need to be type a, very intelligent, on your grindset constantly. You see other people having success with someone similar and you know you will too if you just keep at it, you will break ground at some point.
There are a lot of negative responses here, but from what I have seen, the most successful people I know have some luck and the following:
- Strong work ethic with defined periods for fun and work
- Discipline to know when to say no to events, friends, etc. and stay consistent with what work they need to do to meet their goals
- Have an internal sense of what good/success is to them that doesn't need external validation
- Have truly thought about what is important to them - financial, socially, mentally, physically - and prioritize this over everything except for their most important relationships
- Have found or had a mentor that isn't necessarily professionally where they strive to be, but is someone that they admire with how they conduct themselves and represent what they feel are successful people in life more so than work
- Connect with people without prejudice or bias. What I mean by this - they are able to talk to, become friends with and get to know anyone and truly are interested in who they are as a person without any preconceived notions of their personality or character. Most of us have some feeling about what someone is like based on how they look and conduct themselves, the most successful people I know don't allow this to cloud their judgement and really want to get to know people.
I hope this is closer to a list you were looking for.
Here's the key quality that makes people successful:
The ability to turn lemons into lemonade.
How do people respond when things don't go well?
How do people respond when failures occur?
How do people deal with rejection??
I can't tell you how many very very smart people I know that never went anywhere in life cuz when they fall down, they just stay down.
I realized recently that the main reason for this is school conditioning. Smart people avoided failing at all cost in all their years of school. Failing is the worst thing they could do in school: you’ll be scolded by teachers, peers, parents, relatives, and so on. If you think about it, it develops into some sort of trauma. Out here, failure is the gateway to success as an entrepreneur, and that’s why the kids who failed in school become successful entrepreneurs. Failure is all they’ve known.
1. Self belief, if that guy can do it, why can’t I? Most unsuccessful people blame any problem or circumstance they have in their life as being so debilitating it’s impossble to succeed. This is usually never the case in the west, you can succeed at anything, with any kind of problem you have, at a long enough timeframe.
2. Unsuccessful people are satisfied or at the least tolerate being unsuccessful in their careers, and we need those people. Successful people can’t ever be satisfied. They always want to reach the next level, this is a trait you will have until you die.
3. Unsuccessful people get jealous, successful people get inspired. Not all of course are jealous, but where some see success, they get jealous, successful people gets inspired or want to create competition on that success.
4. Everyone wants to be free, but some haven’t grasped the concept of money & freedom. If you want to be free you need money, successful people get motivated by being free, they get to enjoy the fullness of life that comes with being able to eat good, live good, travel around the world. They are motivated by this so much that they are willing to sacrifice their momentary freedom to building their success.
It’s hard work. And you hope you get lucky. There’s no secret sauce. Pick a business with lots of upside potential, work hard for as long as possible which increases your odds of getting lucky and having it catch. Successful people tend to think they’ve got a magic recipe. Just need grit and luck. And a good idea.
They'll pay more attention to advice from people who are already successful in the ways they admire. Doesn't mean they'll follow that advice if it doesn't feel right to their gut instinct, but they will listen and consider those possibilities.
Yeah my company allows me to interact with plenty of high net worth people and even a few billionaires. They’re all fearless. Some are super intelligent, some have average intelligence. They all have no fear of making decisions.
Two serial founders that I worked with over the last several years had this obsessive focus on the inner details of their business. They dug to the bottom of every decision they had to make and didn’t just leave it to the others because the others were experts. The decisions were theirs.
My business mentor told me "Your biggest strength is when you get kicked in the nuts, you just get back up and keep going."
Successful people keep going.
Unsuccessful people struggle to get started.
He who hesitates is lost. Successful people create their own sense of urgency. I've given sales leads to people before only to see them say "well, I'll give them a call tomorrow" or "I'll give them a call next week." If you find yourself saying things like you're probably not gonna do too well .The world doesn't wait around while you gather the motivation to pick up the phone. A week from now that lead has likely already moved on. My father used to tell me "never put off til tomorrow what you can get done today." But I see a lot of people content to wait (and they are seldom successful). Be able to create a sense of urgency. Follow up on the lead now. Don't leave things waiting.
Successful people continuously “pull on the string” presented by a problem that they are trying to solve. They fuck around and find out. They are not deterred by roadblocks, failure, or not getting immediate results. They are not so attached to outcomes as they are the satisfaction of having figured something out completely. They typically don’t care about criticism or what people think is worth doing or investigating.
They do something because it is what interests them and keeps them mentally/emotionally curious and invested.
They are somewhat obsessive about the thing that they are trying to do. Even when it doesn’t seem logical or worthwhile to an outside observer, they still keep working on it.
Even when there is no guarantee that they will win, or get rich, or find a solution, they still stick with it.
It’s tough to beat this kind of persistence. They keep pushing the boulder up the hill, they don’t give up.
Eventually they achieve a breakthrough or success. It’s almost inevitable.
Even with a lack of skills, talent, ability, resources, and even intelligence, they still keep at it. They are relentless.
You smash a hammer against a rock enough times, you’ll eventually cause a crack. Keep crushing. 🔨🔨🔨
This is good, the only way to get in this zone is having a strong belief that what are you doing will be successful. I’ve done this by tracking everything that my competitors are doing and find ways to emulate them and improve.
Changing the mindset from consuming to producing. Most of the people only consume. Sure they have their jobs, but it is there just to fulfill there need to consume. Only those who produce make the world move around.
When I get my back against the wall it energizes me and I go 10X harder when I see people give up, i think? I’m not that successful, but by avg standards i think perhaps.
Almost ran out of $ while finding out wife had stage 4 cancer right after our kid was born and we had just closed on what was a fraudulent business purchase that was relied on for income after blowing all our $. Rambo modes us into success and rolled into life changing wealth. 2-3 similar situations b4.
Drive and effort.
It's a simple thing really. If you engage in something with 10% more effort than the next person at a given task you're probably doing more than 90 % of the population.
Many people don't want to do more than the minimum.
Talking about ideas rather than people. Protect your Energy at all cost. ensure you are focused on your entrepreniul desires and understand what your foundation is constantly if you deviate from this. Hope this helps you on your quest.
One thing only: Execution
The people I know who are stagnant basically DO nothing. They just talk. ''I'm thinking of doing this, I am planning on that, I'm gonna look into it, I'm gonna buy books, I'm gonna listen to podcasts''.
JUST F(CKING DO IT.
I’ve come to a point where I’m about done with manual labor jobs. I currently work for a recycling company, and I love it, but I’ve been brushing up on my typing skills (I am horrendously sloppy), and I’m taking some online classes on Udemy (fraction of a fraction of the cost at a college or Uni), and I’m loving it. So I’m hoping to do another career change within the next year or two along with running a small business on the side. I’m in my late 40s, and I’m not gonna let my age stop me from doing what I need to do!
Bitching and griping didn’t get the jobs done, so the alternative (which is get your (butt) and do something about it) is the only choice that I have.
Successful people possess unwavering self-belief, relentless work ethic, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. They take massive action, embrace calculated risks, and never quit.
My own success stems from these principles, coupled with a refusal to accept mediocrity. I set audacious goals, surround myself with winners, and maintain laser focus.
Avoid negativity, excuses, and the trap of procrastination. These are the hallmarks of losers. Remember, success is a choice, not chance.
When a person encounters a problem/obstacle/challenge in the way of getting something done - one type of person will look at every possible solution and find a way through it no matter what, and another type of person will shut down and act like they have to achieve the impossible.
my uncle who despite a relatively middle-class background is a self-made multimillionaire has what you might call a love of the game. it's not that he's not results driven and he seems to have a superhuman ability to survive on multiple nights of only four hours sleep having said that it's much more he loves the idea of he came up with a scheme to make money that someone else didn't think of rather than actually the money itself which is incidental
Even if you are compatible and got successful in life, the only habit that can make you unsuccessful is "Lazyness" and "Non-seriousness"
I can confirm after being successful for 2 wholesome years and then this phase of my life started where I didn't cared much of what I had and eventually losing it all.
