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Hey, this is Leo, for Actualized.org. And in this episode, I'm gonna speak about the 27 qualities of all successful people. ♪ (Intro music) ♪ So, the other day, I started thinking: What are the common patterns and characteristics of people who are very successful in life? One of my personal hobbies is to study success, and I've studied a lot of psychology material, but also biographies and histories where I just sit down and I dissect people from the last several thousand years of human history, and I take a look at what ticked in their life, what went on behind the scenes? How did they actually work? How did they get to some of these amazing positions that they were able to get to? Whether it's an artist, or a performer, or an actor or a political leader, or a bussiness person, or an entrepreneur or whoever. And so I came up with the following list of 27 characteristics; which I think is quite accurate because, basically what I did, is I kinda crossed reference of a lot of stuff that I`ve read over the last many years. And I wanna present that to you here. And if you're someone who's been struggling with success or who wants to really make it big in life, then these are the points that you wanna be really mindful of going forward, making sure that you plug any holes that you have in this list. So here we go, these are in no particular order; I'm not saying that the first ones are the most important, basically I think that they're all important. So, the first is passion. Successful people are passionate people. Not only are they just passionate about what they do, which is kind of a cliché, you probably knew that already; but here's something that you might have not thought about before: I think that what's going on deep on someone's psychology, if they're successful, is that they're inspired on some level by life. Somewhere. Are you inspired by life? Maybe you're inspired by art, or by nature, or by music, or by writing, or by speaking, or by other... examples of amazing people, or you're inspired by technology, and science and human knowledge... Something about life has to inspire you! This is kind of a deeper point. For example, I think about like, an amazing mathematician. If you think about an amazing mathematician, the reason he is amazing is not just because he is good at math! That's a mediocre mathematician. Anyone can just be good at math; an amazing mathematician LOVES math! He doesn't just love math, he's not just passionate about... Something in math inspires him on a almost spiritual level. And I think that this is true across the board with successful people. Another characteristic is that they're hardworking. Very, very hardworking. Abnormally hardworking! Mediocre people, which is the opposite of a successful person, is a mediocre person; these people are not hardworking! They're lazy, and they work 40 hours a week and that's about it. They put in the bare minimum. To get by. That's no the case with successful people. Successful people are obsessive about how they work. They're almost workaholics. And this can become a negative trait. Not all the characteristics I'm gonna be listing here are all positive traits, some of these can backfire on you and you can take them to one extreme where they become actually quite toxic. A lot of very successful people can't stop doing work! They can't stop. So this is kinda, like, of one of their weaknesses. But it's also a very important STREGHT, because you're not gonna get successful without massive amounts of hard work. Strong work ethic! Is absolutely necessary. Also, successful people are extremely persistent! Now, this is probably another cliché you've heard a lot, you know, "be persistent, persistence is important", but you don't really fathom the importance of persistence until you've actually tried to accomplish something big in your life. Something that had low odds of success. Like, you try to become an actor, or you try to start a business; you try to do these things and then you see how easily and how often you fail. And how hard it is to keep working in the face of failure, over and over again, you just fail again, and again and again, and you just have to keep going! If you wanna be successful. See, successful people have a high tolerance for failure, they don't take it personally, they don't get depressed about it, they just keep going forward. Plowing forward every single time. Until they get to their goal. This is a very rare characteristic in people. Which is why success is quite uncommon. Also, successful people are iconoclastic, which means that they're rule breakers! These people do not follow the rules! Of society, of the organization, of the family unit, or of the religious structure or whatever. This doesn't mean that they do illegal stuff, necessarily. It just means that they are kinda flexible with the rules, They're able to skirt around the rules, they're able to bend the rules, they're able to think outside the box! And this is important! Because, to get stuff past through the system, requires thinking outside the box a lot. If you're thinking inside the box, then you just get the results of the mass, of the herd. And the herd doesn't really get extraordinary results. You wouldn't wanna call them sucessful; you'd call them mediocre. More accurate. Also, this is kind of a secondary point, but i put as a whole independent characteristic here on the list; is cleverness. I think succesful people are abnormally clever than the bunch. And they're manipulative! They're good at manipulating situations and people to get what they want past through. So maybe this person is good at manipulating a bureaucracy, manipulating a government system, manipulating their family, manipulating their friends, manipulating people in their company, you know? Manipulating giant masses of crowds, the way that politicians sometimes do. And manipulation could of course be bad. It doesn't necessarily have to be used towards evil, it could also be used towards good. So manipulation is kinda like a tool or tactic that can be used. It's an ability that people have, you know. Some people are good manipulators, other people are bad manipulators. If you're a bad manipulator, it's gonna be hard for you to become successful! And if you're not very