8 Secrets of Success [VIDEO] by Richard St. John

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What are the secrets of success?

Why do some people succeed seemingly overnight?

Is it because they’re smart, or are they just lucky?

Analyst Richard St. John condenses years of interviews into an unmissable 3-minute presentation on the real secrets of success. The video is based on his book.

Watch this insightful 3-minute video about what are the critical success factors? Seven years and 250 interviews to find out what makes TEDsters tick helped to uncover the following key points. Now, what are the secrets of success?

8 Secrets of success summary

Create processes in your life that help you succeed. Processes become habits, and habits bring you results. Focus on what you are putting in every day, and the results take care of themselves. I added success quotes to the points to help you better understand the standards for success.

1. Passion

You do it because you really really want to do it.

Passion can come from within when you want to grow yourself. Maybe you want to become a better writer. Or it may be something you see that you think needs changing. Clean up the world oceans or put a man on Mars. Sometimes you want to help others. Educate kids or give shelter to others.

Go out into the world with your passion and love for what you do, and just never give up. ~ Dianne Reeves

But sometimes you don’t have the passion to begin with. Just put in the work, and as you get better, you will find the passion.

Action Item:

Identify a goal or cause that matters to you and commit to consistent effort, even if initial passion is lacking. As you improve and make progress, your passion will naturally develop and grow.

2. Work

Hard work and having fun doing it.

Some work is fun. I sometimes lose myself in my work for hours. Sometimes it’s not! When the going gets tough, take it as a willpower exercise. The hard feeling is in your head. Learn to deal with it, and you can do anything. Hard work may also mean long hours. Build up your stamina to last longer than others.

I have tried to make work more palatable by taking it as a willpower exercise. As when you go to the gym and work out to put on some muscle, the individual reps may not be especially enjoyable. But you get the feeling of accomplishment, and you know you took another step towards your goals.

Action Item:

Approach challenging tasks as opportunities to build willpower and stamina, just like a workout. Embrace the tough moments as mental exercises, and focus on the sense of accomplishment and progress towards your goals.

2A. Be s0 good they can’t ignore you

Being damn good about the thing you do. Practice, all the time.

The only way you will get better is repeatedly doing the things that are hard to do. Practice the things you struggle with. Deliberately challenge yourself until you master the skills you need. And then keep going to achieve true mastery.

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all. ~ Michelangelo

Action Item:

Commit to continuous practice, especially on tasks that challenge you, to develop and refine your skills. Embrace deliberate practice and persistent effort to achieve and maintain true mastery in your field.

3. Focus

Make up your mind and do that one thing with all you’ve got. Always single-task.

I’ve had the problem of doing too many things at once for a long time. I still have problems focusing. Everything is so interesting. But focusing on one thing will get you results faster than you can imagine. On a smaller scale, do one thing at the time.

• Don’t multitask!
• Avoid distractions.
• Turn off notifications.

Take time to focus.

You can’t foucus in 5 minutes. Find ways to do deep work, where you can put your head down and work on something for several hours. The results you will get are incredible.

Check out the book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide a sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship.

In short, deep work is like a superpower in our increasingly competitive 21-century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep, spending their days in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there’s a better way.

Action Item:

Commit to single-tasking by focusing on one task at a time, eliminating distractions, and turning off notifications. Schedule uninterrupted blocks of time for deep work to achieve better results and master complex skills.

4. Push

Make yourself go. Don’t stop mentally, physically. Through doubts and shyness.

Just go! Self-doubt, the nay-sayers, people who do not believe in you. The times you fail at something. Every time you fall, get up! Just keep going!

Instead of letting the hard times get me down, I’ve learned to keep going at to look for the hidden good. ~ Paul J. Meyer

Action Item:

Push yourself to keep moving forward despite doubts, shyness, or setbacks. Embrace resilience by getting up after every fall and seeking the hidden good in challenging times.

5. Ideas

Notice things around you, be curious, solve problems, make connections.

Become an idea machine. Make your brain work on overdrive. Getting better at generating ideas is something you can train. The first thing in the morning, come up with 10 ideas. Every day! Read about how to become an idea machine in this James Altucher blog post.

• Every morning sit down and write 10 ideas about anything
• Do this 100 days in a row or forever
• You can toss the ideas or give them to someone who may use them

In a year, you will have 3650 ideas. Most of them are crap. The ideas are rarely worth the paper you write them on.

But you have become an idea machine. Whenever you have to come up with ideas, you have no trouble at all.

As a bonus, you may have helped a friend with your ideas.

Creative thinking inspires ideas. Ideas inspire change. ~ Barbara Januszkiewicz

Action Item:

Every morning, write down 10 ideas about anything to train your brain to generate ideas continuously. Commit to this practice for at least 100 days to become an idea machine, enhancing your problem-solving skills and creative thinking.