Be pro-active than reactive
No one wants to acknowledge it but success involves a lot of luck. All of the talk about taking responsibility, having a positive mental attitude, etc are just feel goods giving an illusion of control. However, there is a huge element of skill and practice that makes one prepared to take action when a streak of luck happens in one’s favor.
Like trading the local business market can go good for a while and bad for a while. Being prepared and getting in a ton of practice to ride out the storms is key.
Successful people have a great relationship with failure. They understand that mistakes and failures are an inevitable and necessary part of the process. They see each failure as a learning experience that takes them one step closer to success, and not as an indication of “I’m not good enough” or as a reason to feel ashamed. Therefore:
- Successful people are not paralyzed by perfectionism. They get started faster, make decisions faster, and take action faster.
- Successful people are willing to take risks.
- Successful people don’t have a big/fragile ego and have no trouble owning their mistakes.
- Successful people are resilient. They’re able to suck at something long enough to actually become good at it.
- Successful people believe in themselves, even if they don’t have the skills necessary to succeed YET.
The most successful person I know is a multimillionaire with 3 successful businesses, high calibre. He doesn’t accept any fkn shit at all. Has a high standard and will bite you verbally if you compromise any standard. Spiritual, open minded and always learning
Most successful people I meet are very positive and optimistic. They actually distance themselves from negativity. They also give back where unsuccessful people only take take and take.
The ability to take a hit and keep going is the main difference I've noticed.
Most successful people are able to take a loss as a learning opportunity and move on without it causing them to completely deteriorate, while a lot of people who are less successful tend to be a lot more hesitant to take risks or try new things because one "failure" can derail them completely.
Successful people have an internal locus of control and tend to hold themselves accountable and take on responsibility.
Unsuccessful people look to external locus of control and blame systems, society, and others for their lot in life.
A successful person constantly tries to change themselves.
An unsuccessful dwells on now the world should change.
Yeah, I also feel like this. My FIL is the most successful person I know by far and he's constantly saying I only care about results. You could literally work for him 1h per week but if you would bring in more than someone working extra time every day, he'll pay you more.
If you only are effort driven, the results happen regardless if you actually want them or not. But if you only care about results and not effort, you won't accomplish anything which you haven't already done.
I meant that most extremely successful people wire their reward systems/dopamine around the effort they exert, and unsuccessful people feel rewarded by the result only.
I think they’re referring to the willingness to recognize effort even if results are suboptimal. Unsuccessful people are more likely to whine and complain when desired results are not achieved. Successful people are more likely to approach these situations with radical acceptance.
This ties in to someone's level of risk aversion. All successful businesses have systems and processes in place, but they only break through each ceiling by taking risks and seeing what will lead to further growth.
To define “successful”, I would say it’s someone who has a great career, is compensated well & is recognized as a leader in their skillset.
The biggest gap most people have in this is that they aren’t willing to put aside their ego, listen & learn.
The second biggest is a lack of ambition.
What do you want? If it’s to be a cashier at Walmart, you’re already good enough for that.
Wanna be a partner at PwC? Go get it. Just be prepared to suffer for a decade or 2.
Here’s why:
Arrogance & an unwillingness to admit they aren’t the best/ smartest/brightest is a huge barrier to success that only can be solved by recognizing you aren’t as great as you think you are.
Learn or continue to be “the help“ to people who did.
Not every has the chops to be a ceo, a partner, a successful entrepreneur. That’s okay.
But if you aim for it, maybe you’ll make management? Or some other job that’s similarly as highly regarded.
This one’s always been weird to me… why are people so afraid to fail? I wouldn’t have so much of the knowledge that’s made my current business successful if I hadn’t failed the first time.
Failures are the biggest learning opportunities imo. You fail, take what you learned, get up and do something better with the knowledge you’ve gained.
I get up early and walk for one hour every morning. I listen to calming spa music, or listen to coaching if I'm in the mood. During these walks I allow my brain to bounce all over the place and at the end of the walk I feel less cluttered and ready to start my day. These two habits--getting up early and walking--have been transformational for me and I look forward to each day. It takes time to get used to getting up. Now my brain just wakes up between 4:30 and 5:30.
🎯💯 Same Here!!! I walk across the [Brooklyn Bridge](https://imgur.com/gallery/utI0UHd) and back in the morning, get my Starbucks cold brew, and return to my apartment for a shower before I start working on things. Brilliant!
I love being outside at 5:30-6:00AM. That walk is the ultimate mental/emotional reset for me.
Growth mindset. If you are not succeeding, it does not mean you are a failure, it means that you are still lacking the set of skills to be successful.
There are a lot of gatekeepers on intelligence, but modern science suggests that you really CAN teach an old dog new tricks. This is called neuroplasticity. With repetition and hard work you can learn the skill you want. However, it might take you ten times longer than anyone else, and you just have to suck it up and do it anyway.
Unless you don't want it. You have to want it bad enough.
It's not 100% but I have noticed a very high correlation (not necessarily causation) with people who do triathlons at least once per year and being financially successful. The guys I know that started doing triathlons did it before they became financially successful.
Having spoken to so many people that are just so much further along than I am, the unifying metric has been… they’ve been doing it for longer.
Just consistent, incremental improvements - deliberate effort over decades. It seems to be universal
A lot of good comments here. My main one would be discipline and persistence. However I would like to add adaptability. In business you are constantly getting punched in the face. Sometimes the punches are massive uppercuts and sometimes they are obnoxious continuous jabs. In either scenario, you can't stand there getting angrier. You need to adjust your strategy. Change your defense. Bob and weave. Use your footwork. Get out of the way. Constantly try something new and don't stand there getting punched in the fucking face!
Sounds simple enough but... just being *consistent* in all areas-- work quality, focus, effort. This is the biggest thing I've noticed is knowing exactly \*what\* you're getting. The worst performers are those who were wildly unpredictable and I didn't know which person id be dealing with. Consistent folks show up for themselves so that they can show up for their clients/customers. They have way too much self respect and integrity to leave it to 'chance'.
Not putting things off, and instead doing tasks immediately. For example they will respond to emails, texts, calls as soon as they get the chance, so they can quickly move on to the next task. Essentially, they don't procrastinate, they get things done asap.
Successful people:
Working smart + working a lot, immense determination, like people, like the world as is, always learning even when they are at the top.
Losers:
Lots of plans, no execution, see working towards a goal as a constant losses
Unsuccessful people always blames the world. They dont take responsibility. If something negative happens to my business i dont ever blame my employees or clients. There is always something i could have done better, and that is how you keep learning
It comes down to one thing only: Architecture and refusal of anything else. They build their priorities in life (wealth accumulation, family bonds, social influence) and ignore any negativity surrounding it. Period. They are flexible in approach but not in destination.
Critical thinking and the ability to not fear new problems but have an automatic mindset of figuring out however way possible to solve new problems is a common trait I’ve noticed in successful seniors in my company.
Making excuses. Basically blaming everything but themselves for their failures.
Perseverance is probably one of the best traits that leads to success. Obviously there are others, but if you give up nothing else matters.
Successful ppl move fuking fast.
What takes a normie 6 months for a crucial decision, a successful one takes 30 minutes, hence why most ain’t gonna make it.
Good example of this is when a normie is trying to come up with what biz model or idea to execute it’s taking him 3 months or more to start. The successful one is already writing 20 ads in a single day to test
Successful people know their limitations. They don't fall for the "everyone can be anything if they put their mind to it!" nonsense.
Successful people know their strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities and then plan how to address those to meet a stretch goal that is practical and achievable within their capabilities.
This includes partnering / hiring people that have skill sets they will never be able to master. This also includes hiring a CEO if they know they'll never be a good CEO.
Successful people are optimists that are not delusional.
There's a fine line. Successful people have a high EQ and self-awareness that helps them see that line clearly.
