Something I like doing is looking at successful people. I guess I’m trying to figure out what the formula for success is in life, but I don’t think it’s that easy. There are different ways to become successful, but there are also some things that successful people have in common.
One thing I’ve noticed is that most successful people seem to have this ability to spot their weaknesses. That doesn’t mean that they’re not confident in certain things, but they’re typically aware of the things they don’t do well.
We All Have A Ceiling
I’m not talking about a ceiling on what you can accomplish in life. I think there are an infinite number of examples of people that have achieved great things so don’t limit yourself on what you can accomplish with your life.
But there are things that limit us like time and energy.
And where successful people come in is they recognize where they have limits and they look for ways to go beyond, which could mean delegation or it could mean coming up with some kind of automated solution to something that saves the person time in the future.
Another way to think about it is that we can be really good at maybe a couple things, but it’s challenging and probably impossible to be really good at even more than one or two things.
Some of the most successful people I know would ask all kinds of questions.
For example, imagine a 70-year old man who’s been very successful, but maybe he hasn’t had the time or energy to invest in learning how to use the iPad. He looks for input from his grand daughter. She’s the expert in that situation. And successful people aren’t afraid to ask for help and they’re not afraid to look for the experts.
Looking For The Experts
And that’s a second key point. Successful people aren’t biased about the type of person that can help them with something other than the fact that they want to talk to the best. They want to talk to the experts and gain insight from those people. They don’t want to talk to someone that is pretty good at something.
Say what you want about Donald Trump, but he lives this as part of his life. I’ve paid attention to him more the last few years because he’s become very involved with golf. When he buys a course to fix it up he’s not looking for run of the mill courses. He wants the best.
And if he wants to redesign a course he’s not looking for a so-so designer. He wants the best. He wants to speak with the experts so he can use their knowledge to his advantage.
Final Thought
There is so much in life that we can do, but we’re limited by time and energy. But successful people recognize these limits and these weaknesses. They’re not really weaknesses, but limits.
But successful people know the secret to gaining knowledge and expertise in a short amount of time. They talk to the experts at whatever it is they’re interested in learning about. Instead of thinking, “I can figure this out…” they admit that they don’t know and they look for the experts.
I think that’s a pretty good trait to have if you want to become successful.