6. Improve

Continuous improvement is the key to all significant accomplishments. Most people can run a marathon below 4 hours. It takes time to get there, but almost everybody can do it. It will take about 8 to 12 months to reach this goal. Step by step, improving every day. If you haven’t run in your life and you are 100 pounds overweight, then it will take a year longer, but you will still get there.

Whatever you do, when you improve:

• 1 percent per day you will improve 37 times by the end of the year
• 1 percent a week you will improve 67 percent by the end of the year
• 1 percent every month you will improve 12.6 percent by the end of the year and 3.3 times in 10 years

For most activities, 1% per day is unrealistic. But run 1% faster every week will get you a lot faster by the end of the year. Increase your net worth 1% per month by investing and saving. In 10 years, your net worth will more than triple.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. ~ Ernest Hemingway

Action Item:

Commit to continuous improvement by setting incremental goals, such as aiming for 1% progress each week in your chosen activity. Track your progress regularly, understanding that consistent, small improvements will lead to significant accomplishments over time.

7. Serve

Give others something of value.

Maybe sometimes your motivation is money. It’s OK! The first thing you have to do in an emergency on an airplane is to put the oxygen mask on, then help others.

The same applies to your personal finances. If you have nothing to give you are in no position to help. But when you start to make ends meet, help those more unfortunate.

And of course, you can always help with a kind word or lending a hand.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. ~ Charles Dickens

Action Item:

Focus on achieving financial stability so you can help others effectively, whether through monetary support or simple acts of kindness. Once your needs are met, extend value to those in need by offering assistance, kind words, or resources.

8. Persist

Go through failures, criticism, rejection, assholes, pressure, just don’t give up.

Set up your standards for success in a way that depend on you and not on the approval of others. Deconstruct your big goals in a way that you can complete smaller goals every day. Your standards will make your road to success easier as you stay motivated.

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. ~ Winston Churchill

Above all Trust Yourself: Arnold Schwarzenegger Six Rules – Many of us are insecure. We feel like hacks. Check out 6 rules of success that help you fulfill your dreams.

To persist in the economic crisis check out the steps I used in the last downturn and follow now.

Action Item:

Set personal standards for success based on your own efforts and progress, not on external approval. Break down your big goals into manageable daily tasks, maintaining motivation and resilience through failures and criticism by focusing on these smaller achievements.

The 8 Traits Successful People Have in Common: 8 to Be Great

The secrets of success book is called “The ultimate guide to success.” It’s an inspiring and practical guide to achievement that makes success understandable. Richard St. John spent 10 years researching success and doing interviews with Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Robin Williams, Martha Stewart, Steven Spielberg, the Google founders, five Nobel Prize winners, and 500 other super successful people.

From that, he discovered the 8 traits of successful people, and these “8 To Be Great” are the foundation for success in any career. The so-called secrets of successful people. Check it out on Amazon.

Richard St. John – Marketer, success analyst

An average guy who found success doing what he loved, Richard St. John spent more than a decade researching the lessons of success — and distilling them into 8 words, 3 minutes and one successful book. He spent the next ten years researching success and asking over 500 extraordinarily successful people in many fields, what helped them succeed. This led to his 8 secrets of success.

“It’s so great. It’s such a boost of confidence. The secrets of success book really gives you a lot of self-esteem about who you are, and that you really can be somebody.” — Thomas Fischer, Habitat for Humanity

When you are interested in this book, then you might want to read another willpower book from this list.

Bonus 1: How to Succeed if 9 in 10 Businesses Fail?

Have you heard somebody say that 9 out of 10 businesses fail in a few years? How to succeed then? It is really that simple: to beat these odds; you have to start 10 times.

Happily, for entrepreneurs, this “fact” is total BS, and you shouldn’t worry much about that.

The real numbers from the US census show that about half of the businesses make it to year 5. What is even more encouraging is that 1/3 is still in business after 10 years. It is also important to note that these companies do not all crash and burn. Yes, some go bankrupt, but others are shut down because of other reasons.

So, go ahead, start now!

Bonus 2: The 3 Secrets of Highly Successful Graduates

The other day, I found these slides on SlideShare. A really short and compelling story about how to understand what you want to do and how to get there. The slides are not just for the people who have just graduated. Developing yourself and growing is a lifelong habit.

The 3 Secrets of Highly Successful Graduates by Reid Hoffman: Today’s graduates don’t feel ready for the new world of work. I share three things that successful professionals eventually figure out about their careers. https://www.startupofyou.com

The presentation touches many of the tips I have written about over the last month:

• Help others
• Act now!
• List your interests
• Build your network
• Learn something new

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