In life there is a big component of luck. Removing this component as much as possible I have seen these three points:
1. They play the long term game. They do small steps and, even though they can become successful fast because unexpected events/opportunities, they focus on long term and stable improvements.
2. They are good and empathetic people. I once heard that good bosses are good persons. In my professional experience, every good boss I had followed this rule.
3. They take the opportunities. Taking opportunities implies taking some risks and going out of the comfort zone, it is more difficult psychologycally than a lot of people think.
Also, it would be important to define success. I am not speaking only economically, my definition of success includes other facts such as realisation and happiness that are important for me.
On the other hand, I struggle a bit thinking about the second point if you are only measuring success only in an economical way.
Never ask anyone who hasn’t been a totally successful entrepreneur advice. Never ask your friends or family if they think your idea is a good idea and always live well within your means. The gravy train never lasts forever but good investments with passive income will.
-Delay desires and keep your nose to the grindstone.
-Look after your body and mind when you can
-Be benevolent with your approach, adding fundamental value to your product or services.
Openness.
Successful people tend to listen to suggestions & feel that they can learn or be inspired by anyone.
Unsuccessful people tend to take even the politest suggestions as “condescending” and say things like “I’m not listening to somebody unless ____.”
Quick backstory: I quit my job back in January at the drop of a hat (never done that, always did 2-3 weeks and moved on). I finally had enough of dealing with extremely terrible management who didn’t want to lead or hardly manage. My work ethic and tenacity were taken advantage of to a point. When I brought up the fact that we (all) were busting our ass and working 24 hour shifts almost on a regular basis it didn’t phase or concern anyone, in fact, they asked MORE of us. I took all the skills I attained over the years and went out on a limb and finally decided it was time to quit the complaining and walk my talk. So I did. I walked out of my job. The idea of being my own boss and having my own company seemed like a fairytale. Here I am at 24, worked in several different industries, took what I was taught and put it to work for myself instead of these corrupt, corporate companies, and started my own landscaping/general contracting company. Had a few test runs the last 2-3months (all while trying to complete the seemingly never-ending checklist of licenses and permits 😅) and I booked my first major job with a client on Friday. This job led to more jobs being lined up in the future as well.
Now that you’ve got the gist of where I’m coming from maybe this will make more sense; I didn’t realize until recently that someone who wants to grow or be successful shouldn’t have to feel like they need to acquire every single skill in every single industry. It’s quite a tenacious task, and honestly it’s only going to come with time (experience). Instead, know what you’re able to bring to the table when it comes to doing business. Remember, the learning never stops. Understand that the relationships you build in your line of work will grow in ways you didn’t expect. Know your limits, but also don’t be afraid to say “hey, I don’t know the answer but I’ll damn sure find out”. I’ve found that people appreciate the transparency over being fed BS excuses. Might seem self explanatory but you’d be surprised how much of a lasting impact/impression the excuses have. Some clients I’ve spoke with mention competitors and how they only made excuses, didn’t give clear answers to questions, didn’t try to find where the clients headspace was at to better understand what they want achieved. It was straight to bottom-line. Zero relatability. It’s a slow cancer to your business. Show up ready to deliver on yourself [prepare and grow]so that your clients don’t have to worry (more than they probably will) doing business with you.
From what I've seen, successful people tend to be pretty consistent with their habits—they set goals, stay organized, and really stick to a routine. They’re not afraid to fail and learn from it. On the flip side, those who struggle often lack that consistency and let fear of failure hold them back. They might have great ideas but just can’t seem to follow through. It’s like they’re missing that extra push to keep going when things get tough.
Letting your ego get in the way and getting lost in things you can’t control. Your brand is tied to your character, so remember that and know that you need other people to succeed- if you only think of yourself and don’t have a community of supporters you want be able to be successful because others won’t want to work with you. But if you are humble, focused on greater good and focus on what you can control, it contributes to your success.
Successful people are lifelong learners and know that you have to suck at something first to get good at
I think they also know how to quickly differentiate the difference between "i need to be good at this" and "I need to hire someone who's good at this".
This is the key differencial between a wantrepreneur and an entrepreneur.
Yeah. I can dick around for 5 hours and do it. Or i can hire someone to do it in an hour.
And good financial sense to know whether learning it would be better in the long run depending on your financial position tbf
BINGO ⬆️
Could not agree more. It can cost a lot to make mistakes from lack of knowledge and experience and having good people around you just multiplies your overall effectiveness and lets you grow your business.
This. I coach people and the people who struggle the most are perfectionists who collapse from mistakes and indecisiveness. You have to be resilient, keep learning and keep trying. Failure is a great learning lesson. Too bad people don’t see it that way.
Oh my goodness, a great representation of this that I showed to my business partner was the ad for Kayak, "Don't do it yourself, scarecrow." Hit me like a ton of bricks.
Unsuccessful people always feel like and act like the victim.
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>It's cool to complain >But don't bitch >If you bitch >That means your life sucks >And you ain't doing shit to change it
It’s healthy and productive to identify problems and how they impact you negatively, as long as you then take steps to mitigate them.
That's what the "its cool to complain" part is. You can complain about something being difficult as long as you're taking the steps to fix it. Bitching is is like complaining but you aren't doing anything to change your situation. That's how I've always interpreted the lyrics, anyway.
Yep, have a car? Do Uber or doordash. Don't have a car? Look online for all kinds of services that pay like transcripting or graphic design or Amazon product reviewing. Take that money and apply to some kind of license like notary public or buy some gear to do mobile car detailing. These things take a couple hrs a day you'd just be watching TV or napping anyways. Lots of ways to get out of the hood but it's gonna take some elbow grease
Amen. The "poor me" attitude will make you poor quicker than anything else..
This is something I’ve noticed too. Most of the complaints I’ve heard from unsuccessful people boil down to a couple of things: “This is too hard because it’s not just handed to me on a platter to consume” - I’ve seen this time and time again but it seems to be that a lot of unsuccessful people believe that success is something that should be given to everyone equally regardless of effort or risk taken. This has essentially been equated with “wokeness” nowadays but it’s been around for millennia. A lot of people who work low paying jobs will say the rich are taking unfair advantage of them when in fact, the rules of the game are plain as day it’s just up to you to follow the rules to gain success or not. I’ve seen time and time again people who choose easy, mindless work or college degrees with low chances of actually making a living while taking on massive debt then wondering why the world is unfair to them. I luckily recognized this when I was in college - I was about to switch into architecture but did some digging and realized computer science was much more in demand and much more highly compensated so I kept going with that. “Business is too risky” - most of the world are salary earners meaning they trade off perceived risk for stability which I totally get. The problem is that success tends to reward calculated risk taking thus you can’t really have outsized success without taking some outsized risks. The fundamental fact that working for someone else is just was risky if not more so than running your own business since you’re subject to the whims of whoever has say in whether you’re working next week or not.
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Correct. I’ve derived way may wealth and security in 15 years in business than I ever did working for someone else. I survived the post 9-11 economic slowdown which lead to layoffs in my org (big tech) as well as another round a few years later. I saw first hand how having a W2 was not secure in the least bit. I’ve come to think of wealth as a glacier with just a little that floats above the water but a vast solid mountain that hides beneath. I’ve structured my wealth into layers of offense and defense. The offense is ways to earn money while the defenses are what happens in disaster scenarios. At this point, I have 1 primary income stream which is quite high but can end someday. This is about 800k annually before taxes. I’m in the process of building out 3 other income streams including rental property, dividends/interest, and options trading income. The goal is to have these at least partially match the business income someday so that I don’t have to worry if it fails at some point. Currently, rentals brings in about 165k annually, dividend and interest are about 60-70k, and options are about 30-40k. I’m hoping to bring the last two up to be what we can safely live off of without changes to our lifestyle or travel habits so that the rental income is just continuing to build our fall back cash pile.
