SUMMARY 

• Have you ever wondered how incredibly successful people think? Because if you could start thinking in the same way, the sky’s the limit. Today I’m going to share a set of principles that underpin the way incredibly successful people think.
• Number one, the first thing that underpins the way incredibly successful people think is that they take a long-term view on their success. They are not looking for overnight success. 
• The number two principle that underpins how incredibly successful people think is that they think beyond themselves. “How can what I’m doing be of service to others? How might what I’m doing benefit the world?”
• The number three thing that underpins how incredibly successful people think is that they take an 80/20 approach to their lives and to their businesses. They don’t try to do absolutely everything. Instead, they look for, “What’s the 20% of things that I could be doing that could create 80% of the results?
• Number four: Incredibly successful people zero in on the 20% of things they could be doing for 80% of the results. And then they think, “How do I break down those goals?” Incredibly successful people always break down their goals into sub-goals.
• Number five: Incredibly successful people realize that they can’t get there or do whatever it is that they hope to do on their own. They know that they need to surround themselves with wisdom.
• Number six: Incredibly successful people take action. They resist the temptation to overanalyze, overthink. And eventually if you take enough action, the results start to appear.
• Then number seven, despite everything that I just said there, successful people expect the unexpected. Now, they don’t know what that may be, but they expect that something may happen that they haven’t planned for.

TRANSCRIPT

Have you ever wondered how incredibly successful people think? Because if you could start thinking in the same way, the sky’s the limit.

Hi, my name is Eric Partaker. And today I’m going to share a set of principles that underpin the way incredibly successful people think. And these are a set of principles that I’ve picked up over the last 20 years. While helping build Skype, before we sold it to eBay for several billion dollars. While building an award-winning chain of Mexican restaurants. And while building my current business, which is a peak performance coaching business, all focused on helping entrepreneurs reach their full potential, in business and in life.

So I hope you enjoy this. Please make sure you stick around for the entire message because these principles, if employed, can totally up your game. Can totally take you to an entirely new level in whatever it is that you’re doing. So make sure you stick around.

Now, you might be thinking, “Well, I’m not an incredibly successful person, so I can’t think this way. And okay, you’ve already mentioned a bunch of things that you’ve done. So you must think differently.” No, no, no. You’re getting that the wrong way. It’s because of learning to think this way. It’s because of learning to use these principles, which I’m about to take you through, that have led to my own personal successes. And that has led to the successes that I see, for example, in the people that I work with and the people that I coach and all of the entrepreneurs out there. All these people that I’m helping close that gap between wherever they currently are and wherever it is that they would like to be. So you can absolutely learn everything that I’m going to be taking you through today. And there are a lucky seven principles that I’m going to be taking you through.

Number one, the first thing that underpins the way incredibly successful people think is that they take a long-term view on their success. They are not looking for overnight success. They are not looking to try to get rich quick. They are not looking for that next flash in the pan idea that’s going to take them to the stratosphere. They believe that success is built consistently over the long-term.

And there’s a very, very important principle that relates to this, which is called delayed gratification. This is backed by science When you look at people, a group of people, who are able to delay their gratification, what that simply means is that they’re able to delay the need for a short-term benefit because they’d rather postpone that until they can achieve some type of longer-term benefit.

A group of people like that will outperform, success-wise, a group of people who immediately just needs to give in and say, “No, no, no. I need to experience the benefit right away. And I can’t go through this pain or this struggle right now. I want to take the easier route.” So that group won’t come anywhere near being as successful as a group of people who are able to delay their gratification and look to the long-term. So that’s the first principle, is having that long-term vision on success, a long-term view.

And the number two principle that underpins how incredibly successful people think is that they think beyond themselves. “How can what I’m doing be of service to others? How might what I’m doing benefit the world?” Look at what Elon Musk is doing, for example. All of the businesses that he’s involved with have, or that he’s started, have some incredible impact on society, on humanity. Or at least that’s what he’s trying to do with each and every one of them.

When I was helping build Skype in the early days, our tagline was, “The whole world can talk for free.” It created this revolutionary spirit inside the company. So think in terms of yourself: what’s your purpose that extends beyond you? How could you be of service to others? Yes, you might be doing a particular thing that creates financial gain and monetary wealth for yourself. But most certainly that will also have an angle to it that is in service of others, that helps other people and their life dreams and whatever it is that they’re trying to do.

And if you can zero in on that, you start to tap into the ways in which incredibly successful people think. And it starts to open up your mind to other ideas, other ways in which you can be of service to others. And when you’re in service to others, great things start to happen. You get that reciprocity that starts to come back to you. That karma, if you will.

