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now my subject is success so people
sometimes call me a a motivational
speaker but I want you to know right up
front I'm not a motivational speaker I
couldn't pass the height requirement
and I couldn't motivate anybody my
employees that you call me Adi
motivational speaker what I try to be is
an informational speaker I went out and
find out some information about success
and I'm just here to pass it on and my
story started over 10 years ago on a
plane I was on my way to the TED
Conference in California and in the seat
next to me was a teenage girl and she
came from a really poor family but she
wanted to get somewhere in life and as I
tapped away in my computer she she kept
asking me questions then out of the blue
she asked are you successful I said no
I'm not successful Terry Fox my hero now
there's a big success he lost a leg to
cancer then ran thousands of miles and
raised millions for cancer research or
Bill Gates guy who owns his own plane
doesn't have to sit next to some kid
asking him questions but then I told her
about some of the stuff I'd done I loved
communications and I've won lots of
awards in marketing I love running and I
still sometimes win my age group old
farts over 60 my fastest marathon is two
hours and 43 minutes to run at 26 miles
or 42 kilometres I've run over 50
marathons on all seven continents this
was a run my wife and I did up the Inca
Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru and to
qualify for the seven continents we had
to run a marathon in Antarctica but when
we got there it didn't look nice and
calm like this it looked like this the
waves are so high we couldn't get to
shore so we sailed 200 miles further
south to where the seas were calm and
ran the entire 26-mile marathon on the
boat 422 laps around the deck of that
little boat my wife and I have also
climbed two of the world's seven summits
the highest mountains on each continent
we climbed aconcagua at the highest
mountain on the American continent and
Kilimanjaro the highest mountain in
Africa well to be honest
I puked my way to the top of Kilimanjaro
I got altitude sickness I got no
sympathy from my wife she passed me and
did a lap around the top while I was
still struggling up there in spite of
that we're still together and had been
for over 35 years
I'd say that's a success me today so I
said to the girl well you know I guess I
have had some success and then she said
okay so are you a millionaire now I
didn't know what to say because when I
grew up was bad manners to talk about
money but I figured I'd better be honest
and I said yeah I'm a millionaire but I
don't know how it happened
I never went after the money and it's
not that important to me she said maybe
not to you but it is to me I don't want
to be poor all my life I want to get
somewhere but it's never gonna happen I
said well why not she said well you know
I'm not very smart I'm not doing great
in school I said so what I'm not smart I
barely passed high school I had
absolutely nothing going for me I was
never voted most popular or most likely
to succeed I started a whole new
category most likely to fail but in the
end I did okay so if I can do it you can
do it and then she asked me the big
question okay so what really leads to
success I said she's sorry I don't know
I guess somehow I did it I don't know
how I did it so I get off the plane and
go to the TED conference and I'm
standing in a room full of
extraordinarily successful people in
many fields business science arts health
technology the environment when it hit
me why don't I ask them what helped them
succeed and find out what really leads
to success for everyone so I was all
excited to get out there and start
talking to these great people when the
self-doubt set in I mean why would
people want to talk to me I'm not a
famous journalist I'm not even a
journalist so I was ready to stop the
project before it even began when who
comes walking towards me but Ben Cohen
name is co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice
cream I figured it was Now or Never I
pushed through the self-doubt jumped out
in front of them and said Ben I'm
working on this project I don't even
know what to ask you but can you tell me
what helped you succeed he said yes
come on let's go for a coffee and over
coffee and ice cream Ben told me a story
now here we are over 10 years later and
I've interviewed over 500 successful
people face to face and collected
thousands of other success stories I
wanted to find the common factors for
success in all fields so I had to
interview people in careers ranging from
A to Z these are just the careers I
interviewed beginning with the letter A
and in most cases more than one person I
interviewed six successful accountants
five corporate auditors five astronauts
who have been into space for actors
who'd won the Academy Award for Best
Actor three of the world's top
astrophysicists six of the world's
leading architects and oh yeah four
Nobel Prize winners yeah I know it
doesn't start with a but it's kind of
cool and I want to say a sincere thanks
to all the great people that I've
interviewed over the years this really
is their story I'm just the messenger
the really big job was taking all the
interviews and analyzing them word by
word line by line and sorting them into
all the factors that people said help
them succeed and then you start to see
the big factors that are common to most
people success all together I analyze in
sort of millions of words you know much
work that is
that's all I do day and night sort and
analyze I'll tell you if I ever get my
hands on that kid on the plane actually
if I do all thank her because I've never
had so much fun I met so many
interesting people and now I can answer
her question I discovered the eight
traits successful people have in common
or the eight to be great love what you
do work really hard focus on one thing
not everything keep pushing yourself
come up with good ideas keep improving
yourself and what you do serve others
something of value because success isn't
just about me me me
and persist because there's no overnight
success why did I pick these because
when I added up all the comments and my
interviews more people said those eight
things helped them than anything else
the eight traits are really the heart of
success the foundation and then on top
we build the specific skills that we
need for our
tickler field or career technical skills
analytical skills people skills creative
skills lots of other skills we can add
on top depending on our field but no
matter what field we're in these eight
traits will be at the heart of our
success
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