The Key to Success

On Being Successful

Having lived almost eighty six years, I believe I know what makes a person a
success in life. I would like to share my thoughts about this to
you.

In fact, there seems to be three levels of success, each requiring one
or more of the characteristics I will outline below.

These levels I will call the “ wildly successful”, which are the people
everyone knows, in every field of endeavor, who are written about and
talked about in all the various media; the “ moderately
successful”, who are individuals who have lots of money, often in
the millions, and are only known in their own universes; and the
“mildly successful”, who are most of the rest of us who are not
actual failures. I count myself in the last category, with a detailed
explanation to follow.

The first characteristic needed for extreme success is the ability to
sell oneself. This is not simply likeability, but something more. It
is the successful salesman, who can sell anything. The successful
politician is possibly the best example of selling oneself.

I, myself, was terrible at selling myself. People who can sell
themselves are almost always successful in their professions or
businesses. Those who cannot always work for someone else. That was
me. I was so bad at it that I was never, ever, promoted in any job I
ever had, nor did anyone ever want to mentor me for a career. Believe
me, I tried.

At this point it is important for the reader to understand that I am not
judging these characteristics as either good or bad. One is not a
lessor person if one is without these characteristics. It is what it
is. One has it or not. Think of it in the same way one thinks of hair
color. Blond or brown, it makes no difference.

Nowhere is this characteristic more essential than the acting profession.
Actors must be able to
sell themselves to even be considered for a part. Their skills are
revealed only after they receive the sought after role. This analogy
will be expanded upon shortly.

The second characteristic for success in any field are skills. This requires above average
skills, to stand out from everyone else in the chosen field, whether
it be plumber or surgeon. If one's skills are at the very top, one
will be extremely successful in any universe, even without the first
mentioned characteristic. A very good example was Albert Einstein,
who was reputed to be a somewhat poor student, and not the least
charismatic as a person. Yet, even modestly better skills will help
the individual achieve “ modest success”. The achievement of such
skills is best arrived at if the individual likes their choice of
endeavor and finds it a good fit with their personality. Otherwise,
it may not work.

After chasing many other professions, I was lucky enough to find my above
average skills in the assessment of other peoples mental problems.
Since I was modestly above average, I achieved a modest success.

The third characteristic is physical energy. Physical energy is something
you see in famously successful people all the time. They tend to work
much harder than most people and they do it constantly, year in and
year out. They often achieve miraculous results. It almost seems a
requirement to work so constantly pursuing whatever they pursue in
order to achieve such results. Good examples of this are Bill and
Hillary Clinton. They also have all three characteristics.

I also have several friends who had tremendous physical stamina in
their chosen fields, sometimes working twelve to sixteen hours a day
to achieve their goals. These individuals are all multimillionaires.

Again, in a personal note, I never had much energy, neither as a child nor
as an adult. My father used to call me lazy. My closet friend, whom I
worked with for years, thought I rarely worked at all. Even my wife,
when she first met me, wondered how I could spend so much time with
her at lunch.

I believe that if one has all three of these characteristics, then one
will become famously successful and the world will hear about you.

If one has superior skills and energy, one will become very successful
and, probably, rich.

If one has either superior or even above average skills, then one will
achieve modest success.

By the way, success has nothing to do with happiness. Happiness is an
emotional state and can be absent with even great success. Also, even
moderately intelligent people with even one of the traits can be
successful. Like everything in life, the more you have of something,
the more likely you will achieve at higher levels.

The best example, taken from life, as to my hypotheses, is the extremely
popular television show of the past and reruns called “Friends”.
Here were six young people, all of whom were barely known before the
show, who starred on a wildly successful show where each earned over
a million dollars an episode near the end. Granted, some got their
parts because they were previously known but some were practically
unknown. Yet, each followed vastly different paths after the show
ended.

Lisa Kudrow and Jennifer Anniston became wildly famous and successful, and
are in the news media constantly.

Courtney Cox became moderately successful but not widely talked about.

Yet, look at the male actors. Mathew Perry became somewhat successful but
still struggles as an actor. The other two men have actually failed
to continue their original success. Why?

Their success is not just looks. The ladies are good looking, but not
exceptionally so. If looks were the only criteria, Humphrey Bogart
and countless other male stars would never had made it. Boris Karloff
for one. Some in the profession would say it is the nature of the
business.

I believe the two widely famous stars are that successful because they
had all three characteristics. They continually sell themselves. They
are very skillful in their genre's, and they seem to have boundless
energy. The male stars have modest skills, yet seem unable to sell
themselves.

On a personal note, again, the lack of energy and personal salesmanship
skills undermined an almost certain road to success for myself in
1953.

At that time, newspapers were touting the benefits of flouidated water.
At the same time, many cities were fighting against flouridation as
dangerous.

I conceived the idea of putting flouide in toothpaste, which should
have taken care of both sides of the argument.

I even went to a lawyer and started a patent search. The results
indicated one could not patent a chemical but one could certainly
create a product and market it; which is what Colgate did a year
later. The rest is history.

See!
No energy and no personal charisma equals no wild success.

On a final note, if one does not have any of the above characteristics,
one could try and marry someone who does.

Jack V. Hattem, Ph.D

P.S.
I have had bursts of energy at times. See the results on Google