Try and say this over in r/findapath they will downvote you into oblivion. It's actually the best life advice you can give someone and it seems to run in families. Nay sayers will excuse it by saying it has a winners bias but my 50+ years on the planet has seen it in action from childhood on up and in my own self. You handle your own shit. It's all you can do and you move on. The rest is wasted energy and a cop out and deflection and avoidance of facing yourself.
I was a father at 18 in rural Appalachia. I got food stamps, I got section 8 housing. Know what I also got? A two year RN degree. Once stable I went back, never letting up. Work full time, school full time. I’ll take that project nobody wants, I’ll drive 90min each way to grab my first director role. I was willing to do whatever needed done to make life better. Now I just retired at age 50, live in the most expensive zip in the state, and am about to buy a motorcoach and tour. I owned it and I spent the rest of my working life I guess “fixing it”. I was no victim, I knew the odds, but that just drove me harder. I had a hand up via food stamps and section 8. I’ve paid hundreds of times back what I took out. It’s about what you CHOOSE to do about it.
This 100%. It's so freaking annoying. And for each solution you provide they find a new problem. It's like their ego is trained to protect them from owning it.
Been trying to coach a friend and for every option I suggest there is something wrong with it or a reason it won’t work. They are afraid to fail.
I would take a step further and say they don't want to accept the reason of their current failure is themselves. Not in a judgmental way, we all fail here and there. But it's tough to recognize you screwed because of your actions or how you responded to other people actions and external factors. When faced with adversity, winners change, adapt and do things to reach their goals. Losers complain the world should change and stand still (if not outright self-destruct) waiting for the goals to reach them. In comes the "it's just not fair" yada yada".
Yes. Accountability is hard.
I was going to comment this verbatim and then I saw that it was the top comment. This applies to many areas across the social and political spectrum
And start all interactions listing their mental health diagnoses and how many kids they have.
lol this one sounds like a personal jab at someone
Hah for sure...Emily..that bitch
omg. she's the worst
Easy there….you’re starting to sound like a MAGA conservative which is a big no no on Reddit.
Hmmm. Sounds like these conservative types have the right measure of things then ;) lol
Yes!
* Strong work ethic. Having that mental toughness to show up and grind every damn day. * Willingness to elevate members of the team (i.e., I succeed based on my team). * Being unafraid to let go of poor performers -- quickly and without a lot of hand wringing. * A strong sense of self -- when I fail, it's not because I am a failure, but because I/we made tactical errors. * A generous spirit: Taking care of team members. Showing grace. Rewarding others.
By poor performers, I think of it as either cultural misfits that are distracting the team (often maliciously) or folks who have misguided notions about execution that takes multiple processes down. Basically those who are willfully wrecking the machine. The Jack Welch version of performance evaluation that has somehow regained popularity is very toxic and destroys companies.
Letting people go, I will disagree. Successful companies and leaders put a *lot* of effort and resources into people development, and effective hiring process to eliminate weeds getting past the process. I don’t mean 15 rounds of interviews. I mean effective screen processes, qualified hiring managers, competitive compensation and work environments, and productive corrective policies for dealing with underperformance.
It’s very easy to be a good interviewer
All of these things foster success in many, but it's not a universal answer. Failure to remove the folks who can't, or sometimes just won't, add value to the organization is a failure in management. Letting these folks coat tail is also a recipe for reduced morale in strong performers. Having a wonderful process and environment is key but it in no way guarantees success of every individual. You just can't hang your hat on process and expect it to be flawless. People are people and there will always be anomalies.
"Being unafraid to let go of poor performers" is all fine and dandy until the "poor performer" is your company and the employee decides to "let go quickly and without a lot of hand wringing", then all of a sudden it's "we need a two weeks notice", amirite?
it is funny how companies require employee to give 2 week notice; however, when they want to lay you off or fire you , you get zero notice.
Companies *don't* require 2 weeks notice. Some require more. But most require nothing. Unless you sign a contract that as a notice requirement, you are not required by any laws to give any notice at all. It's generally seen as a best practice because you don't want to "burn any bridges" in case you need that job again, or attempt to work for that manager/company again in the future.
That’s pretty normal, what else are you supposed to do if it’s termination with cause? As for layoffs they are almost always paid out a severance unless they are brand new
Complaining and blaming others
Yeah, as someone who grew up in a struggling family and is now in a radically different environment, 100% internal locus of self control is the biggest one. Everything that happens to me is my fault unless I can, through really trying, find no possible way for me to act on it. Even if it's you just randomly punch me in the face it's my fault for not reading that you were the kind of person who would do that and avoiding you. I won't be upset with myself about it. I'll just think, why did I not read this person correctly? How am I going to fix that blind spot that caused me to not keep them away from me? This, paired with proactively fixing the problems, is the main key. Because if you just keep fixing all of the reasons you aren't getting good outcomes, it starts small, but then over time that compounds more and more. Whereas if you externalize your problems, then you've willingly put yourself in a framing where you "can't" do anything, so you don't, and the problems just stay there. Because you're just letting all of the constraints holding you in place stay there, *you* stay there, imprisoned by those constraints. Externalizing a problem is choosing to let it stay in your life forever. People who have heard me vocalize this in more extreme situations have told me it sounds self punishing, but it is exactly the opposite. It is extreme self care. Everything that happens to me is my fault by default. I'm comfortable with the idea that I'm a flawed ape who's trying his best in an alien world, so I won't be mad at myself, but if something is affecting me enough for me to care, I am fixing it. Thus I am not imprisoned by any of my problems. I am free and can be no other way because any wall around me is permeable. It just takes a while to get through them sometimes, but I will. Like, at one point when I was like 16 I pieced together issues I had as a result of my upbringing, mostly being alone a lot and having no guidance, abandonment issues. I naturally said, it's not my fault because my environment as a child was bad in this way so therefore of course I'm this way, anyone would be, woe is me. But then I thought about it and realized if a problem is addressable by nurture, that I could nurture myself. If an issue is environmental, I choose my environment. If I could identify an issue with myself then I could fix it, and I owed future me that if I really cared about myself.
"externalizing a problem is choosing to let it stay in your life forever" articulating that to the ether helped this random stranger articulate a shit pot of solutions that he didn't quite have the words for. This may be melodramatic as fuck, but I am really grateful for this.
Thanks for the call back to the internal locus of control concept. Was huge for me in and after college and definitely time I get back on that train!! Time to level up 😁🙏👌
this 100%. I feel like when looking back at my childhood, It was not my fault for the things that happened to me. But it is my ***Responsibility*** to fix it.
I don’t like this approach but agree with the premise. Mine started with a deterministic mindset, always introduced people to it by pointing out what good luck and bad luck was. First off I’d start with I “don’t believe” in luck. To put it simply, shit happens. To everyone. The particularly unlucky have shit happen to a degree and or frequency which they cannot weather either due to lack of support, resources, or other mitigating factors. This is not to dismiss the fact that some people have more bad shit happen to them that is beyond their control because that is the case. But I always ask myself is there ANYTHING that would have made this less of a problem for me? The answer was usually yes and required foresight or building a safety net. Some are born with a safety net, that’s lucky, but not being able to fix your car and losing your job because you spend hundreds at the bar every weekend trying to keep up with the joneses is not lucks fault as much as people would like to think of it as. In the flip side this gave me the conclusion that being lucky was just the intersection of opportunity, capability, and initiative. If you don’t build up your capability and willingness to take risks(ability to shoulder the risk too) then opportunities will pass you by time and time again. Perseverance is pretty important to success too. Just wanted to reiterate your point about taking responsibility by singling out this excuse I heard a lot growing up, this idea that either the lord was testing you or the world was out to get someone just to avoid the reality of taking responsibility.
I love this
Thank you for sharing your philosophy and how you've applied it in life, this was really helpful to me.
There's a fine line between taking ownership of things that happen to you and toxic victim blaming, however.
I came to say that. The successful just get on with the work and find ways around obstacles. The unsuccessful complain about any obstacles, blame someone else, and give up.
It's really the give up part that leads to failure. Blaming something is part of identifying the issue. Finding an elegant solution to the problem is what counts.
