Attributes of All Successful People

During a recent speech in Copenhagen, I tried an experiment.

With the help of 5 individuals, we explored the 5 traits of all successful people.

I think you will agree that we identified some traits that ALL successful people share.

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I Was Humbled by Curious George

Back in 2006, my Goal-Free Living book was published by Wiley, and I was feeling quite proud. Later that same year, after giving a speech in Los Angeles, I drove up to Santa Barbara to attend a conference, arriving just in time for lunch.

While standing in the line for the buffet, I turned around and said hi to the guy next to me.

He told me his name was George. He then asked me what I did.

Given my new book and the success of my speech earlier that day, I said with a bit of swagger, “I’m an author and professional speaker.” I was feeling very good about myself.

I asked George, “What do you do?”

He replied nonchalantly, “Oh, I’ve done a bit of television.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, that I assumed he had a small role in television. Maybe he had done a couple of commercials. Or possibly he did some voiceover work; he certainly had the voice for it. Or maybe he once had a “bit” part in a minor show.

He then proceeded to ask me about my book and the work I do, and I gladly shared my life story.

When I sat down at my table to eat, not with George, I looked at the agenda of speakers for the conference.

I was humbled when I realized that the person I was standing next to in the buffet line was speaking later that day. He was none other than George Takei.

At that moment, I realized that truly confident, successful, and impressive individuals do not need to boast. They don’t need to be the center of attention. Instead, they make others feel good about themselves. They ask good questions and are interested in others.

After that embarrassing moment, I have done my best to do what George did with me. Instead of attempting to convince the world of how great I am, I try to bring out the greatness in others. When I am at a conference, I do my best to make others the centers of conversation.

The next time you are with a group, spend more asking questions and listening than talking. Spend more time promoting others than promoting yourself.

As I learned from George, the most powerful people make others feel like a super star.

P.S. I ended up spending about 90 minutes with George. He truly is one of the nicest people I have ever met. He even asked for a copy of my Goal-Free Living book, which I gladly signed and sent. The picture below is what he sent me, to thank me for my book. He is a class act!

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Stop Being a Know-it-All (transcription)

Here’s the transcription of my Monday Morning Movie…

Today, I want to talk about the power of, and importance of, being open to new ideas and feedback.

I just spent a weekend at a conference. It was a bunch of people learning about the speaking profession. I’ve been speaking for 20 years, and I’ve had my own business for over a dozen years. So I’ve heard a lot of advice over time.

We had breakout sessions where we got advice from the instructor and from others in the group about how we can improve our business. It was fascinating to listen and observe the way some people in the group solicited advice, and how they accepted that advice.

For example, there was one person in the group, her response to anything that was said was, “We thought about that before. We’ve tried that before and it didn’t work. We’re doing that right now.” In some cases, she’d say, “I knew you’d say that.”  I found it really interesting because I wondered if in the time that this individual was receiving feedback, whether or not she received any value at all. Basically, every response to every idea was, “We’ve done it. We’ve thought about it. We’ve tried it; didn’t work. We’re doing it. Knew you’d say that.” Interestingly, this was a person who’s relatively new to the profession.

There was another person who took their time and talked the entire time. When the timer went off, everybody just looked at each other and thought, “That was interesting.” There was no opportunity, no opening for feedback; no opening or opportunity for input.

Then, it was my turn.

I asked my question and then listened to everything as though it was the very first time I heard any of the advice before.  Even if I’ve tried it before and it didn’t work.  Even if I’ve thought about it before and decided not to do it.  Even if I’ve never tried it. It doesn’t matter, whatever was said, I was acting as though, and thinking as though, it was the first time I ever heard it.

I have to say, for me, it was a magical experience. Instead of my “being right” all the time, instead of having to be the expert who knows all the answers (which is what I tend to do in my profession), I acted as though I was the novice. I was the person who’s never thought of these things before. I gave up the need to have the answers. I gave up the need to look good in the eyes of others as the person who knows everything. Instead I just responded, “Wow. That’s a great idea. I have not thought about that before. Let me explore that.” This made it a very powerful experience for me.

Think about yourself. When you are engaging customers, colleagues, friends, or experts; how do you naturally respond? Are you the person who has the answers? Are you protecting what you look like by trying to always act as though you knew the answer already? Or, are you willing to be vulnerable? Are you able to put yourself out there and say, “I don’t know the answer; I really want advice”?  If you’ve heard something before, really listen to it as though it was the first time you’re hearing it.

Are you a great listener or are you a great talker? Do you try to impress everybody with what you know, or do you sort of state your challenge, which is your vulnerability, and just sit back and say, “Please help me”?

I’m absolutely convinced that successful business owners get so wrapped up in what that know – their identity of being the expert, the person who solved the problems before – that they don’t allow themselves to open up to the input of others.

If you were to get a bad review on Yelp, is your natural inclination to say, “Man, that person’s an idiot. If we tried to fix every single problem like that, we’d be out of business”? Or, do you say, “That’s really interesting. Thank you for the feedback”? It doesn’t mean you have to do anything with it. You can’t solve every single problem; that’s the reality of business. But if you are appreciative of all input – good, bad, and ugly – that has to put you in a better position. It has to open you up to new insights. It has to allow you to see things that you would not see if you were closed and thought that it was your way or the highway.

