The Number One Factor for Success

Any guesses? There is a lot to choose from. A great education, hard work, charisma, your parents, good looks, intelligence, good decision making, goal setting, reading, confidence, interpersonal skills, taking action, being tall, leadership skills, attitude, planning, self-motivation, taking risks, chutzpah?  All good guesses.  Let's look a few of the most common answers and why they don't necessarily equate to success.

Hard work?
At first, it may seem like this is your answer.  How can you be a hard worker and not be successful.  I guess it partly depends on how you measure success.  To many, being successful does not necessarily mean having a lot of money.  I agree, there are many variation of success. Being a successful parent is how many may define true success, but let's talk business and financial success.  Here's the problem with hard work.  Do you, or do you know someone that works their you know what off but does not achieve much financially.  I would say that the majority of people are working their but off don't achieve great success.  They probably do okay and make a living, but you could certainly work hard in a variety of occupations that just don't pay very well.

Education?
This is a pretty good guess, but have you ever heard the saying, an educated derelict.  How educated you are can certainly play in key role in being successful, but by no means does it ensure it.  It can definitely help, but there are endless examples of people with a significant number of degrees who just don't quite reach high levels financially. You can also find an endless number of people who never stepped a foot in an institution of higher education, or never finished, but they have built a business or reached great heights in business.  Mr. Gates for example. Have you ever heard the saying that the world is run by C students? This is no excuse not to get an education but it doesn't ensure anything.

Intelligence?
This is an easy one. Highly intelligent people often have an advantage of your non-rocket scientists, but have you heard the saying that there is a fine line between intelligence and crazy. Unfortunately, being the smartest kid on the block does not always translate to financial success. Many of these people could have a distinct advantage, but somehow intelligence does not get channeled correctly. There seems to be a slight bit of wiring issues in some of your extremely intelligent folks.

Communication Skills?
How could you be an excellent communicator and be unsuccessful? Easy. Have you ran across the most popular kid in high school lately? Have you chatted with the guy that got all of the gals in college, or who was the life of the party during Greek Week? Well, I can say that the college guy I'm thinking of did very well for himself, but there is nothing more common than the great communicator who just doesn't get much done. For the ones that I've know, they had an over-abundance of charm and charisma, but were a lacking in the hard work department.

Okay, I've been messing with you a little bit.  In my opinion there is no number one factor for success.  It is a combination of all of these things.  If you are out of balance with any one of them, go to work on yourself to improve in that area.  I guess there may even be some ways to grow a few inches, since research does show being tall is not a bad thing in terms of success.  Somebody just yelled in my ear to where long stripes, maybe like a striped suit. Don't wear diagonal stripes. Makes you look wider, I guess.