Dr. Philip Humbert, author, speaker, and personal success coach wrote this piece in a newsletter published around 1999. His website has since been taken down. His insights are top-notch so we're republishing the piece (we've added some edits on how you can develop these four traits yourself)
“Recently, I was asked to write a Top 10 list about the secrets of success, and I spent time thinking about the most successful people I've known,” wrote Dr. Philip E. Humbert (author, speaker and personal success coach) in The Innovative Professional's (TIP's) Letter, around 1999.
“There have been a thousand books and tape sets written about the ‘Secrets of Success’, so the challenge was to see if I could add something new. I think I have at least found a new way of thinking about successful people.
“When I think about the most successful people I've known, both as clients and as colleagues or friends, the following key traits stand out,” he added.
Dr. Humbert’s insights are top-notch so we’re building on them to give you this actionable report, in the firm belief that it can change your life.
“First, [highly successful people] are insatiable learners, and some have lots of formal education. But I'm talking about something different. They are incredibly curious. They are like little kids who never stop asking "Why?" And perhaps more important, they ask, "Why not?"
“These people read Popular Mechanics and poetry. They take classes in art appreciation and learn to scuba dive. They buy books on quality parenting and take broken appliances apart to see how they work. They are permanent fixtures at their local community colleges, the public library, a favorite bookstore, and they watch PBS.”
[Edit…The only way you get to read many books and spark your creativity and curiosity is to start by creating a lot of spare time to do the things that make a difference, the things you like to do. Reading by itself is a good pastime that any of us can develop, plus, as Jim Rohn put it:
“There is little difference between someone who can’t read, and someone who won’t read.” ~ Jim Rohn
The intense curiosity we see in little children is the result of, or the cause of, the high creativity we also see in kids – you lose one, you lose the other. We were all born highly creative, but by age fifteen nearly 90% of people lose their creativity.
“We all came into the world being creative, innovative, and inventive,” wrote Richard Dobbins and Barrie O. Pettman (in What Self-Made Millionaires Really Think, Know & Do: A Straight-Talking Guide To Business Success And Personal Riches)
“Approximately 97% of children are highly creative at the age of five, 36% are highly creative at the age of ten, with only 12% scoring highly creative at age fifteen… For most of us our creativity has lain dormant since childhood. We must all now learn to tap into our own creativity. We can all learn to tap into the creativity of others.”
The good news is that creativity (and with it curiosity) can be re-kindled. The two self-made millionaires offered a really simple solution to do this:
“Make a decision to believe that you are a creative genius. Visualize, emotionalize, and affirm. Visualize yourself as a creative person. Imagine how well you would feel if you were a creative person. Finally, make a habit of the affirmation: ‘I am a very creative person.’ If you believe you are creative, then you will behave in a manner consistent with being creative.”
We suggest that as you continue practicing this affirmation that you’re a creative genius, you also develop a reading habit. Soon enough you’re going to be good as new (creative and curious like a kid!).
(Check out this post on the best way to write and practice personal affirmations.)
Don’t’ have time to read?
A good book to help you unclutter your work-life, achieve work-life balance, and liberate hours of free time out of your workday is Essentialism – The Disciplined Pursuit Of Less by Greg McKeown.
“Have you ever found yourself majoring in minor activities? Do you ever feel busy but not productive? Like you’re always in motion, but never getting anywhere? If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is the way of the Essentialist.” ~ Greg McKeown in Essentialism. End edit…]
“Second, [successful people] use all this learning to build creative contexts. They see how things are connected, and they see opportunities in terms of history and popular trends and new technology.
“They see ideas in the context of people and they make connections between ideas, technology, and the needs of individuals. How do they do this? I'm not exactly sure, but highly successful people can be reading a novel, which reminds them of a new technology they saw in a magazine, connect it with an idea they saw on PBS, and call a computer programmer to check out the new business opportunities, all in less than 30 minutes! They see a broader context than the rest of us.”
[Edit… A good book that can help in this regard is The Art Of What Works – How Success Really Happens – see below. End edit…]
“Third, [highly successful people] assess risk accurately. Impulsive people underestimate the level of risk and rush into foolish ventures with inadequate preparation. Cautious people have great ideas, but fail to act, often because they over-estimate the risk of failure.
