The Common Denominator of Success

Posted: November 2, 2013 | Categories: Sales, Self-Improvement, Time management

If you were to ask me what the most important character component of success is, I would immediately say, PERSISTENCE.  All people who live the life of their dreams have this quality in abundance.  They know what they want and they want it so badly they would eat nail for breakfast to get it.
In 1940, Prudential Insurance executive Albert Gray decided to go on a mission:  He did not know the secret of success and he was determined to find it.  The salespeople who had great presentations were not always high producers.  There were high-key, low-key, type “A”, type “B”, yet he couldn’t figure out the common denominator of success.  Mr. Gray persevered and finally found it.  What he discovered was so fundamental and so true, it has stood the test of over 80 years of debate and scrutiny.  It is THE Common Denominator of success.  Are you ready?  Here it is:

“Successful people form the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do”

That’s it!  He went on to elaborate:

“People form habits…habits form futures”  

As a professional coach, I have found this to be an axiom.  It is hard to imagine personal growth without forming a new habit.

“If the secret of success likes in forming the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do, let’s start the boiling-down process by determining what are the things that failures don’t like to do.  The things that failures don’t like to do are the very things that you and I and other human beings, including successful people, naturally don’t like to do.  In other words, we’ve got to realize right from the start that success is something which is achieved by a minority of people, and is therefore unnatural and not to be achieved by following our natural likes and dislikes nor being guided by our natural preferences and prejudices…successful people are influenced more by pleasing results rather than pleasing methods.  They have a sense of purpose strong enough to make them form the habits of doing things they don’t like to do. 

And now for my favorite part:

“It is easier to adjust ourselves to the hardships of a poor living than it is to adjust ourselves to the hardships of making a better one…

So you say you have tried everything and none of this works for you?  Here is a go-forward question:  What is it that you are not willing to do?  Take action every day on your major goal.  You will soon have the “common denominator of success” on your side.

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