How successful people (unconsciously) become and stay successful
Bottom Line: There are no shortage of self-help types of books and advice. Many of them are like diets. They'll all likely lead you to some degree of success if you employ best practices and are intentional in attempting to better yourself and your life. That's the positive stuff. Then reality sets in. How sustainable are they? For example some self-help folks will tell you to be positive, focus on what you like to do, focus on what makes you happy, etc. but that's not terribly sustainable or practical in my view.
Life happens and that means you will have to confront negative adversity (statistically the average person will face major, negative, life adversity every eight years). As you do what you like to do, you often have to concede to persevering through plenty of stuff that's not enjoyable (that enables you to do what you prefer to do). Those are just a couple of examples of where many of the self-help stuff falls short. What matters most in times of adversity? Often it's who you have in your life that you face that adversity with right? And that's what's different and interesting in the research from Thomas Corely's "Rich Habits Research".
He studied 177 self-made millionaires that sustained and improved upon their success over five years. Here were the constants over five years across these individuals:
- Their friends have similar desires and outlooks on life
- There's little tolerance and no time set aside for those without a similar work ethic
- They only make time for those with similar goals & don't invite or allow negative influences into heir personal lives
- Any personal associations outside of work are consistent with their views and beliefs
Now here's the thing...These weren't stated by people, they were studied by the researcher. When these are constants across highly successful people who sustain success it suggests that it's likely foundational to success over the long run in our society. Here's the more important point. Back to the sustainability thing for a moment... When adversity strikes you see the road map for how successful people persevere. If you have solid people around you (rather than drama and distractions), you're likely to be successful. Life's complicated but this isn't when you boil it down.