The number three thing that underpins how incredibly successful people think is that they take an 80/20 approach to their lives and to their businesses. And what I mean is they don’t try to do absolutely everything. Instead, they look for, “What’s the 20% of things that I could be doing that could create 80% of the results? What are the most important things that I should be focusing my attention on?” They don’t try to do absolutely everything. If you’re trying to do absolutely everything, you know what happens. You get exhausted and you get burnt out and you feel overwhelmed and that never works. Incredibly successful people look at the vital few things that they could be doing that will be ultimately most important for driving their success.

If you’re building a business, for example, right now, most certainly there will be 20% of all the things that you could be doing that will create 80% of your future success. And what are those things? What are those high quality things that will drive your success? If you’re writing a book, how many hours are you actually spending writing? If you’re trying to build a course and educate people, well how many courses are you actually building? How many hours are you spending on that versus other things?

So ask yourself, “What are the 20% of things that I could be doing, which could create 80% of my success, 80% of the results that I’m seeking?” Because your whole life, wherever you are right now today, it’s not the culmination of all of your choices. Not really. There are probably 20% of your life choices that account for 80% of where you are today. And think about that too for a moment. What were those forks in the road that you took? And how might that influence the choices that you take going forward? So take an 80/20 approach to life, instead of trying to do everything. What are the vital few things that you can be doing for the biggest results, biggest bang for the buck?

Number four. Incredibly successful people zero in on the 20% of things they could be doing for 80% of the results. And then they think, “How do I break down those goals?” Incredibly successful people always break down their goals into sub-goals. Any goal that you pick can, at any moment, feel insurmountable, feel unachievable, but not if you just break it down into the next series of steps. What’s the next action that you can be taking?

Number five. Incredibly successful people realize that they can’t get there or do whatever it is that they hope to do on their own. They know that they need to surround themselves with wisdom. So I encourage you once again, what is it that you’re trying to do in business, in life? And where’s the wisdom out there? Who is it that you could be picking up the phone to and having a chat with? Who is it that you could be getting online with and learning from?

And this doesn’t need to be just direct, one-to-one contact. There could be somebody’s group that you could join, or a course that you could take, or somebody who you could learn from. The point is that you don’t get to achieve great levels of success by just sitting there like a hermit on your own. You need to be benefiting from the wisdom of others.

The late Jim Rohn used to say that we are the average of the five people that we spend the most time with. So are you leveling up? Or should you be leveling up? If you think about the five people that you spend the most time with, are they the right five people? Are they the people who can take you to another level? Are they people who push you to a higher level? Or are they people who drain you of energy? Maybe hold you down. Make sure that the people that you’re choosing to spend time with cannot only give you wisdom, but actually invigorate you, give you energy, help you propel to that next level. Because that’s where you deserve to be.

Number six. Incredibly successful people take action. They resist the temptation to overanalyze, overthink. You can never think things through totally. And the best thing that you can do is just get started on whatever it is. Commit before you’re ready. Take action. Get out there. Ship before you’re ready. Get your product out, whatever it may be. Start your service offering before it’s complete. Get into the habit of acting. Action begets action. And eventually if you take enough action, the results start to appear.

So stop overthinking. Think about action. Think about how you can act. And on a daily basis, thinking of, “What’s one little bold action that I could be taking today that further progresses me on my path, on my goal, on my dream, on my quest to become the best version of me?”

Then number seven, despite everything that I just said there, successful people expect the unexpected. Now, they don’t know what that may be, but they expect that something may happen that they haven’t planned for. And there’s lots of things that you can do to help in this regard. One is that you could do a session with yourself where you just try to anticipate, “What are the obstacles I might be facing? And how would I overcome each of those? Or if I were to fail? It’s a year later and I failed.” And you can ask yourself, “If that were to be the case, what would be the most likely reasons why I failed?”

And then rather than have those things show up unexpectedly, by doing that bit of forward thinking, on the things that you would not like to happen, on the unexpected, you can start taking action and working on those things. Now, maybe those things then flow, for example, into the goals that you’ve broken down in pursuit of whatever it is that you’re trying to do.

So I hope you find that helpful. Seven principles that I’ve recognized underpin the thinking of incredibly successful people, all things that you can learn and practice. How do you get better at any or all of them? By actually practicing them, by doing them.

So I hope you’ve enjoyed that. And if you head over to my website at ericpartaker.com, you’ll also be able to subscribe to my weekly insights newsletter.