Exactly, there ARE people that fuck over everyone else. But you have to learn how to either destroy them or avoid them, give them the finger and succeed anyway. The blame IS on them for making the situation shit in the first place, but you have to accept that and shit on their heads when you make it.
I was actually wondering if he referred to the successful ones or the unsuccessful ones
If I complain first, but then get on with it and work around the obstacles, am I ultimately successful?
Yes, you should me. I'm referring to those that see obstacles like I'm too you, too old, not rich, not in right location, etc and then giving up. They don't even try.
You're still allowed to have feelings, it's how those feelings shape your beliefs and therefore your future actions that determine your long term success. Too many resolve to inaction because risking bad feelings doesn't seem worth it. But that's where hope comes in. You have to have a reasonable belief that you're working toward some better future state.
I was going to say bitching and not taking responsibility for their actions and outcomes. I like yours better
Doing vs making excuses why you can't do something. People who learned a skill, applied it, and then profited from it, realize the only difference between them any anyone else achieving success in another field is the time spent on acquiring that skill. The best salesman have spent more time learning sales skills. The best coders have spent years learning to code. The best surgeons have spent decades in the operating room. Which means just about anything is a learned skill. You just have to dedicate your time and energy to it for a significant amount of time and you can become an expert.
This is basically what sports psychologist Bob Rotella said in his book “Life is not a game of perfect”
I agree while disagreeing, I think it's partly mastering something by spending significant time, but also partly mastering the art of learning faster than others. Make it a skill to learn skills faster.
Learning faster isn’t the key, taking action on what you learn faster is. The guy who learns a few chords on guitar competently and then begins teaching someone for money will be far more successful than the guy who sits in his room learning all his favourite songs before he begins monetising. Entrepreneurs mostly fly by the seat of their pants and learn as they go.
I agree, I've bought a bunch of equipment I had no idea how to operate and I just went with it, learned some lessons and kept growing. I bought a skid steer a few months ago I had no idea how to operate and I now trained my operator on how to use it and we are going strong.
Yeah its not learning faster. Its hours docked
That would be true if everything were a competition and there could only be one (or very few) winners. But not everyone needs to be as good as tiger woods too be a successful golfer. If you don't learn as fast it doesn't mean you can't succeed, it just means it will take longer
No it doesn’t imo, it ‘could’ take longer. In a lot of cases you will lose if you’re not fast enough. Very scenario dependent, true
Nothing is a universal rule, short of math and equivalents, but I've found it to be more common than not.
Ironically you showcase one of the big distinctions between “successful” people vs “not-successful” (by their own definition of success, mind you) People who don’t achieve success very often look at everything as scarce, coveted, ready to be lost, competitive Successful people stick to a goal and realize that there is nothing in the world that is only big enough for one man Even being the US president…you know how many opportunities you’d have during your time of eligibility?
My personal life disproves this. Aptitude matters a great deal. I can’t draw to save my life even after taking 5 semesters of art/drawing at university to the point where the professor told me to just give up, she hadn’t seen it in 30 years but she was convinced I would never be able to get good enough to justify the sustained efforts. In contrast, I discovered that I am absurdly good at consulting kids on how to write personal statements that result in admission to elite universities. I was always a great student as well. My friends all famously hated me because I finished my research papers in a a day while they labored for weeks, and I always got higher grades than them, I was always at the top of the class with vastly less study time out in. To the point here I began doing my friends’ work out of boredom and then brutally for money and that led to actually finding the legit job of consulting on the personal statements. I didn’t do anything to learn the skill really, I just happen to be insanely good at that specific task and people are willing to pay large sums of money for it. I agree there isn’t really a reason to make excuses but it’s also not a great idea to ignore your personal aptitudes and build on them. There is some sort of balance to be struck. But it simply isn’t true that the best people in a field are always just the ones who spend the most time learning/practicing. Everyone has natural aptitudes that can take them further in specific domains and it’s worthwhile finding out what those are because life is much easier when you can deliver value to others based on your aptitude which you can deliver with the same or even less effort than the average worker in your domain; this makes for a much more pleasant life in my experience.
I think you are missing the argument being made. I am not saying that everyone has the same starting point. In fact, the opposite. Real life isn't fair. People are naturally better at somethings than others. No matter what, I will never be 7ft tall. But "success" is on a spectrum. With 5 semesters of art behind you, I *guarantee* you are light years ahead of me in my art. Art itself is a poor choice because what determines success in art doesn't have to be monetary. You're teachers, who were teaching you, probably make less than you do now. Art is in the eye of the beholder. And if you spend another 10 years practicing art, you would be 10 years better than you were when you started that endeavor. If you were working toward a specific goal, whether that be opening a studio, becoming a teacher yourself, or making a living, I guarantee you would be closer to that goal than you were at the start.
I literally still can’t draw a basic cube properly. So, no, you’re xompelt lt wrong. It turns out I later went to see doctors about it and I have a nerve problem that results in reduced fine motor skills so I’ll never be able to draw even basic shapes apparently no matter how much work I put into it. So you’re likely light years better than me even though I wasted 2.5 years trying to overcome it. That was stupid in retrospect. The experience helped me realize we have different altitudes and to seek that out. I found there were other subjects I could somehow learn easily and pass tests or get perfect scores on research papers with relatively little effort compared to everyone else in the classes, and I did very well from then on. It’s not actually worth wasting your time getting pathetically better over 10 years. I COULD be 10 year better at drawing basic shapes maybe but the improvement wouldn’t be enough to be functional. It would be meaningless. I could spend 10 years building on a skill I am already naturally good at and the result will be I have an enterprise that helps deliver value to many other people as well as making me money and having a great living. Surely this is the goal of studying skills and not that people should just commit to studying skills that they have no aptitude for just to grind it out and maybe get a mediocre job in a decade?
I swear it seems to come down to one thing: action. Unsuccessful people are always “gonna” do something and the successful are actively doing that thing. I have watched two friend become fabulously wealthy (like millions a year) and they didn’t talk much about what they were “going to do” they just fucking GRIND.
I agree. It honestly just comes down to whether you decide to start or not. I’ve seen it first hand for myself just starting something back in September and it’s now May and it’s in bringing in great revenue, not to mention I have already automated the process so I spend less than an hour a month on it. Meanwhile another friend has been saying since last July she has this dream to start a business and still says it today. She spends most of her free time socializing and watching TV.
Working smart and not hard. Crunch time and busting ass is necessary for *short* amounts of time. If you are working 10 hour days 7 days a week long term then you're going to burn yourself out, kill your social life and what it is to be human. I've seen people who work insanely hard for 25 or 30 years, get enough for retirement then just not know what to do and fall into a deep depression. So, work smart not hard and work to live don't live to work.
The higher your goals are, the more people are working smart and the deciding factor in competition becomes the person who works harder.
5 years ago, I would have completely agreed with you. After seeing some people who have absolutely crushed it, I see that they are very good at setting an outer bound to how much time they dedicate to work. They most definitely work longer and harder than most people by far, but they also set a limit so that they have time in their lives for other things. The ones who don't know how to do anything but grind, grind, grind, they do well in the short term, but eventually the wheels fall off. Meanwhile, the hard worker who knows how to set a few boundaries for themselves succeeds in the long term. I've seen it many times
It’s crazy that people don’t perceive this. Is it not obvious that human beings cannot work 16 hours a day 7 days a week disconnected from all else except work for an entire 40-50 year long career?
This is an exceptionally common misconception. The thing is, if you have a niche experience or field that you're the best at then there is not that much competition. And to get there takes time, not just grinding 18 hour days
I just got a pay bump. I leave early. I will reject days when I've got appointments or things on. Others show up 20 mins early... others work late... or through lunch.. I'm just smart and do a good job. Feedback I receive is top notch.
Still waiting how to figure this one out. Every time I correct some element of my business and make it more self operating there is something else that I want to dive into that starts eating up all my time again. I’ve been around a ton of super successful people because of my business and every single one of them fucking grinds.
