What Makes a Person Successful? These 12 Things

Success can mean different things, depending who you ask. For some people it means having a lot of money. For others, it means being able to work from anywhere they choose, like the French Polynesian beach above or a mountaintop cabin or in the middle of a bustling city or from all of these places. Other people equate success with the privilege of doing work they love, regardless of the salary or benefits. And still others won't feel successful until others know their name, and they leave behind a "brand" legacy. 

This week, a journalist asked me to name five things that make an author successful. And to be honest, I had a difficult time narrowing it down to five things. You can hear those things in the video I created for that journalist. It is below.
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In the video I talk about tenacity, which includes an unrelenting drive and persistence to reach your goals. Brendon Burchard also talked about those things on Amy Porterfield's podcast this week, when they discussed 6 High Performance Habits to Transform Your Life and Business. You can listen to that hour-long. inspiring podcast right here. 

In my opinion and experience, the things I think people need to be successful (as author or business people or in any endeavor are the following, in no particular order):

1) Tenacity. No one starts succeeding from day one. All businesses and building anything take work and dedication. Setbacks will happen. How will you handle them? Will they discourage you or will they strengthen your reserve? Without the drive to strive towards our goals, we will never succeed in anything. 
2) Willingness to Learn and Listen to Experts. Someone always knows more than you do about everything. Every top athlete has a coach and most likely has had multiple coaches. Even those at the top of their games can improve and get even better. It's a fact in sport and a fact in life. Surround yourself by those who know more than you. Learn from them. Be a sponge an absorb the lessons and incorporate them into your life and work. If you live life right, it is a journey of never-ending self improvement (not because we are in a state of lack but because the universe is so rich that we can never learn everything.) Open yourself to the abundance of opportunities and education that is all around you. 
3) Openness to Opportunities (and to see every interaction you have as a potential opportunity). I have been hired to do work I didn't know existed because I always remain open to opportunities. Be willing to listen to meet new people and to listen to their stories. Politely ask questions to show your interest. Seek ways you can learn and work with others to create amazing products and services. You never know what kinds of positive opportunities will "fall" into your life unless you are open to receiving them. 
4) Willingness to Collaborate. Some of my best-written and selling books have been collaborations, where our energy feeds off of each other and our creativity is boosted by our brainstorming. Collaborations also help us succeed more because we can work with people whose strengths shore up our weakness and vice versa. Often more eyes on a project means fewer errors. 
5) Basic Marketing Know-how. I am not saying to get an MBA in marketing, but to understand the basics of how to get yourself, your products, and your name in front of others. Excellent classes can be taken for cheap for free on LinkedIn, Coursera, Udemy, and others, teaching you social media 101 and the fundamentals of marketing and public relations. All of it will give you ideas of how to reach your audience or customers. 
6) Knowledge of Correct Grammar and Punctuation. The former English professor in me celebrates this one as no one responds as favorably to letters or e-mails or social media posts that are a mess of mispellings and mistakes. And if you are a writer, no agent, editor, or publisher will waste their time reviewing a manuscript with great ideas if the delivery method makes it painful to decipher. Use spelling and grammar check in your word processing software or e-mail program. Use Grammarly if you need more professional help. You know whether grammar and punctuation and spelling are strengths or areas that need improvement for you. Be honest with yourself and use what's available if you need it. 
7) Goals. It may seem obvious but if you don't create goals to strive towards and a plan to reach the goal, you will never be a success. Think about it in tangible terms. Let's say you want to lose 10 pounds. Wanting to do something and hoping isn't a strategy. In order to lose 10 pounds you'd need to set that as a goal and add a specific date to reach it, and then create an action plan. It might look like: establish current weight by stepping on scale, increase exercise by walking one more mile or 1000 steps more than usual each day, decrease amount of carbs every day and replace that by a fresh vegetable, drink no soda and limit alcohol to X, and drink eight full glasses of water every day. All of these steps combined will lead your towards your goal if you stick with them. 
8) Find Internal Motivation. In order to reach any kind of goal or to achieve success, you have to find internal motivation, something that means so much to you that can drive your actions. For example, some people are driven by the idea of providing for their families the most they can or others want to reach a level of success so they can repay their parents or buy them a house or still others want to see their names in lights or hear the applause of 10,000 people. What do you really, really, really want and why? Let that drive you towards success and keep that internal motivation in mind when the going gets tough--because it will. 
9) Vision. Regardless of what you think of Elon Musk as a human being, you have to admit the guy has vision. This vision is what drives him to make all of his companies successful. The same can be said of Sir Richard Branson, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos. They all at one point or another saw how things could be and strove to make those visions reality and that drove their success. Martha Beck teaches that if we keep envisioning an outcome we want our brains think we have achieved it so it makes it easier to reach the goal in real life. Athletes use this techinque often to picture themselves on the podium. What visions do you have? Do you see yourself getting the accolades or deals you want?  
10) Have a Cheerleader in Your Corner. Successful people surround themselves with people who want them to reach their goals. These people will cheer you on when the going is tough and keep you motivated. They may not always be "yes" people but they have your best interests at heart and are they saying, "You can do this! You've got it! I believe in you." 
11) Have an Accountability Partner. An accountability partner holds you to the goals and plan you set for yourself. They ask for progress reports and offer encouragement and advice when you need it. You may meet with the person (or talk with them over the phone or on video) weekly or monthly or even daily depending on your needs. But they are always there for you and you for them, as it is reciprocal relationship, where you each report out to and encourage each other in the most authentic way. 
12) Understand How You Define Success. Attaining success is super difficult if you don't know what success means for you, personally. Without a clear definition of personal success, you will keep striving and never reach your end goal. This may make you frustrated and feel like a failure. Define success for yourself in tangible results. Then, after your reach those goals you can declare yourself a success. (And if you feel the need, you can always say, "I am a success, but I still want to strive for more," and you can set a new goal. One guy I know wanted to make his company a seven-figure company and that's when he'd know he made it. He did and decided that he wanted to share the recipe for success with others, so he has started a new consulting company to help others reach similar goals. That doesn't mean his original company isn't growing; it reached eight figures recently. But he's getting additional satisfaction by paying it forward and guiding others in how to attain success in their industry.