Are you on the Road to Success?

Adam Toren suggests that there are five principles to get on the road to success. In an article in Entrepreneur, here, he says that although it depends on whom you ask, success means different things to different people and the first step in achieving success is often deciding what it means to you.

People who want to be successful often copy the behaviours of the great [and successful] ones who came before them. According to Mr Toren, these behaviours include:

• Follow your talents.
  It’s helpful to be passionate about your pursuits, but passion without talent is like a car without a full tank of fuel – it won’t get you as far as you want to go. The book The Element by Ken Robinson discusses this: no matter what you are good at – whether it’s writing, drawing, computer coding or motivational speaking – focus on that area and keep pursuing it.
• Focus your quest.
  In this day and age, the quest for greatness in one area has taken a backseat to the concept of universal genius, or the ability to accomplish greatness in many areas. While a nice notion, this quest for universal genius is one that is destined to fail. The road to success for some can be this simple: focus your quest on one big goal, and remember that a jack-of-all-trades is usually a master of none.
• Limit your options.
  Our affinity for keeping options open can unfortunately lead us to limit ourselves because it paves a road to mediocrity, rather than one to success. It’s much better to limit your options – making a commitment to one path or goal can lead you to try harder – and potentially be more successful in your efforts.
• Work toward meaningful goals.
  In the late Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey researched the difference between the average person and the extraordinary person. He found that those who were able to achieve greatness understood the difference between efficiency and effectiveness.
• Never give up.
  The vast majority of successful people were huge failures at one point in their lives: Walt Disney went bankrupt, Benjamin Franklin dropped out of school at age 10 and Theodor Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) had his first book rejected by 27 publishers. Success comes from hard work, resilience and determination.

What do you think?

In the book Outliers, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. How does Gladwell arrive at this conclusion? And, if the conclusion is true, how can we leverage this idea to achieve greatness in our professions?

Read my earlier blog on this.

Back to success: What do we mean by “successful”? Everyone has their own idea. It could be making lots of money, building up a valuable business, becoming famous, making a difference to people, enjoying life, having more holidays, more security or a mixture of these.  But most people agree on at least three things. They want:

• More profit
• More fun (or less hassle)
• Less time at work (more life)

Your own strategy for success should aim at what you want for your life, and what you want your business to do for you.

Bizezia has a publication on achieving success in business: 130 Reasons why some people are much, much more successful in business than others. Some of these reasons come from mega-successful entrepreneurs while others come from working with small businesses, over the last 40 years.

If you would like a copy of this publication, please email me at: mpollins@bizezia.com