Achieving success in work and life comes down to following a handful of rules that any successful person knows. Here are the success principles that will serve you for the rest of your life.
KEY POINTS
Mistakes are Valuable Lessons – It’s through the mistakes that we learn how to grow. It’s through mistakes we learn how to make that next round of valuable improvement.
Measure What Matters – What gets measured gets done, what gets measured can improve. Ask what should I be measuring, what relates to the goal and what I am trying to achieve?
Successful People Are Always Learning – Ask yourself, what can I be doing to accelerate my learning? Keep your eyes and ears open to find that next thing that you can be learning.
Successful People Don’t Focus on Everything – They focus on the things that matter most. 80/20 principle, 20% of the things we do can account for 80% of the result.
Growth Isn’t Within Your Comfort Zone – Success isn’t where you currently are, it’s just outside your comfort zone. Challenge yourself, take bold action.
Consistency Rules! – It’s much better if you don’t push yourself as hard and actually just maintain that 80% consistently. Instead of overworking resulting in you burning out.
TRANSCRIPT
Achieving success in work and life is actually pretty easy. It just comes down to following a handful of rules that any successful person knows. But here’s the thing, hardly anybody knows these rules. And unless you learn them, you’re very unlikely to get to wherever you want to be. Today, I’m going to teach you a handful of success principles that will serve you for the rest of your life.
Hi, I’m Eric partaker and I’ve been recognized as an award-winning entrepreneur, as well as the CEO of the year. And I’m also the author of two best-selling books, including The 3 Alarms. And in the first half of my career, I thought success was reserved for special types of people and that I wasn’t one of them. And you might think the same of yourself, but if you do, then you’d be as wrong as I was. So the first thing that successful people realize is that mistakes are actually valuable lessons. We look forward to mistakes. We want them because it’s through the mistakes that we learn how to next grow. Ray Dalio, in his book, Principles, talks about this loop that he’s constantly gone through, through his career, where he sets a goal and then he encounters a problem. And then he diagnoses what was the root of the problem, why did that happen, comes up with a solution to improve upon it and then sets a new goal.
So he’s looking at those mistakes, once again, as valuable lessons. It’s through the mistakes that we learn how to make that next round of improvements. So whenever you have a setback or things don’t go the way that you would like, instead of getting upset and down about it, ask yourself, okay, I’ve just collected some data here, what did I learn from this data? What did I learn from this experience? And how can I factor that into our next attempt, our next try so that we can make that next effort even stronger and better as a result of the valuable lesson that we just learned in that mistake?
The number two thing that successful people realize is you have to measure what matters. What gets measured gets done, what gets measured improves. This goes for anything, if you really want to accelerate your exercise activity, we’ll measure how many minutes that you’re actually spending in the gym, measure how much weight that you’re actually losing. So what you measure points to the things that you want to improve. So the most important thing with this principle is for you to really sit back and just ask yourself, what should I be measuring here? What relates to the goal? What relates to the thing that I’m trying to achieve and how can I measure that? And how can I have that measurement up somewhere? Like on a wall where you can see it or readily available so that you never miss how you’re doing in the game, so that you never miss the score, so to speak.
And the number three principle that successful people realize is that we always need to be learning. I am constantly trying to learn new things, but it’s not done out of this feeling of, I have to do it. It’s that joy of learning, it’s that joy, that excitement of learning something new. And my learning happens through other people, sometimes it happens just by reading a book, sometimes it just happens without even being planned, through conversation. But I always have my eyes open, my ears open for that next thing that I can learn. And I try to connect the dots between one thing that I’ve learned in another area, perhaps in a completely different field. And so keep your mind open. Ask yourself, what can I be doing to accelerate my learning, especially if it relates to things that you’re trying to achieve or success that you’re trying to create yourself. What is it that you could be learning that could accelerate your progress and development? And then make sure that that time, that learning time is actually scheduled into your day.
The number four thing that successful people realize is that they don’t focus on everything, they focus on the things that matter most. There’s a great principle that underpins that way of thinking called the 80/20 principle. And you may have heard of it, you may not have heard of it, it’s super simple. It just means that, often 20% of the things that we do can account for 80% of our results. So that life is not completely linear, it’s often a small set of choices that account for 80% of the effects. And so when you’re thinking about what to do next on that project, in that business venture, in a conversation with somebody, well, think about, well, what are the things that matter the most? Rather than absolutely everything that you could do, what matters truly the most? What could I focus on such that by doing it, I may not need to even do the other things? Constantly look for that 80/20. What are the 20% of things that I could focus on for 80% of the result?
The number five thing that successful people realize is that your success and growth isn’t within your comfort zone. It’s just outside of it. We have to get into what’s uncomfortable. That’s where growth is. We have to step outside of the things that we know, we have to challenge ourselves, take bold action, do things maybe that we’ve not done before. This can especially relate to the previous point about learning and skill development. To push yourself to do something and learn something that maybe you’re not good at, or that you’ve never even tried before. But success doesn’t lie. It’s not where you currently are, it’s just outside and it’s about pushing yourself a little bit out of that comfort zone and taking those bold actions. Which added up over time will translate to the success that you’re seeking.
And number six, and this one probably trumps all of them. The number six thing that successful people realize is that consistency rules. It’s way better to do something consistently day after day, even at a slightly lower level, than it is to have these peaks where you’re doing something at this incredible level, only to be followed by a trough where you don’t do it at all. For example, you’re going to the gym and everything’s great and you’re working out harder than you have in years, only to be followed by three months of binge-eating and not going to the gym and not looking after yourself. It’s much better if you don’t push yourself as hard and actually just maintain that 80% consistently. So consistency rules.
So ask yourself, where would you being more consistent have a positive impact on your success? And that points you in the direction in which you should be focusing. And I’d love to hear from you, so don’t forget to leave a comment and a rating as well. And if you’d like to get a copy of my new book, The 3 Alarms, please head over to my website at ericpartaker.com. That’s E-R-I-C, ericpartaker.com, where you could pick up a free digital copy of my new best-selling book, The 3 Alarms.