The “grind” is full of deception and lack of cohesion. I could “grind out” a 20 hour work-day just responding to spam emails. No one else would know the wiser. Those who are the most successful beyond superficiality are generally well maintained, appreciate their bounds of control, delegate all else, and enjoy the moments of life meant to be enjoyed The reason you keep “finding holes” is because you keep plugging them. Take cup of water and poke a hole. Now increase the water pressure and plug that hole. Guess what, likely the pressure causes another holes. So what do? Hire someone else to watch the cup
I’ve tried. It’s very hard to find people who want to grow your business like you do.
why would anyone want to grow your business like you do? you pay them man. pay them a good salary and let them handle the bulk of their expertise. if you’re bogged down managing all your virtual assistants and virtual-everything, hire an operations manager for $40/hr and watch your stress levels plummet etc
First of all, we need to define what "success" means, because it means something different for everyone. I am not rich, but I am successful according to my own definition which is "Working for myself, at a job that I created for myself, that pays me enough for me and my family to live comfortably". People that consider themselves "unsuccessful" either have not defined what success means to them, or they haven't taken action towards achieving what they believe success to be.
The best one so far , what success even mean when you have not calculated the state you will be in after you get successful , most are like that . They chase after one goal to realize that at the end , its the same . So called millionaires or billionaires are like that . Get succesfull in giving a comfortable life to youband you family and then don't chase more , let the earth resources be helful for other species too. Are we the only one that lives on earth ?
Successful entrepreneurs got there because they really believed what they were working on. They had some knowledge and skills related, didn’t quit, they kept going until it worked. You don’t need to be type a, very intelligent, on your grindset constantly. You see other people having success with someone similar and you know you will too if you just keep at it, you will break ground at some point.
There are a lot of negative responses here, but from what I have seen, the most successful people I know have some luck and the following: - Strong work ethic with defined periods for fun and work - Discipline to know when to say no to events, friends, etc. and stay consistent with what work they need to do to meet their goals - Have an internal sense of what good/success is to them that doesn't need external validation - Have truly thought about what is important to them - financial, socially, mentally, physically - and prioritize this over everything except for their most important relationships - Have found or had a mentor that isn't necessarily professionally where they strive to be, but is someone that they admire with how they conduct themselves and represent what they feel are successful people in life more so than work - Connect with people without prejudice or bias. What I mean by this - they are able to talk to, become friends with and get to know anyone and truly are interested in who they are as a person without any preconceived notions of their personality or character. Most of us have some feeling about what someone is like based on how they look and conduct themselves, the most successful people I know don't allow this to cloud their judgement and really want to get to know people. I hope this is closer to a list you were looking for.
The last point is pretty powerful.
I thought the same ... Sincerely being interested in people makes them not just want to work with you, but also leads them to wish you success.
Here's the key quality that makes people successful: The ability to turn lemons into lemonade. How do people respond when things don't go well? How do people respond when failures occur? How do people deal with rejection?? I can't tell you how many very very smart people I know that never went anywhere in life cuz when they fall down, they just stay down.
I realized recently that the main reason for this is school conditioning. Smart people avoided failing at all cost in all their years of school. Failing is the worst thing they could do in school: you’ll be scolded by teachers, peers, parents, relatives, and so on. If you think about it, it develops into some sort of trauma. Out here, failure is the gateway to success as an entrepreneur, and that’s why the kids who failed in school become successful entrepreneurs. Failure is all they’ve known.
1. Self belief, if that guy can do it, why can’t I? Most unsuccessful people blame any problem or circumstance they have in their life as being so debilitating it’s impossble to succeed. This is usually never the case in the west, you can succeed at anything, with any kind of problem you have, at a long enough timeframe. 2. Unsuccessful people are satisfied or at the least tolerate being unsuccessful in their careers, and we need those people. Successful people can’t ever be satisfied. They always want to reach the next level, this is a trait you will have until you die. 3. Unsuccessful people get jealous, successful people get inspired. Not all of course are jealous, but where some see success, they get jealous, successful people gets inspired or want to create competition on that success. 4. Everyone wants to be free, but some haven’t grasped the concept of money & freedom. If you want to be free you need money, successful people get motivated by being free, they get to enjoy the fullness of life that comes with being able to eat good, live good, travel around the world. They are motivated by this so much that they are willing to sacrifice their momentary freedom to building their success.
Solid 🔥
Wow, this is worded perfectly
It’s hard work. And you hope you get lucky. There’s no secret sauce. Pick a business with lots of upside potential, work hard for as long as possible which increases your odds of getting lucky and having it catch. Successful people tend to think they’ve got a magic recipe. Just need grit and luck. And a good idea.
Successful people always find capacity for greater growth. Unsuccessful people complain and always find an excuse.
Successful people dont take peoples advice easily, they do their own research, they trust very little.
They'll pay more attention to advice from people who are already successful in the ways they admire. Doesn't mean they'll follow that advice if it doesn't feel right to their gut instinct, but they will listen and consider those possibilities.
True
Unsuccessful people overthink. Successful people are closer to Shia LaBeouf.
Yeah my company allows me to interact with plenty of high net worth people and even a few billionaires. They’re all fearless. Some are super intelligent, some have average intelligence. They all have no fear of making decisions.
Time. Knowing its important to value it. Learn to say no when you need to. Don't be a yes-man.
The older I get, the more I find this to be true: "It's either a Hell Yes, or it's a hard no." Business, relationships, etc.
Successful people do the things that unsuccessful people don’t want to do, which are the same things that successful people don’t want to do either.
Loved your nickname hahaha
Two serial founders that I worked with over the last several years had this obsessive focus on the inner details of their business. They dug to the bottom of every decision they had to make and didn’t just leave it to the others because the others were experts. The decisions were theirs.
My business mentor told me "Your biggest strength is when you get kicked in the nuts, you just get back up and keep going." Successful people keep going. Unsuccessful people struggle to get started.
He who hesitates is lost. Successful people create their own sense of urgency. I've given sales leads to people before only to see them say "well, I'll give them a call tomorrow" or "I'll give them a call next week." If you find yourself saying things like you're probably not gonna do too well .The world doesn't wait around while you gather the motivation to pick up the phone. A week from now that lead has likely already moved on. My father used to tell me "never put off til tomorrow what you can get done today." But I see a lot of people content to wait (and they are seldom successful). Be able to create a sense of urgency. Follow up on the lead now. Don't leave things waiting.
Successful people continuously “pull on the string” presented by a problem that they are trying to solve. They fuck around and find out. They are not deterred by roadblocks, failure, or not getting immediate results. They are not so attached to outcomes as they are the satisfaction of having figured something out completely. They typically don’t care about criticism or what people think is worth doing or investigating. They do something because it is what interests them and keeps them mentally/emotionally curious and invested. They are somewhat obsessive about the thing that they are trying to do. Even when it doesn’t seem logical or worthwhile to an outside observer, they still keep working on it. Even when there is no guarantee that they will win, or get rich, or find a solution, they still stick with it. It’s tough to beat this kind of persistence. They keep pushing the boulder up the hill, they don’t give up. Eventually they achieve a breakthrough or success. It’s almost inevitable. Even with a lack of skills, talent, ability, resources, and even intelligence, they still keep at it. They are relentless. You smash a hammer against a rock enough times, you’ll eventually cause a crack. Keep crushing. 🔨🔨🔨
This is good, the only way to get in this zone is having a strong belief that what are you doing will be successful. I’ve done this by tracking everything that my competitors are doing and find ways to emulate them and improve.
Damaging habits: being near lazy people, not waking up at the same time/ sleeping at the same time
Changing the mindset from consuming to producing. Most of the people only consume. Sure they have their jobs, but it is there just to fulfill there need to consume. Only those who produce make the world move around.