Think about your business. Think about the way you run it. Think about your interactions with people. Are you open? Do you allow yourself to be vulnerable? Are you gracious when people provide input to you? Or, is your response, “I’ve done that, I know that, I’m the expert”?

When you’re engaging people, do you have to be the one who talks, or can you be the one who listens? Can you be the one who throws out one of your concerns and just wait for people to make a contribution?

When you’re in a social group, are you always making yourself look good, or are you making others look good? Although it’s a slightly different conversation, I think it’s all related. Get into the habit of making others be the heroes – our clients, customers, colleagues, and friends. Make them feel great. Make the people who give you advice, feedback, or criticism feel great. This opens you up to a whole new set of ideas. And it makes you much more attractive to be around, which means you will attract more people into your life.

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Stop Being a Know-it-All

Today’s Monday Morning Movie…

As an expert, or someone who is highly experienced in a particular field, it can be difficult to get advice from others. We have the bad habit of positioning ourselves as the individual who has seen it and done it all.

But this can limit our ability to receive valuable input.

Instead of having all of the answers, have better questions. Instead of talking all of the time, be a great listener. Instead of having to “look good” in the eyes of others, make others look good. Instead of having to be the expert, be the novice.

When you are open to any and all input, you will become even more masterful at your craft.

P.S. This video is a tad longer than most, coming in at 6 minutes. In the future, they will be between 2 and 4 minutes. You can read the transcription here.

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Innovating Masterminds (transcript)

Here is a transcript of yesterday’s Monday Morning Movie…

When I started my business 12 years ago, one of the first things I did was join a mastermind group. Basically “mastermind” is just a fancy word for a group of people who come together that work on each other’s business.  So we learn from each other.  I’ve learned a number of things over the years in terms of what makes a good mastermind group. If you’re in a business and you want to learn from others, this is an awesome way.

For most of my career, I decided to mastermind with other professional speakers.  In the early days of my career this was great because I learned some of the basics and I learned some of the things that would have taken me much longer to learn. I was able to learn from people who’ve already done what I wanted to do.

But then I recognized something.  There is a point in every business where only hanging out with people who are in the same business is actually going to hold you back, because you start breathing the same oxygen.  You start thinking the same way.

Sometimes you want to breathe fresh ideas into your business; to think differently.

Just last weekend I got together with four other people in Las Vegas.  We had this great two-day mastermind.  We spent about an hour and a half on each person’s business and we dug really deep.

What was particularly cool about this mastermind is that instead of being composed of a bunch of speakers, we had a diverse group: someone who is in real estate, someone who works in multilevel marketing, someone who is in the printing business, and someone who had his own creativity space. And then there was me, the speaker. We also invited someone in who was an executive at Zappos for a while.  So we got a very interesting mix of people.  I learned a lot about business, and what would be valuable to my business, from this group of people.

Although I was shocked at how useful the input was, it really shouldn’t surprise me since my message around innovation is that we need to hang out with people who aren’t like us. But I have to say, I was still amazed to see the real power of getting a divergent group of people together that have a deep trust for one another and can share their open and honest opinions.  It was fantastic.

The other thing that we learned, which is an extremely important part of not just masterminding but innovation in general, is you have to know what question to ask.  Anybody who’s seen my work knows that I love to quote Einstein who reputedly said, “If had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute finding solutions.”  This is really important.  Even in a mastermind it is critical to make sure we’re asking the right question.  Sometimes even a small change in language can have a huge impact.

For example, one person might be thinking about starting a restaurant.  Now, that question – “What do I need to do to start a successful restaurant?” – implies the individual needs to worry about everything associated with starting a new business.  If we change the language slightly and ask – “What do I need to do to buy a successful restaurant? I don’t want all of the hassle of starting one from scratch.” – very different suggestions and ideas will pop up with that.  Or if the question is – “Instead of buying a restaurant, what if I became an advisor to other restaurants?  I want to be involved in restaurants but I don’t necessarily want all of the day to day work.” – well, that’s again a fundamentally different question.

What we found over and over in the course of the weekend is that if you’re asking the wrong question, all the advice you might get from someone is irrelevant.  So you want to make sure that you’re taking the time to really think about what matters.  What’s important?  What do you value?  Make sure your questions are framed accordingly.

The other thing that we learned is that sometimes, when you want to improve your business, you don’t want to hang out with people who are even in the world of business.

We spent a fair amount of time talking about personal development: things that have nothing to do with the success of our company but are about our own internal success.  How do we become better people? Live better lives? Be happier? Be more compassionate?

It is amazing how these types of things, these non-business activities, can have a huge impact on your business.  That’s why it’s really important for you – whatever your business, whatever your role is in business – to recognize that you don’t want to spend all of your time hanging out with people who think like you.

Don’t just go to industry conferences.  Don’t just go to conferences with people who have the same role or function as you.  Instead, find people who have fundamentally different types of businesses.  Find people who are in different parts of your business.  If you’re in HR, hang out with people who are in sales.  Learn from people who think differently.

And again, don’t just spend all of your time thinking about business.  Think about your life and what you want out of your life.  This will make you more powerful in everything you do.  This will then help you create a more successful business because you will be able to define success on your terms.

This is Stephen Shapiro, and I hope that you find a group of people who together will change your business and change your life through divergent points of view together.

P.S. I still mastermind with other speakers, and get incredible value. The point isn’t to stop spending time with people from your industry. I am suggesting that you need to balance that with individuals/groups from different industries, different functions, and different disciplines.

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