Here is a brief excerpt from an article by Gillian Zoe Segal, featured by LinkedIn Pulse. To read the complete article, check out others, and sign up to receive email alerts, please click here.
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For my new book, Getting There: A Book of Mentors, I spent 5 years interviewing some of the most successful people alive (Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, Anderson Cooper, Sara Blakely, Jeff Koons, Kathy Ireland, Les Moonves, to name a few). Here are [two of] the 7 things they all have in common:
1. They Understand Their “Circle of Competence”
In his Getting There essay, legendary investor Warren Buffett explains that it’s essential to understand your strengths and weaknesses. He relays that when deciding what to pursue, knowing what to leave out is as important as knowing what to focus on and quotes Tom Watson (the founder of IBM) who said, “I’m no genius but I’m smart in spots and I stay around those spots.”
Buffett explains, “My brain is not a general-purpose brain that works marvelously in all situations. There are all sorts of things that I’m no good at and there are all kinds of investment opportunities I’m not able to comprehend. I understand some kinds of simple businesses. I can’t understand complicated ones. Coca- Cola, for example, isn’t very complicated. It’s a durable product and the appeal is universal. I try to find businesses I can grasp, where I like the people running them and think the price makes sense in relation to the future economics.”
John Paul DeJoria, billionaire co-founder of the Patrón Spirits Company and John Paul Mitchell Systems, advises, “Do what you do best and try to find others who can fill in by doing the things you are not good at. For instance, I am terrible at details—accounting especially, so I hire accountants to help me. This frees me up to focus on the things I do excel at and I can run a more efficient operation.”
None of my Getting There subjects are good at everything, but they all became incredibly successful by honing in on what they excel at.
2. They Harness Their Passions
You’ve probably heard this before — and for good reason! The path to success is almost guaranteed to be arduous, but if you love what you do you’ll thrive on the inevitable challenges and have the stamina to achieve your potential. My Getting There subjects express that if you pursue something just for the money or because you “think you should” — it probably won’t end well.
World famous scientist J. Craig Venter (AKA the first person to sequence the human genome) says, “So many people get pushed along in the “system,” and because they don’t really know what they want to do, they practically let their careers be chosen for them. If you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, it’s hard to be successful at it. You can show up and do what’s required, and you can even do your job well, but that’s not where real success is going to come from. Success comes from doing something extraordinary with passion and intensity.”
World famous composer Hans Zimmer joked in his Getting There essay, “Whenever I need legal or medical advice I go announce my problems to my orchestra…Half are doctors and half are lawyers whose parents forced them into those jobs!”
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Here is a direct link to the complete article.
As indicated Gillian Zoe Segal is the author of Getting There: A Book of Mentors and New York Characters. She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan and a law degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. She lives in Manhattan and is also a photographer.
Here is a direct link to my interview of Gillian.
To check out my review of Getting There, please click here.