“Highly successful people seem to evaluate both the chances of success and the costs of failure accurately and quickly. Because they correctly assess risk, they experience fewer failures and are not shocked or caught unprepared when things don't work out they way they hoped.”
[Edit… How do you become really good at assessing risk accurately? We can recommend the book The Art Of What Works – How Success Really Happens by William Duggan.
We all know who Napoleon Bonaparte was – a great French military strategist – but he wasn’t born with any unique talents that would make him that.
What Napoleon did was he studied the great battles of the past, specifically how the generals who won those battles won them, what specific conditions gave them the upper hand and how they seized on these conditions to plan their strategies, etc. Then, in the “fog of war” Napoleon got very good at reading the situation in a battle area like a chess game. He would get a “Coup d’Oeil” (something like an epiphany, or déja vu), compare what he had at hand with “examples from history”, basing on “expert intuition”, and quickly develop a winning battle plan.
This book can help develop your intuition, so you will be able to quickly assess risk because you have a better than average idea what works in your line of work, based on lessons from history, or what others are currently doing that is working really well – which puts you above 99% of your competitors.
It’s not as easy as that of course, but we highly recommend The Art Of What Works. Getting good at assessing risk is something you can learn. He’s the book’s author:
“Like Leonardo da Vinci, Welch was an artist of what works… This book tells how Leonardo and Jack Welch did it. And not just them: We find dozens of others throughout the ages. Napoleon Bonaparte, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Ray Kroc of McDonald’s, and top companies like Nokia, Marriott, Johnson & Johnson – the list goes on and on. The art of what works is the secret of strategy, a timeless truth for success in business or any other field. This book presents principles, tools, and examples to help you apply the art of what works yourself. We study success, to see how it happened. Our trail leads mostly through business strategy, but it leads also to science, art, war, government, the nonprofit sector, psychology, and Eastern and Western philosophy. We hunt for success from many angles.” ~ William Duggan
Jack Welch became the world’s most famous businessman, as CEO of General Electric, and a large part of that success came from imitating the Japanese.
“Welch ran General Electric, the world’s largest conglomerate, for 20 years of stunning success, from 1981 to 2001. At a time when other companies sought greater focus on one or two major businesses, Welch succeeded in a dozen different sectors, from aircraft engines to mortgage insurance to a major television network,” wrote Duggan. He quotes Jack Welch as saying:
“The operative assumption today is that someone, somewhere, has a better idea; and the operative compulsion is to find out who has that better idea, learn it, and put it into action – fast.” ~ Jack Welch.
(Source: The Art Of What Works) End Edit…]
“Finally, extremely successful people respond quickly. They don't over-react, rarely lose their temper or lose control, and yet they are seen as decisive leaders, as incredibly creative and energetic people. They don't seem to move very fast, and yet they accomplish more than most of us.
“They never rush, and they rarely hesitate. They respond appropriately and impact or change situations in the direction they desire. They simply get a lot done and they do it successfully.”
[Edit… A good book we can recommend to help you get a lot done, and do it successfully is The 10X Rule – The Only Difference Between Success And Failure by Grant Cardone.
“The 10X Rule is based on understanding how much effort and thought are required to get anything done successfully. Chances are that if you look back over your life, you’ll see that you have wildly underestimated both the actions and reasoning necessary to accomplish any endeavor to the point where it could be labeled successful.” ~ Grant Cardone
If you read The 10X Rule you should also read its companion, Be Obsessed Or Be Average End Edit…]
“Highly successful people hunger to learn everything, they see connections, they assess risk accurately, and they respond quickly. Skills we should all want to develop!”
“And one more thing: Successful people enjoy themselves!”
Dr. Humbert’s insights above are a welcome departure from how most experts have approached this whole success thing, and they gave us a good platform from which to recommend some really good books that can set you on a path to developing the four traits of highly successful people yourself – FAST.
That’s just three books, carefully selected for you. Buy them, read them, self-educate, take action and you’ll be on course to amass a fortune, or to become successful in another area of your life.
Share this post with your friends on social media or via email, because we’re confident you’re going to be successful – and then you’ll want to be around successful people (the company you keep matters a lot!). Share buttons are just below.
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