Josh Hyatt, a former featured writer for “Money Magazine,” contacted me to ask if TCC Member Coaches had discovered any common traits of successful entrepreneurs and business owners. Since all of our coaching activity is kept very confidential, I could not answer Josh’s question. I am not privy to this information about our clients, nor would I reveal it if I was.

However, his question led to a fun and frank two-hour discussion about the common personal traits of successful people. I believe there are some very common and clearly defined personal characteristics of successful people, including successful business owners and entrepreneurs. In fact, I believe the successful people I know were successful BECAUSE they had all of these personal traits.

I have met or known hundreds of very successful people during my life. I counted over 100 self-made millionaires, mostly business owners and entrepreneurs. Yet, I have also known many other very successful people who were not millionaires, but they had created other forms of success for themselves. I feel that the amount of money people make or acquire is not a valid measurement of their success. There are other more important criteria to be used to measure success than money. My recollection of these successful people revealed the following common traits that I wish to share in random order.

Successful people know themselves extremely well.

This is a very clear and powerful trait. They know their true passions, their beliefs and values, their talents, their self-imposed obstacles (what they do not like to do) and certainly their priorities. They have a clear picture of what makes them tick. They continuously strive to uncover as much about themselves as they can. They seek the truth about themselves and act accordingly. Because they are so clear about their true inner motivations and their priorities, they rarely have conflicts with themselves. They do not get in their own way. They are able to focus their full energies on their chosen goals, without expending wasted time and energy on internal conflicts.

Successful people accept their own humanity.

They not only know their individual physical, mental, and emotional capabilities; they are also extremely honest with themselves. They recognize and accept themselves for who they are. Yet, they also strive to improve their abilities in the areas that mean the most to them. They are willing to challenge and push themselves to improve, because they truly enjoy their personal progress. Successful people place great importance on always getting better in their chosen areas. They are inspired to constantly improve themselves.

Successful people have a clear personal vision and purpose of life

They know where they are going and why, in their personal lives, their family lives, and their work lives. They focus their energies, their constant improvements, their time, and emotions on fulfilling their goals. One of the remarkable side affects of these successful people is that they frequently achieve their visions. Yet, they generally stumble and even degenerate, when they reach their perceived personal goals. They can fall out of their successful life because they achieved their vision of success. They reached the top of their own personal mountains, and they sometimes slide down from there. This might appear to be a contradiction, but it often explains why so many people who achieve success allow themselves to fall on hard times.

Look at the vast number of entertainers, musicians, and athletes who work for years to achieve a vision of success for themselves, and when they reach their success goals, based upon their own terms, they appear to go into some kind of personal funk. They only return to the success path of life when they generate new visions and new personal goals that capture their focus and energies to achieve them. These people need to find new mountains to climb to return to their successful life ways. It is the journey, it is the climb, and it is the game of striving for their goals that generates their life successes, not necessarily the goals.

Successful people create their own definition of success.

Because successful people clearly know what their personal definition of success is, they rarely follow the herd, unless it suits their own personal agenda. They rarely try to keep up with others. Instead, they are more likely to lead the herd or the other climbers to the top of the mountain, and be the ones others try to keep up with.

Successful people know what they love to do and do it exceptionally well.

Successful people truly enjoy their work and their life. They almost always produce excellent results. Watching successful people display their enjoyment from doing what they love has always been fun for me. Watching Pete Sampras (on TV) win six Wimbledon tennis titles was quite rewarding. Watching Larry Bird win his many NBA championships (especially his first in person) allowed me to observe an artist enjoy himself to the hilt. It seemed that Bird was having so much fun playing that he was disappointed that the final game was over. Virtually all successful people truly enjoy the games of life and work they choose to play, and they play them because they enjoy them so much. The many truly successful millionaires that I know enjoyed the special games of work they chose to play. The exceptional results they produced while doing what they loved to do attracted millions of dollars as a consequence. Larry Bird loved to practice shooting baskets and truly loved making the winning shots during games. He attracted millions of dollars because he was so good at scoring points and because he delighted in scoring the final winning points to finish a game.

Successful people embrace life.

They feel a special desire to extract as much out of their short time on earth as they can. They frequently appear to be in a hurry to do as much as they can. Often times participating in many different projects with different goals at the same time. They appear to always be busy. Obstacles and setbacks thrown out by life rarely stop them. They just find new paths towards their goals. Yet, as I mentioned earlier they sometimes lose interest in life, upon achieving their life’s goals. Most successful people learn to set many different types of goals to keep them interested and focused in several things at once that are very important to them, so when they achieve one of their goals, or reach the top of one mountain, they are still actively involved at achieving other goals, or climbing other mountains, and they do not lose a step in life.

Successful people have very high integrity

They are blatantly honest with themselves first and their honesty and integrity is exceptional. They set their own integrity standards and stick to them publicly and privately, through good times and bad times. Frequently they bother others because they are so honest and their standards are so high. Successful people are not corrupt nor do they lower their integrity when no one is looking. They live with very strong conviction and consistency. But there are people whom society has labeled as successful because of the wealth they gained and the notoriety they purchased with their wealth. Yet, these people frequently got rich through corruption and they are consequently not truly successful people. Acquiring money without integrity is not, in my opinion, a sign of success.

Successful people feel they have a strong relationship with their God.

They have strong sense of a higher power and they honor and respect their God. They believe that there is truly an all-powerful God. But they rarely invoke the strict rules and order of a religion on themselves or others. They connect with God in their own way. They choose a code of worship and conduct to suit their own personal relationship with God. They recognize the blessings they receive from God and they feel a genuine thankfulness for what they receive.

Conclusion

I have found that the truly successful people I have personally known or have studied have possessed and practiced these traits. They may focus attention on some traits more than others, but if you look closely they practice them all. They derive their successes, on their terms, because they have and practice these traits.