Top 9 Traits of Successful People

Why do people succeed? Is it because they're smart? Or are they just lucky? Actually Neither. It is because they have developed certain traits. Traits that seems that have been proven again and again to lead to success.

The people who coach with me are usually looking to succeed in aspects of their life or work. Often they want to have more impact at work or change their career path, but don't know how.

That prompted me one day ago to closely look at What are the traits of Successful People. I decided to take an eclectic approach in my research and combine the findings of 4 experts in the field, well 3 and a half: Richard St John, Sri Sri Ravishankar, Stepehn Covey and myself.

Richard St John is the founder of the St John Marketing group and he spend a whole decade researching the question of success by interviewing 500 successful and famous people.

Sri Sri Ravishankar is one of today’s most prominent spiritual leaders and has spoken about the 12 traits of good leadership

Stephen Covey is a Harvard Graduate, Professor at Utah University and the author of the book of ‘The Seven Traits of Highly Effective People”

Myself, 20 years of experience as manager, coach and trainer.

And this is what they (we) came up with. Here are the top 9 Traits:

Passion – Do it for the love, or love what you do, the money will follow

Hard Work - successful people say it’s all hard work but they also claim to have a lot of fun.
Most successful people are Workafrolics

Get Good – Put your nose down and Get good at it, sets example for others, walk the talk and practice what you preach

Persistance – Be proactive, go beyond your comfort zone – you will need to persist through failure, criticism, rejection, fears, doubt, pressure and annoying people around you, but there is no other way

Focus – Focus on one thing at the time, don’t try to do too many things at once, be alert, begin with the end in mind

Ideas - seek to understand rather then be understood, listen, observe, be curious, then act

Serve – serve something of value to your customers, your employees, your colleagues, the community

Making Money – Invite it, plan for it, it but don’t obsess about it

Awareness – get to know yourself, your strength, your weaknesses, your motivations, fears and limiting thoughts, look at them AND then DON’T JUDGE – Accept them, acknowledge them and MOVE ON

That’s it. Those are the 9 traits most commonly cited by successful people and those who have observed them. That’s how they do it. And so can you. Good luck!