Things I Have Learned from the Most Successful People I Know

I have been fortunate in my life to have learned from some of the most successful people in business on the planet.  I write down little things they say and the way they act.  This is a compilation of 17 truths I have recorded over the years.  It's a great reminder or maybe a new thought.

1.  You must be in a business you know and understand.  Most people fail in business because they don’t actually know what they are doing.  It’s why franchises exist.  To help people who know nothing about what they are about to do, succeed with proper support.  People fail in business because they don’t know what they are doing and they are just in business to make money.  That is the worst possible motivation. 

2.  You MUST love what you do.  If you don’t love it, you will stop doing it. 

3.  Never ever give up.  Keep on. Don’t quit when it gets hard.  When life knocks you down, get up and keep going.  Don’t ever blame others for your situation.  It mutes the drive of your recovery. 

4.  Stay focused on the task at hand.  Don’t let distractions, those bright shiny things, squirrels and endless bunny trails take you off the path to success.  Diversions are not just costly, they are deadly.  Stick to your knitting.

5.  Be a little paranoid.  There are people are just plain bad for you and some are trying to hurt you.  Measure twice and cut once.  Trust but verify. 

6.  Being nice isn’t always a virtue. Kindness is.  Cruel to be kind isn’t just a song.

7.  Be a contrarian to go against the tide ONLY if you know you have the ability to follow it through. 

8.  Trust your gut instincts IF you have the ability to follow thru to success.

9.  Not everyone is cut out to do what others do.  Never imitate.  There is only one Elon Musk.  You are you, be that.  Some are not emotionally equipped to be in business for themselves.  Know yourself, be yourself.

10.  Know your capacity for risk taking.  If you aren’t wired for risk, don’t take it.  If you can’t sleep at night because of the risks you have to take to be in business for yourself, you shouldn’t take the risk.  Business is too much fun to make people miserable.

11.  Sometimes the most intelligent people have the most difficulty in business.  The constant risk reward calculation causes them to stumble.  They are always coming up with ways to avoid the risks or trying to increase the reward.  It’s a vicious cycle.  Being smart or well educated does not automatically make people a success in business for themselves.  Success in business has more to do with your emotional makeup than your intelligence.

12.  Get the very best people you can find to help you succeed.  Be careful NOT to trust them with your success.  You need to stay involved.  They must respect the vision (and you).  Tell the truth to yourself and to others about where you are headed.  If they are constantly pushing back, sometimes goodbye is a better strategy.

13.   Don’t let people step on you.  If you demonstrate toughness and cleverness they will be less likely to try to take advantage of you.  Don’t ever let people get away with taking advantage of you.  Push back when they do.

14.  There is such a thing as luck.  Good Fortune.  Grace.  Some people seem to just be more fortunate.  Why? What helps swing fortune your way is optimism.  The world is a discouraging place.  Believe it can be done.  Nothing can happen unless you try something.  If it fails, move on.  The harder you work, the luckier you will be.  You can’t win unless you are in the game.  Too many people go thru the motions in business as a spectator; Letting circumstance dictate their destiny.  You can’t celebrate victory unless you are on the playing field.

15.  Some people say they want to win, but secretly want to lose.  It is easier to say, “I tried” and fail than to succeed.  Success scares many people.  Get over your fear of success.  You deserve to win. 

16.  If you get into a business arrangement, partnership, corporation or joint venture as a business deal and it starts to go south, nothing you thought you understood or agreed to matters except what is on paper.  When it comes to conflicts, particularly in court, only what is written down matters.  He with the best documentation wins. A verbal agreement, even between good people, is not worth the paper it is written on.   I have learned this painful truth too many times.

17.  Think bigger.  If you play with pennies you win pennies.  If you play with dollars you win dollars, if you play with hundreds, you win hundreds.  Do fewer small deals.  They take just as much time and effort as the big ones.  Focus on the big deals.  There is the 10-10 rule.  IF a prospect can’t make a ten thousand dollar decision in ten minutes, move on.  It’s OK to do little deals if you have a system.  Just don’t do it yourself.  A $20,000 deal takes the same amount of time and effort as a $2000 deal.  You only have so much time and energy.