clever about how you do your manipulations, and if you're not very clever at thinking around obstacles and problems, then you'll just gonna hit an obstacle, and it's gonna look to you like just a giant brick wall. And you're not gonna be clever enough to realize: "Oh! I can walk around it! Or I can dig my way under it! Or I can bash my way through with a sledgehammer!" See? That requires some cleverness. Very important, because you're gonna have a lot of obstacles on your journey towards success. Another characteristic is creativity. Successful people are highly creative people! And I don't just mean here a creativity on the artsy sense, of like "He's very imaginative and poetic". I don't mean creative in that sense. Although that's a great atribute to have. I mean more in the more fundamental definition of creativity; meaning like, you can create stuff. That's what it basically means. The ability to create. Not just in the arts, but anywhere! In business or anywhere else. Successful people are creative people, they create lots of stuff! And speaking of which, another point that goes along this, is that creative people generate massive value. What this means is, they don't just impact tens of people, or hundreds of people; they impact thousands, or milions, or even bilions of people! With their work, or with their ideas, with their speeches or with whatever. You need to generate massive quantities of value in today's world in order to become successful. Also, successful people have a training in technical skills. STRONG training in technical skills. They're willing to train hard to develop their technnical skills. In whatever field they are trying to master and become successful at. This is a big obstacle for many people, 'cause many people just assume that "If I just put in my time, if just go to work and punch the clock then that's gonna be enough to make me successful!". And the truth is that it won't. What you need to do is something called "deliberate practice", where you deliberately, methodically practice certain set of skills over and over and over again, until you master it finally. And this takes a lot of hard work. Which most people are not willing to do. But successful people are, and they invest thousands of hours mastering the technical skills. What do I mean by "technical skills"? Well, if you're a computer programmer it's the programming skills, if you're a speaker, it's speaking skills, if you're an actor it's acting skills, if you're a secretarious, typing skills; you know, whatever. Every single carrier or field that you're gonna be successful in has a certain set of technical skills that needs to be mastered to perfection! And that takes a lot of deliberate practice to do, which most people are not willing to do. Most people are mediocre because they have mediocre technical skills. Also, successful people value excellence above the mediocre people. They really want to do excellent work. They take pride in their work. They have this sense of being the best at what they do, or doing something really exceptionally well. That gives them a certain joy and a certain satisfaction that the mediocre person, I don't see having! To the mediocre person, doing a average, piss-poor job is good enough. And that just doesn't cut if you wanna be successful. Also, successful people have vision! They are visionaries! This means that they can see a big, bright picture of what the future should look like. For them, for their life, for their followers, for their businness partners, for their customers. They see into the future. That's a very powerful skill to develop. Also, they're leaders! Because they have this vision, now they lead people. And they don't necessarily need to be leading milions of people; there are successful people who lead very few people. But nevertheless, they are leaders! Because what they're doing, fundamentally, is they're carving their own path through life. And they are on the cutting-edge of their field. And they're not content to just be followers. They don't just pick someone to follow and follow that person to success. No, they do a bit of that, but ultimately they have to break off from anyone they followed in their life, and they have to break off on their own, and do it themselves! Their own way! And that usually means some new unique way that hasn't been done before! That where the iconoclasm comes in, that's where the clever thinking comes in. See, all these points, they all synergise together. One requires the other in many cases. Also, I found that successful people are intuitive, more so than the average person. They know how to use their intuition. They are guided by their heart and by their gut, more than just by their logical mind. They're right brain thinkers, they're holistic thinkers; they can take in and assess multiple variables, in a kind of a complex, holistic way. And then they can get this big picture view of what needs to be done. And sometimes it just comes as a gut feeling! They don't even know where it comes from, but you know, a good entrepreneur just get this gut feeling, like: "We need to enter this new market place". Or, "We need to change our marketing this way", or "We need to launch this new product that nobody says people would want, but I just feel like the market wants this product!". And then they end up being right, because they're using that intuition there. Also, successful people are decisive! This is a huge point! Most mediocre people are highly indecisive! They don't know how to choose between this career, or that career. This major or that major. "I have 10 different majors, which major should I choose?" Or, "I can go into 5 different lines of business, which one should I choose?" Or, "I can go do this carrer or that carrer, which one should I choose?" Most people really hesitate there, they don't make a firm decision, and they're not clear about what they really want in life! And so, they get just that! They get a muddled result! A mediocre result! If you want a excellent result, you need to be very, very, crystal-clear about what you want. And that's what successful people manage to do. Also, they don't do what they do because of the money. If you think that you're gonna become successful because you're putting money first, and money is you top priority and your top