5 Habits that Separate Successful People from Everyone Else
Thomas Edison was a huge failure for most of his life.
He had a giant lab where he would conduct experiments for his inventions.
Edison covered it in fire proof tarp, which he developed himself. He was so confident in his invention that he didn’t even purchase fire insurance. He thought he would never need it.
Then one day, his buildings all caught on fire from an experiment that went wrong. Turns out that fire proof tart didn’t work.
Years and years of hard work, persistence, and experiments erupted in flames right before his eyes.
Imagine how the average person would’ve felt in that situation — especially if they failed that spectacularly in front of the whole world. Mentally, they would’ve been utterly decimated. They would shout at themselves even years and years later for making a dumb mistake. That “scar” of failure would stick with them for life.
Edison just stared at the fire. His son ran over and asked what he should do.
He said, “Go get your mother. We will never see a fire like this again.”
The psychology of the world’s best
One of the biggest things that separates the world’s highest achievers from everyone else is that they’ve learned how to control their mind.
They’re not held back by crippling self talk. They don’t shout at themselves constantly for doing things that they know they should have. They don’t think themselves in circles trying to figure out the perfect plan over and over again, while months and years pass by.
They’re not held back by fake mental barriers that seem real on the surface, like many of us are.
Think about it.
If the average person was in Thomas Edison’s situation when his lab burned down, they would say things like “ugh, all that hard work and effort was a total waste.” Or “God I’m so stupid for letting this happen.”
But Edison looked at it differently.
In one interview he was asked what his reaction was to his buildings burning down. He said “It prevents a man from being afflicted with ennui (boredom).” He said there was a lot of junk in there anyway, and that this was a good opportunity to clean things out and start from scratch.
The truth is, both negative reactions and positive reactions to any event are perfectly reasonable. You get to choose which one you embrace.
You can apply this idea to virtually every area of — especially your career.
If you’re still trying to figure out what your dream job is, you could feel miserable for being so directionless. Or you could see it as an opportunity to be curious again.
If you want to reach out to someone you respect to “network” with them, you could say things like “they probably would never want to talk to me”, or “I hate being sleazy.” Or you could use it as an opportunity to become a more courageous person.
There is no “reality.” There is only framing.
Here’s how the highest achievers in the world “reframe” their reality:
1. They have baseless confidence
If you think you need a reason to be confident, then you’ll never have enough reasons.
Even if you’re in amazing shape, have a dream career, and have a bunch of money in your account, there will always be someone who’s “better” than you in all of those areas.
And when you meet them, you won’t feel like you’re good enough.
High achievers don’t outsource their confidence to the results they get. They’re confident because they exist. That’s a good enough reason.
2. They’re not realistic. They alter their reality instead.
Your reality is based on your perception. And your perception is a function of what you’ve been exposed to.
You can alter your reality by exposing yourself to more experiences.
A kid from a poor family might think it’s unrealistic to get a job a company like Microsoft because he hasn’t seen anyone do it.
A girl from a middle class family might think it’s unrealistic to build a million dollar business because she hasn’t seen anyone do it.
A millionaire might think it’s unrealistic to be a billionaire because he hasn’t seen anyone do it.
If you don’t know what it takes to get to the place you want to go, that dream is unrealistic for you.
But you can alter that reality by taking time to understand what goes into those dreams.
Read books. Listen to podcasts. Consume as much information as you can from the people you admire. Surround yourself with the people you want to be like.
You’ll eventually start to think like them. And eventually, their reality will be yours.
3. They don’t find their passion, they create it
“Passion isn’t found. It’s cultivated.” — Cal Newport
We’ve been taught for our whole lives that if we just think hard enough, if we just deliberate long enough, if we just do enough “soul searching”, then we’ll find our passion — and everything else will become clear.
Not true at all.
I had so many different interests early on.
I liked to write, read, research, create things, make things more efficient, and solve problems — just to name a few.
What job would tie all of those in?
Maybe law? Medicine? Lab research? Computer programming? Marketing?
What if I chose marketing, realized I hated it, and wanted to do something totally different later?
Ugh. It was all so confusing.
Many of us find ourselves in this position at some point, and we procrastinate on choosing a direction because we’re afraid of picking the wrong one.
The truth is, there is no “right” or “wrong” decision.
Pick something that sounds interesting and get good at it. Then, you’ll become passionate.
4. They embrace boredom over entertainment
“To simply wait and be bored has become a novel experience in modern life, but from the perspective of concentration training, it’s incredibly valuable.” — Cal Newport
Over the next couple of decades, people who can focus on one thing for a long period of time will have a distinct advantage over everybody else.
Distracting yourself with random, easy-to-do activities doesn’t just hurt your productivity. It also hurts your ability to learn a skillset that’s actually valuable.
Top performers spend most of their time doing deliberate practice. They read books about what they do, and try to implement what they learned on the job. They seek out “safe” ways to make mistakes so they can test out what they learned.
Staying focused on something long enough to get good at it won’t just make you more successful — it’ll make you more satisfied.
5. They focus on intentions, not results.
The world’s highest achievers value intentions over results, while most people value results over intention.
If you focus on results too much, you’ll feel overwhelmed.
You’ll start thinking of all the ways you could mess up when trying something new. You’ll think yourself in circles with all the “what-if” scenarios, and you’ll let your fear of the unknown hold you back.
You’ll procrastinate on actually trying.
Think about the areas of life where we do this.
Most of us are working jobs we’re not super excited about, but we’re afraid of making the “leap” to something new because we’re afraid of the unknown.
Some of us might be underpaid, but we’re afraid of asking for a raise because we might look stupid or damage our reputation.
Many of us we genuinely want to try something new, but we’re afraid of putting in effort because we might fail and waste a lot of time. We’re afraid we might not get results.
And that’s what separates high achieving people from everyone else.
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