There are many pathways towards success and not every single person has to follow it exactly. At the same time not everyone has to have the same carbon copy personality to be successful.

Being successful is one of the hardest and most demanding things in the world. However because being successful doesn’t require a strict formula, it’s a bit easier for individuals like me and you to achieve success.

At the same time, most successful people have particular traits in mind that brought them to success. Although each path is different there are similarities. I want to share some of those traits with you as I believe they can help other individuals achieve massive success. Not to mention they can provide a good point to work towards.

Caring Towards Others

One of the biggest signs of success is that many successful people care about others. Of course there are outliers, but looking at self-made millionaires and billionaires you can certainly see this.

We Oprah Winfrey giving motivational and insightful speeches and bringing guests that share valuable information. There’s also Elon Musk providing luxurious cars that are friendly towards the environment.

Although every business needs people buying, those examples are a bit different. The care for others is a cornerstone of their business. In other words this is something that they value even outside of a business.

When you have a deep caring towards other people, it shifts your business, how you treat people and so much more. I had a mentor once who runs a business, but has little care for customers. Sure he can turn a profit and make things work, but when I came in, the company was hardly off the ground.

I understand that some people have made their millions off of suffering. But the same can be said for those who care about others. There are many people who have pushed human boundaries and standards and overall have served the greater masses. That couldn’t have happened unless the person is so compassionate and willing to help people advance in some way.

It’s those people who are truly successful.

They Envisioned Themselves As Successful

Some successful people in the past have gone public about other things as well. One thing in particular is visualization. From pro athletes to actors and entrepreneurs, they’ve gone on record that they’ve used visualization in the past to become who they are.

I believe that this is an important key to our success as it identifies what we want to pursue and what we truly value in life.

I think that it’s important for us to have that road map. After all, not every single person stumbled into success with no plan in mind.

When you have a plan, it’s easy to picture yourself and to know your direction.

They Challenged Themselves

When you think that a goal is too easy, your success will feel empty.

Successful people recognize this. An easy to do goal is not something they want to be doing. If it’s easy to achieve, it’s not challenging. If it’s not challenging, it’s not engaging and it’ll feel empty when it’s accomplished.

Successful people became successful because they challenged themselves. No successful person has been able to achieve success and retain it by going the easy route. Again, success is truly a demanding and difficult thing to achieve.

Through challenging and pushing themselves to higher limits they became successful as it only encouraged them to improve their craft. Each challenge bettered them for the next one and allowed them to raise the bar higher.

Incredible Patience

If you stay in the game long enough, you’ll find success.

I remember Gary Vaynerchuk telling most young adults that they lack patience. I know for myself some times I can get on my case about it. But the thing is is that patience is an incredibly valuable tool. In fact it’s a tool that even the successful use.

As much as they are forward thinkers and all around go-getters, they are also patient. Before they became successful, they had to wait. They had to struggle through a lot of pain and misery. Go and check Elon Musk’s story to success. He’s been booted out of his own companies, gotten divorced and a lot more. He’s been kicked around a lot.

And yet here he is now, one of the most notable people of our generation to be successful. He had to have some serious patience to get through all that.

A Massive Focus On Them And Their Craft

What your competition is doing isn’t as important as what you are doing right now.

Some people will argue that competition is incredibly important. You want to be strategic in your marketing in order to truly separate yourself from your competition.

Although that is important, what is more important is you yourself. Because at this point in time there’s a lot of different products and services. A lot of it has repeats. Yes there are some differences, but those differences came from a focus of yourself.

Take for example barber shops and hair salons. They all do the same thing. But you go to one particular place because there is one person there who you get along with. That person may not be focusing on their craft, but they are focusing on providing good service.

That creates a differentiation between the place you get your hair done and everyone else.

For successful people that’s the same principal. Yes they keep an eye on the competition, the game always changes that way. But they are more concerned about themselves and how they can continue to grow themselves and their company.

People don’t buy products and services, they buy emotions. And the successful are the salespeople who draw out the most and the strongest emotions from us all.

Survival Of The Fittest

Sure the world out there may be survival of the fittest, but the question is what makes us stronger? Specifically what makes us stronger entrepreneurs to be better handling the business industry?

Benjamin Hardy wrote recently about the concept of sharpening your saw. This means spending more time focusing on you and less on being busy. In the end, the real difference between those who survive and those who don’t are the people who grow themselves and don’t always focus on the work. And I believe that.

I’ve noticed that considerably with my work. The less time I spend doing work and more time focusing on the things around me, the better I’m becoming. So try out those traits as they are sharpening your saw in some way.

To your growth!

Eric S Burdon