goal, and that this will motivate you to become successful, you're really putting the cart before the horse. And you've got this whole equation backwards. And you're actually selling yourself short, and you will be far less sucessful than you could have otherwise been. For successful people it's not about the money! Sure; money can come as a byproduct, in fact lots of money can come as a byproduct, but that's not why they do what they do. Successful people are motivated because... They wanna impact the world. They wanna have a positive contribution to society. Maybe because they got a big ego and a lot of pride. And they wanna grow and expand, and aggrandize that ego. Which is not necessarily a very healthy drive, but still, that's superior to being driven by money alone. And of course, most successful people just love the actual work that they do! They're passionate about it! So it comes more or less naturally to them. Not because of the money. Also, successful people are focused! Highly focused. They are able to select one field or domain and invest years of time and build up a lot of experience in that one field. Whereas mediocre people bounce around and dabble a lot, and they never master any one field because they lack focus. Think of successful people like a laser beam, and mediocre people like a diffuse light bulb. Shining in all directions. Also, successful people are ambitious! They have a desire to be the best. This point might sound very similar to the point I made earlier about valuing excellence. But I think there's something unique and different here, about this point of ambitiousness. What I see is that to be successful you have to have a sense of ambition. It's like you wanna rise to the top. It's almost an ego thing. And I'm not saying that this is necessarily the healthiest drive; but there's this kind of desire to be the best, to be the top of your field. To be the one who accomplishes something really great and extraordinary. That's what we call ambition. You need that, in order to actually rise to the top! 'Cause how can you compete with other ambitious people if you yourself are not ambitious? It's not gonna work. Also, successful people have a rapid speed of implementation. Which means that as soon as they hear an idea, or they have a great idea, they go off and they immediately start to implement that idea. They don't just sit around and philosophize, and theorize, and do armchair philosophy with their social circle. They don't just talk about it; they actually go out and do it! They implement it! They have a bias towards action. Rather than sitting and thinking. 'Cause when you sit and think a lot, you get into paralysis by analysis. Right? And if you get into that situation, then you're not actually out there doing stuff, which means you're not actually creating success. So they avoid that trap. And a lot of mediocre people do the whole paralysis by analysis thing, and they also sit around and mull over ideas for years, without actually doing anything. Also, I find successful people are opinionated! They have firm and strong opinions. Because they have firm and strong values and beliefs. Because, of course, they are decisive! And the other point that goes along with this, is that they have a spine! Successful people have a spine. Which means that they stand up for themselves, and their values, and their beliefs, and their ideas. They don't just meekly sit in a corner, while everybody else is out there talking and implementing and you know, taking charge. They're the ones who stand up and take charge. It's the mediocre people that sit in a corner, and quietly think about their own values and ideas and never have the courage to stand up and fight for what they really believe in! It's quite important. Because, if you don't have spine, then what will happen is, other people will just overpower you! Institutions... popular culture... your friends, the media, all this kind of stuff will just come in and then overpower you! And you will never have a chance; it will be like a tidal wave hitting you and knocking you down, to the ground. You need to have a very firm spine. Also, successful people are optmistic and hopeful. Fundamentally, they believe in themselves. They believe that they can! And they believe that... people around them can! And they believe that society can. Now this is a subtle point which is different from depression. So when I say "optimistic" and "hopeful", I don't mean that this is to the exclusion of depression, a lot of successful people are actually quite depressed! A lot of successful people kill themselves from depression! But I still think that fundamentally they're hopeful. Because they still belive, at least in some capacity, that either they can do it, or somebody else can do it, or they have some kind of positive outlook in the sense that like, they believe in science, or they believe in technology, or they believe in arts, or they believe in the power of writing, or they believe in the power of humanity to reform itself. Something hopeful like that. Because, if you can't believe in any of these things and you can't believe in yourself, then how are you gonna accomplish anything? You're not gonna become successful if you don't honestly believe that you can become successful! You have to have at least that much hope! Even if you're depressed! Depression is kind of a separate issue. Also, successful people are courageous. Which means that they are willing to act in the face of fear. It doesn't mean that they don't have fear; they have plenty of fear. But the difference is that they're gonna ACT even though they're afraid. They don't let the fear paralyse, or stop them, or scare them away. Also, successful people value knowledge and learning. In some capacity. It doesn't necessarily need to be book smarts, it could be street smarts. It could be learning from your coworkers. Or learning in a social environment. Or learning from brute trial and error experience! But they have to value learning and knowlege, because without learning and knowledge you're not gonna get very far, you're not gonna master anything, you're not gonna be able to develop technical skills! And you're not gonna be good at anything! So you have to value knowledge and learning, at least in some capacity, at least within your