Everybody loves a good secret. In fact, the juicier, the better. Why? Because we all love being insiders. We love the feeling of exclusivity, of knowing something that’s just ours and no one else’s.
But in business, secrets do more than just stroke our egos.We just love having the upper hand and the “unfair advantage”.
What’s “the secret”? Well, there isn’t just one. But think about this…
Success is the uncommon application of common knowledge
In other words, when it comes to success, what matters isn’t so much learning something new but putting into practice what we already know.
Here are four not-so-secret secrets of insanely successful people…
1. They have a vision.
According to Warren Bennis’s classic On Becoming a Leader, leadership is “the capacity to translate vision into reality.” This means that success starts with answering a fundamental question, What do I really want?
Whether you call the answer to that question your mission statement, core values, brand identity or just your goals doesn’t really matter. Because “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Here’s how Bennis unpacks the idea: The leader has a clear idea of what he or she wants to do—professionally and personally—and the strength to persist in the face of setbacks, even failures.
The key word is “clear.” And clarity means writing it down.
Two of the most statistically significant factors that set the rich people apart from everyone else is that 81 percent of them maintain a to-do list and 80 percent focus on accomplishing a specific goal.
2. They are honest.
Successful people tell the truth.This sounds so obvious that you might think it doesn’t even need to be said. But in a climate where the pressure to look good, perform well, eke out profits and win by any means necessary is constantly increasing, honesty is becoming a scarce commodity.
And yet, honesty pays.
Taking responsibility for our mistakes and admitting when we’re wrong isn’t just relationally smart—it’s financially savvy.
As Warren G. Bennis wrote, “Leaders never lie to themselves, especially about themselves…. You are your own raw material.”
3. They show gratitude.
Without gratitude, you aren’t being mindful or totally thankful of the good things in life—and your perspective is probably skewed to the negative as a result. You might even have less motivation to go after more good things, if you aren’t grateful of the ones you already have.
We tend to think of gratitude as a spontaneous emotion, something that just happens to us in moments of triumph or success. In reality, gratitude is something we develop. It is something we make a wide-eyed, premeditated, self-determined decision to experience.
How? By actively looking for reasons to be grateful and second, by simply saying, “thank you.”
When we look for reasons to be grateful—when we make that our intentional focus—we find them. On top of that, when we call attention to those reasons, we cultivate gratitude; not only within ourselves but within our relationships with others.
4. They are adaptive.
Success isn’t about avoiding failure. It’s about learning from failure.
Take Thomas Edison’s famous quote about inventing the light bulb: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
If Plan A doesn’t work remember there are 25 other letters in the alphabet.
What makes the difference between success stories and the failures is that the successful entrepreneurs had the ability and the tools to discover which parts of their plans were working brilliantly and which weren’t, and adapt their strategies and tactics accordingly.”
All this means is that instead of hiding from failure, supere successful people anticipate and integrate failure into their lives in ways that transform it from an end into a means.
Putting It All Together
We all love a good secret. But the truth is, when it comes to success, there’s no such thing. So start small, but start today. Pick one of these four “secrets” and put it to work.
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Cecelia wanted to Take Charge of her own destiny so she incorporated herself as a business in 2003. She knew that network marketing was the right business for her because it offered low startup costs, played to her strengths; and it is portable and highly profitable if done right. With each company she tried she always struggled with business building – finding leads/prospects and creating the automation her upline talked about. That’s when in 2008 after getting laid off from her job she put her Masters Degree in Marketing and Information Systems to work. Through her search efforts she found a company that taught her how to leverage the Internet and the power of Social Media to consistently build an endless list of qualified leads and prospects that are interested in what she has to say and what she has to offer. She learned how to make people come to her using the Attraction Marketing Formula. Now a home business owner Cecelia’s mission is to empower her customers, clients, members, partners and friends with the opportunity to Take Charge of their own lives and create their own financial futures.
Contributor: success.com
