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Finding the Qualities of Successful People in Yourself

The following guest post is from My Money Design, a personal finance blog that is all about developing your passion for success.

Andrew Jackson on $20 bill

MyMoneyDesign.com

When you think of famous celebrities or business figures, to what do you attribute to their success? Hard work? Talent? Or just the irrevocable notion that they got that way by being at the right place at the right time?

Sure we’d all like to believe that luck had everything to do with it. We also like to convince ourselves that we somehow missed the bus and could have been just as successful as these people if we had been in the right place as well. But that’s simply not true.

Developing the Qualities of Successful People

Although I’m no celebrity, I know that one of the best things I can do for myself is to emulate the qualities of successful people to get what I want. Everything I’ve ever gotten, I’ve earned through hard work and passion. I don’t owe chance anything for my accomplishments. I believe that success is less about being lucky and mostly all about creating your own luck.

Here’s another way I choose to look at it:

• Half the things in life you can’t control. What other people will say to you, how they will react, and what outside things will happen to you.

• The other half is all up to you. The words you say, the things you do, and even the way you think or view things is all within your control. So what are you going to do for yourself?

Learning is Not the Same As Doing

When I first started my job, I thought the secret to success was all in education and learning. I got my engineering degree and then quickly moved on to obtain an MBA. Both were pretty incredible accomplishments in their own right.

Soon I began to apply this process to other areas of my life. After graduating I began to fill the void that used to be reserved for homework with a regimen of reading books. I began to get my hands on everything I could that had to do with accelerating my career, being a better manager, and gaining financial knowledge.

That’s what led me to pursue other income ideas and ways to make more money. These were things like starting my blog, investing in dividend stocks, and figuring how to strategize my wealth-building tactics for optimal performance. I knew that filling my spare time with developing different money making ideas was a way better use of my time than watching Netflix all night. But there was one thing that missing.

Doing Something Is the Hardest Quality to Have

Wanting to make more money is good. Reading about it is better. But actually doing something about it and making it happen is the best!

Successful people don’t rely on employers or magic opportunities to secure their financial future. Their path to becoming financially independent is blazed by an intelligent cycle of saving and investing. They know how to use the power of compound interest to eventually outgrow their initial investments.

To actually make something happen, you need to be willing to take a risk. If you want to make money from stocks, you need to INVEST in stocks! The same goes for real estate, owning a business, or just about anything else you’ve read about and have enough curiosity to want to try.

You can never reap the rewards of any opportunity until you take a chance and put yourself out there. You need to be willing to make some decisions, minimize the risks, and then keep working at it until you reach your goals. These are exactly the kinds of things that successful people do and what makes them such a step ahead of the rest.

Executing a plan is a theme that I constantly return to and discuss on My Money Design. It is a strong element to actually working towards achieving an early retirement. I do truly believe that the answer to that question of when you can achieve financial success lies within your ability to MAKE it happen and what you’re prepared to do to get there.

What about you? Do you believe you share some of the same qualities of successful people – either ones you really know or celebrities you see on TV? What do you think it is that helps them to get what they want?

Image courtesy of MyMoneyDesign.com

Next Post: How Much We Pay Our Kids For Chores

Prior Post: Why We Don’t Give Our Kids Allowances

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Comments

  1. Risk is part of being successful. Risk mitigation is also part of it. EVERY RE deal I have ever done, I wonder is I am going to lose my shirt. Even if the numbers come back so good it is a no-brainer.
    It also takes drive, ambition and determination. Here in the USA, if you want to be a millionaire, you can be.

  2. Kassandra says

    I would say that I’m a go-getter and when I have an objective in mind I’ll do everything needed in order to make it happen. I agree that it’s all about the execution of a plan!

  3. Well I realized a couple years ago I couldn’t just depend on once source of income, so that’s when I started dipping my toes in the water of multiple streams of income, which many a successful entrepreneur and some celebrities do. Congratulations on all the success you’ve created for yourself!

  4. John S @ Frugal Rules says

    “To actually make something happen, you need to be willing to take a risk.” I could not agree more MMD! I thought I was doing the right thing by getting my MBA and getting into the finance industry, but those were comfortable and had little action. It wasn’t until I left my job that I finally felt like I was actually doing something. A huge part of that was knowing that having food on the table was even more dependent on me, but so much of it came down to action.

    • Comfortable only works for so long. If you’ve got the ambition and desire to do more, it won’t be long before you get the itch to get yourself out there and see what you’re made of.

  5. Great article — do you have any books that you read that you’d recommend?

  6. Glen @ Monster Piggy Bank says

    Your story reminds me a lot of my own, except instead of getting the engineering degree (which I almost did go for) I got an IT Degree and then went and looked into business and MBA studies.

    I’m not sure if I share many of the same qualities as I don’t really have time to read or listen about them. I find that I am too busy doing what I need to do, rather than listening to what other people think I should be doing. Perhaps that is the wrong thing to do, I guess time will tell.

    • I do feel like there is some benefit in studying the success of others. However, there’s nothing wrong with doing what you think is the best either. It just shows you have a lot of confidence in what you need to do to be you.

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