field. If not across the board. Successful people are willing to endure the cost. And they're willing to make sacrifices to get success. Success comes with certain sacrifices in many cases. Not always, don't make it a limiting belief; but there generally are sacrifices! People who work hard and long usually don't have as much fun, they don't socialize as much, they don't have as much sex, they don't party as much, they don't drink as much, they don't do a lot of entertaining stuff as much, they don't spend as much time with family! Their relationships could suffer. Are of these things are sacrifices that successful people are willing to make. And when it comes down to a choice between all of these things and success, they will select success. Whereas to mediocre people, usually this trade-off goes the other way. They would rather have the socializing, the partying, the fun, the entertainment, and the relationships than success. And that's exactly usually what they get. Also, successful people are highly self motivated! Intrinsically motivated versus extrinsically motivated. Intrinsic motivation means that you're fueled from the inside. Nobody has to kick you in the ass to tell you what to do. You do it yourself, you kick yourself in the ass! And this is where successful people can actually turn this into a neurosis, is that they actually beat themselves up too much! They guilt themselves too much, they push themselves too hard! Then they have a heart attack, or something like this. Or they burn out. But they have this very strong self motivation streak. Also, successful people are long-term thinkers. They think ten years down the road. Not just one year down the road, they way most people do. You have to be a long term thinker in order be successful, because to be successful you need to spend at least five or ten years developing some sort of proficiency or excellence in some kind of field! How are you gonna do that, if you don't plan five, ten years down the road? It's almost impossible! Which is why mediocre people struggle so much with this, is because they only think 1 year down the road! If even that far. And so, they're no able to master, basically, anything of value. And so, they have nothing of value to offer to the world, and so the world offers them no success, back in return. I also find that successful people are pragmatic. What does this mean? This means they're practical! They're more practical than they are ideological or idealistic. They don't just sit and espouse grand theories of politics, or religion, and business, and all this kind of stuff. All the theories, those are nice. But when you actually go out into the real world and you try to create real success and real results, you realize very quickly that if you're not willing to be pragmatic and align yourself to the realities of the market place, the realities of the political climate, the realities of the time you're living in, the realities of the organization you're trying to create change in, then nothing happens! All your wishful thinking and all your philosophies and theories, they mean very little, if you're not willing to be pragmatic! If you're not willing to compromise certain elements of your ideology to get stuff push through! Sometimes, this means compromising your integrity a little bit, in favour of pushing something through. Not always will you get it YOUR way! Not always will the perfect scenario just materialize for you, and this is exactly how it's gonna be, and it's gonna be the perfect movie, the perfect project, the perfect business situation, the perfect loan, the perfect financing, rarely do you get the perfect! When you're trying to achieve something big. Usually, you have to cut corners and make sacrifices there. And this requires a willingness to be practica! Versus ideological. And lastly, successful people work for themselves. This point is interesting, because certainly there are a lot of successful people who are not just self-employed. So, I don't mean that all successful people are self-employed, even though many are. What I mean is, even if they're working for a organization, or they're working in the government, if they're successful, they're not working FOR the government or FOR the organization, they're really working for themselves! WITHIN the government or WITHIN the organization. They're fundamentally advancing their own agenda! Not the organization's agenda! People who are loyal to the organization's agenda usually are like cogs in the machine. And they don't make it very far. They don't make the best leaders! The best leaders are a little bit egotistical, and they're a little bit narcissistic, and they're a little bit selfish! And these qualities turn out to be effective when you're trying to rise to the top. Those are the 27 points. How did you compare? Take a look, write them down. Make a list of notes. And then maybe you can even make an assessment and see, rank yourself in a scale of 1 to 10, how good are you on each one of these 27 points? And I guarantee that if you're good across the board, and you only miss a couple of them, then you're in line for a big success in your life. And if you're missing many of these, then you're gonna struggle with success a lot! A lot, a lot. The good news is that all this stuff is changeable! You can work on all this stuff. Through self actualization work. Which is what this channel is about. My videos are about all of this. So if any of these points, you find like you're really deficient in, and you need to work on your self motivation, or your pragmatism, or you need to work on your courage, or your need to work on your passion, all of these things I have videos that talk about how to do this kind of stuff. So search around, find them. And if you don't find them, there's books about this, all this stuff is well known and well studied! So don't fret. Don't feel like just because you don't have one of these characteristics then you're stuck and screwed and that's it. It's not it! There's much, much, that you can do. Here I just wanted to give you a quick summary of what it takes to really be successful. Alright, that's it. I'm signing off. Please, click the "like" button for me! Post your comments down below. Share this video with a friend. 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