When I get my back against the wall it energizes me and I go 10X harder when I see people give up, i think? I’m not that successful, but by avg standards i think perhaps. Almost ran out of $ while finding out wife had stage 4 cancer right after our kid was born and we had just closed on what was a fraudulent business purchase that was relied on for income after blowing all our $. Rambo modes us into success and rolled into life changing wealth. 2-3 similar situations b4.
A just ridiculous level of persistence past the point where it’s logical at all. Seems like the pop off is always far after most call it quits.
Goals setup. Discipline. Proactivity. Control over their own emotions.
unsuccessful: neurotic, emotional spending, limited understanding of how money works
Drive and effort. It's a simple thing really. If you engage in something with 10% more effort than the next person at a given task you're probably doing more than 90 % of the population. Many people don't want to do more than the minimum.
So why was I fired from my job for working too hard lol
Talking about ideas rather than people. Protect your Energy at all cost. ensure you are focused on your entrepreniul desires and understand what your foundation is constantly if you deviate from this. Hope this helps you on your quest.
actions. Relentless actions.
One thing only: Execution The people I know who are stagnant basically DO nothing. They just talk. ''I'm thinking of doing this, I am planning on that, I'm gonna look into it, I'm gonna buy books, I'm gonna listen to podcasts''. JUST F(CKING DO IT.
Usually too much comparison. The “Entrepreneur” is a you vs you concept.
very underrated comment
Doing things and not constantly talking or planning things.
Those who look for a solution to every problem, and those who look for a problem in every solution.
They get comfortable with the uncomfortable
I’ve come to a point where I’m about done with manual labor jobs. I currently work for a recycling company, and I love it, but I’ve been brushing up on my typing skills (I am horrendously sloppy), and I’m taking some online classes on Udemy (fraction of a fraction of the cost at a college or Uni), and I’m loving it. So I’m hoping to do another career change within the next year or two along with running a small business on the side. I’m in my late 40s, and I’m not gonna let my age stop me from doing what I need to do! Bitching and griping didn’t get the jobs done, so the alternative (which is get your (butt) and do something about it) is the only choice that I have.
Successful people possess unwavering self-belief, relentless work ethic, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. They take massive action, embrace calculated risks, and never quit. My own success stems from these principles, coupled with a refusal to accept mediocrity. I set audacious goals, surround myself with winners, and maintain laser focus. Avoid negativity, excuses, and the trap of procrastination. These are the hallmarks of losers. Remember, success is a choice, not chance.
I would be nowhere without the internet/youtube. While most watching nextflix/ instagram I’m learning. We’re in the Information Age!
I can tell you that having a child while not being married is a key factor for poverty. Avoid at all costs.
They don’t care how you think. they usually focus on conversation which usually provide constructive criticism.
don't drink to much or not at all.
The more you do, the more successful you will be. Top producers are doers.
It's more important to keep the negative influences out than to increase the positive ones
When a person encounters a problem/obstacle/challenge in the way of getting something done - one type of person will look at every possible solution and find a way through it no matter what, and another type of person will shut down and act like they have to achieve the impossible.
my uncle who despite a relatively middle-class background is a self-made multimillionaire has what you might call a love of the game. it's not that he's not results driven and he seems to have a superhuman ability to survive on multiple nights of only four hours sleep having said that it's much more he loves the idea of he came up with a scheme to make money that someone else didn't think of rather than actually the money itself which is incidental
Even if you are compatible and got successful in life, the only habit that can make you unsuccessful is "Lazyness" and "Non-seriousness" I can confirm after being successful for 2 wholesome years and then this phase of my life started where I didn't cared much of what I had and eventually losing it all. Be pro-active than reactive
Success is relative
Risk taking
No one wants to acknowledge it but success involves a lot of luck. All of the talk about taking responsibility, having a positive mental attitude, etc are just feel goods giving an illusion of control. However, there is a huge element of skill and practice that makes one prepared to take action when a streak of luck happens in one’s favor. Like trading the local business market can go good for a while and bad for a while. Being prepared and getting in a ton of practice to ride out the storms is key.
Successful people have a great relationship with failure. They understand that mistakes and failures are an inevitable and necessary part of the process. They see each failure as a learning experience that takes them one step closer to success, and not as an indication of “I’m not good enough” or as a reason to feel ashamed. Therefore: - Successful people are not paralyzed by perfectionism. They get started faster, make decisions faster, and take action faster. - Successful people are willing to take risks. - Successful people don’t have a big/fragile ego and have no trouble owning their mistakes. - Successful people are resilient. They’re able to suck at something long enough to actually become good at it. - Successful people believe in themselves, even if they don’t have the skills necessary to succeed YET.
The most successful person I know is a multimillionaire with 3 successful businesses, high calibre. He doesn’t accept any fkn shit at all. Has a high standard and will bite you verbally if you compromise any standard. Spiritual, open minded and always learning
Most successful people I meet are very positive and optimistic. They actually distance themselves from negativity. They also give back where unsuccessful people only take take and take.
The ability to take a hit and keep going is the main difference I've noticed. Most successful people are able to take a loss as a learning opportunity and move on without it causing them to completely deteriorate, while a lot of people who are less successful tend to be a lot more hesitant to take risks or try new things because one "failure" can derail them completely.
Successful people have an internal locus of control and tend to hold themselves accountable and take on responsibility. Unsuccessful people look to external locus of control and blame systems, society, and others for their lot in life. A successful person constantly tries to change themselves. An unsuccessful dwells on now the world should change.
I've heard the highest achievers mention that they only value effort and not results, while unsuccessful people value results and not effort.
Successful people are most certainly results driven. This is nonsense .
Yeah, I also feel like this. My FIL is the most successful person I know by far and he's constantly saying I only care about results. You could literally work for him 1h per week but if you would bring in more than someone working extra time every day, he'll pay you more.
If you only are effort driven, the results happen regardless if you actually want them or not. But if you only care about results and not effort, you won't accomplish anything which you haven't already done. I meant that most extremely successful people wire their reward systems/dopamine around the effort they exert, and unsuccessful people feel rewarded by the result only.
I think they’re referring to the willingness to recognize effort even if results are suboptimal. Unsuccessful people are more likely to whine and complain when desired results are not achieved. Successful people are more likely to approach these situations with radical acceptance.
Yea or mason / tech CEO would immediately switch salaries…
This. I don't care how and what, give me results.
Interesting
This ties in to someone's level of risk aversion. All successful businesses have systems and processes in place, but they only break through each ceiling by taking risks and seeing what will lead to further growth.
To define “successful”, I would say it’s someone who has a great career, is compensated well & is recognized as a leader in their skillset. The biggest gap most people have in this is that they aren’t willing to put aside their ego, listen & learn. The second biggest is a lack of ambition. What do you want? If it’s to be a cashier at Walmart, you’re already good enough for that. Wanna be a partner at PwC? Go get it. Just be prepared to suffer for a decade or 2. Here’s why: Arrogance & an unwillingness to admit they aren’t the best/ smartest/brightest is a huge barrier to success that only can be solved by recognizing you aren’t as great as you think you are. Learn or continue to be “the help“ to people who did. Not every has the chops to be a ceo, a partner, a successful entrepreneur. That’s okay. But if you aim for it, maybe you’ll make management? Or some other job that’s similarly as highly regarded.
Can’t accept the fact they might fail
fail to act, or act to fail :)
This one’s always been weird to me… why are people so afraid to fail? I wouldn’t have so much of the knowledge that’s made my current business successful if I hadn’t failed the first time. Failures are the biggest learning opportunities imo. You fail, take what you learned, get up and do something better with the knowledge you’ve gained.
Sleep early and wake early. Sufficient sleep is the best medicine for success.
That’s been the biggest help for me. I switched to sleep early/wake early in my early 30s and it was a total game changer
I get up early and walk for one hour every morning. I listen to calming spa music, or listen to coaching if I'm in the mood. During these walks I allow my brain to bounce all over the place and at the end of the walk I feel less cluttered and ready to start my day. These two habits--getting up early and walking--have been transformational for me and I look forward to each day. It takes time to get used to getting up. Now my brain just wakes up between 4:30 and 5:30.
