All Successful People Do This...And You Too Can Do It
"Successful people don't use success tactics."
This is one of the most frustrating and prevalent pieces of advice out there today. It's been repeated ad nauseam, from your grandmother to other people on your Facebook feed. Some will even quote Gandhi or the Bible to prove their point.
But what does it mean? Do successful people just not use common sense? Or are they in for some grave tragedy if they do use a certain strategy? Successful people are using these "success tactics" - but it's not true that success comes easy if you only do that.
I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
People who are successful are the only people who get quoted as saying these things. You won't hear unsuccessful people talking about this because they can't afford the time or money to tell their story. If you ask a chick in a struggling marriage what she thinks of advice like "just love your spouse" she's probably not going to give it a very high rating. She's probably not even going to believe that it really helps; because her life sucks and giving love is just too hard when she doesn't feel like it . If you ask a rich and powerful man how he got to where he is, however, he's going to give you a much more positive answer.
The successful people are the only ones in the position to talk about success tactics. They're the only people who have a chance of being successful.
I'm someone who wants to be successful, and so I've done some deep thinking and research into what it really means to succeed in life. I've tried out various different success tactics, and have come away with a lot of knowledge that I would love to share with you today.
1) Be born smart/talented/good looking
This is where you have an advantage over me. I'm not very smart and I was never particularly good looking. Sure, I have a few good qualities, but I wouldn't be willing to give up on being unsuccessful just so that I could go to the gym. Instead, I'd train my ass off until it's as tight as possible and then just see what happens.
By the way, there are thousands of other people in this world who don't do that.
2) Be born rich
A lot of people will tell you that you have to have something special and unique about yourself to help your success along. If you're not so great on one side of your brain and really terrible on the other, then you probably won't make it in Hollywood. If you don't know how to speak French, you can't make it as a caterer. You have to have something special to succeed.
Well, if that was true then I wouldn't be doing this right now! Everyone has something special about them - nothing is unique about us all. We all get the same amount of opportunities and are given just as many chances as everyone else . But the different between successful people and unsuccessful people isn't what they are born with - it's how much they use their abilities.
3) Be born a certain way
This is where I get really annoyed with these people. "It's not your fault, it's just genetics!" they say. "You've always been an introvert and that would have made you a total failure." Well, maybe , but then again maybe not - being introverted is probably just genetics and in no way an excuse for doing nothing with your life.
There are plenty of people who were born to be very successful (in their own view), but due to all sorts of circumstances such as downsizing their company or getting divorced, they became unsuccessful in many ways.
If you go to a doctor and talk to him, he's going to tell you that it's not your fault. It's probably all genetics. It's something you have no control over. But despite what this book says, genetics can get you nowhere if you're not willing to use them to your advantage.
4) Market yourself like crazy
This is the only one of these that I can agree with unreservedly . I don't think it would be hard to market yourself like crazy, if you really wanted to. You can do a podcast and a blog, you can write articles on your website, you can put things up on social media - it's not that difficult. That said, I don't think that people who do this are truly serious about their success. I'm talking about people who spend a lot of their time marketing themselves, but who refuse to do anything else with their life . They are like small time celebrities who put up a series of marketing sites and never go out there to actually learn something or do anything themselves.
5) Be a genius/a hard worker
This one is the most important one. If you can be born smart and born talented, then you have to decide whether you're going to use these traits to your advantage (whatever those advantages may be). And if you're not going to sit down and figure out the best ways in which you could use those traits, then you can forget about them being beneficial to your success.
People who are successful will use their faculties in interesting and new ways. If you're a musician, then you should be working on making interesting music. If you're a programmer, then you should be trying to come up with new and inventive ways to use the programming skills you already have. I'm not saying that it's OK to just play with your time and resources - that's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that if we just try out various different things, we'll probably find something that we really like doing and can get serious about.
6) Just work hard
This one is also very important if you want to be successful. If you're going to be a successful business owner, then you're have to recognize that there's a lot involved in that. You'll have to work hard during the week when your business is not doing so well. You'll have to work hard on weekends. You'll have to work hard at night . And you'll need a strong work ethic if you want to be successful at it - which means having the discipline and willpower necessary, as well as being able to put in enough time, energy and care into your business so that it grows and thrives.
It's easy for us [unsuccessful people] to just not care about our lives.
Conclusion
I've had a few people tell me that this article is probably a mistake, given that I haven't been successful in life. I would agree with them if I actually thought there was something wrong with me. But what I think is that there's nothing wrong with me, other than the fact that I'm not willing to just quit my job and see what happens. I have a family who depends on my income, and it's just not worth it for me to gamble everything else away by gambling myself. I'll be honest - it scares the hell out of me to even consider changing my situation.