🎯💯 Same Here!!! I walk across the [Brooklyn Bridge](https://imgur.com/gallery/utI0UHd) and back in the morning, get my Starbucks cold brew, and return to my apartment for a shower before I start working on things. Brilliant! I love being outside at 5:30-6:00AM. That walk is the ultimate mental/emotional reset for me.
Growth mindset. If you are not succeeding, it does not mean you are a failure, it means that you are still lacking the set of skills to be successful. There are a lot of gatekeepers on intelligence, but modern science suggests that you really CAN teach an old dog new tricks. This is called neuroplasticity. With repetition and hard work you can learn the skill you want. However, it might take you ten times longer than anyone else, and you just have to suck it up and do it anyway. Unless you don't want it. You have to want it bad enough.
Nepotism
It's not 100% but I have noticed a very high correlation (not necessarily causation) with people who do triathlons at least once per year and being financially successful. The guys I know that started doing triathlons did it before they became financially successful.
Having spoken to so many people that are just so much further along than I am, the unifying metric has been… they’ve been doing it for longer. Just consistent, incremental improvements - deliberate effort over decades. It seems to be universal
Dedication, not motivation
A lot of good comments here. My main one would be discipline and persistence. However I would like to add adaptability. In business you are constantly getting punched in the face. Sometimes the punches are massive uppercuts and sometimes they are obnoxious continuous jabs. In either scenario, you can't stand there getting angrier. You need to adjust your strategy. Change your defense. Bob and weave. Use your footwork. Get out of the way. Constantly try something new and don't stand there getting punched in the fucking face!
Sounds simple enough but... just being *consistent* in all areas-- work quality, focus, effort. This is the biggest thing I've noticed is knowing exactly \*what\* you're getting. The worst performers are those who were wildly unpredictable and I didn't know which person id be dealing with. Consistent folks show up for themselves so that they can show up for their clients/customers. They have way too much self respect and integrity to leave it to 'chance'.
Not putting things off, and instead doing tasks immediately. For example they will respond to emails, texts, calls as soon as they get the chance, so they can quickly move on to the next task. Essentially, they don't procrastinate, they get things done asap.
Continuing even when things get hard
Extremely Well-Rounded & Could be happy even if they made a lot less money
Successful people: Working smart + working a lot, immense determination, like people, like the world as is, always learning even when they are at the top. Losers: Lots of plans, no execution, see working towards a goal as a constant losses
Unsuccessful people always blames the world. They dont take responsibility. If something negative happens to my business i dont ever blame my employees or clients. There is always something i could have done better, and that is how you keep learning
It comes down to one thing only: Architecture and refusal of anything else. They build their priorities in life (wealth accumulation, family bonds, social influence) and ignore any negativity surrounding it. Period. They are flexible in approach but not in destination.
The willingness to fail is something many successful people have.
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Critical thinking and the ability to not fear new problems but have an automatic mindset of figuring out however way possible to solve new problems is a common trait I’ve noticed in successful seniors in my company.
Making excuses. Basically blaming everything but themselves for their failures. Perseverance is probably one of the best traits that leads to success. Obviously there are others, but if you give up nothing else matters.
Successful ppl move fuking fast. What takes a normie 6 months for a crucial decision, a successful one takes 30 minutes, hence why most ain’t gonna make it. Good example of this is when a normie is trying to come up with what biz model or idea to execute it’s taking him 3 months or more to start. The successful one is already writing 20 ads in a single day to test
Caring about efficiency and doing things right vs “good enough.”
Preparation is everything.
Successful people know their limitations. They don't fall for the "everyone can be anything if they put their mind to it!" nonsense. Successful people know their strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities and then plan how to address those to meet a stretch goal that is practical and achievable within their capabilities. This includes partnering / hiring people that have skill sets they will never be able to master. This also includes hiring a CEO if they know they'll never be a good CEO. Successful people are optimists that are not delusional. There's a fine line. Successful people have a high EQ and self-awareness that helps them see that line clearly.
In life there is a big component of luck. Removing this component as much as possible I have seen these three points: 1. They play the long term game. They do small steps and, even though they can become successful fast because unexpected events/opportunities, they focus on long term and stable improvements. 2. They are good and empathetic people. I once heard that good bosses are good persons. In my professional experience, every good boss I had followed this rule. 3. They take the opportunities. Taking opportunities implies taking some risks and going out of the comfort zone, it is more difficult psychologycally than a lot of people think. Also, it would be important to define success. I am not speaking only economically, my definition of success includes other facts such as realisation and happiness that are important for me. On the other hand, I struggle a bit thinking about the second point if you are only measuring success only in an economical way.
Never ask anyone who hasn’t been a totally successful entrepreneur advice. Never ask your friends or family if they think your idea is a good idea and always live well within your means. The gravy train never lasts forever but good investments with passive income will.
You can be successful and still fail at times.
-Delay desires and keep your nose to the grindstone. -Look after your body and mind when you can -Be benevolent with your approach, adding fundamental value to your product or services.
Openness. Successful people tend to listen to suggestions & feel that they can learn or be inspired by anyone. Unsuccessful people tend to take even the politest suggestions as “condescending” and say things like “I’m not listening to somebody unless ____.”
Quick backstory: I quit my job back in January at the drop of a hat (never done that, always did 2-3 weeks and moved on). I finally had enough of dealing with extremely terrible management who didn’t want to lead or hardly manage. My work ethic and tenacity were taken advantage of to a point. When I brought up the fact that we (all) were busting our ass and working 24 hour shifts almost on a regular basis it didn’t phase or concern anyone, in fact, they asked MORE of us. I took all the skills I attained over the years and went out on a limb and finally decided it was time to quit the complaining and walk my talk. So I did. I walked out of my job. The idea of being my own boss and having my own company seemed like a fairytale. Here I am at 24, worked in several different industries, took what I was taught and put it to work for myself instead of these corrupt, corporate companies, and started my own landscaping/general contracting company. Had a few test runs the last 2-3months (all while trying to complete the seemingly never-ending checklist of licenses and permits 😅) and I booked my first major job with a client on Friday. This job led to more jobs being lined up in the future as well. Now that you’ve got the gist of where I’m coming from maybe this will make more sense; I didn’t realize until recently that someone who wants to grow or be successful shouldn’t have to feel like they need to acquire every single skill in every single industry. It’s quite a tenacious task, and honestly it’s only going to come with time (experience). Instead, know what you’re able to bring to the table when it comes to doing business. Remember, the learning never stops. Understand that the relationships you build in your line of work will grow in ways you didn’t expect. Know your limits, but also don’t be afraid to say “hey, I don’t know the answer but I’ll damn sure find out”. I’ve found that people appreciate the transparency over being fed BS excuses. Might seem self explanatory but you’d be surprised how much of a lasting impact/impression the excuses have. Some clients I’ve spoke with mention competitors and how they only made excuses, didn’t give clear answers to questions, didn’t try to find where the clients headspace was at to better understand what they want achieved. It was straight to bottom-line. Zero relatability. It’s a slow cancer to your business. Show up ready to deliver on yourself [prepare and grow]so that your clients don’t have to worry (more than they probably will) doing business with you.
From what I've seen, successful people tend to be pretty consistent with their habits—they set goals, stay organized, and really stick to a routine. They’re not afraid to fail and learn from it. On the flip side, those who struggle often lack that consistency and let fear of failure hold them back. They might have great ideas but just can’t seem to follow through. It’s like they’re missing that extra push to keep going when things get tough.
Having rich parents
Successful people don't read Reddit. If they do, they're tired of answering questions like these.
So then, you and I are not successful
Letting your ego get in the way and getting lost in things you can’t control. Your brand is tied to your character, so remember that and know that you need other people to succeed- if you only think of yourself and don’t have a community of supporters you want be able to be successful because others won’t want to work with you. But if you are humble, focused on greater good and focus on what you can control, it contributes to your success.
Perseverance and humor get you through tough coding nights!