How To Be Successful In Life: 13 Tips From The World’s Most Successful People

No matter how old you are, where you’re from or what you do for a living, we all share something in common—a desire to be successful. Each person’s definition of success is different, however, as some may define success as being a loving and faithful spouse or a caring and responsible parent, while most people would equate success with wealth, fame, and power.

We all want to achieve success so we could live a comfortable life—have financial freedom, drive a nice car, and live in a beautiful house. However, although success can be achieved, it does not come easy.

There are a lot of tips and strategies out there on how to be successful in life, but I am still a firm believer that there is no better way to succeed than to follow that footsteps of those who have already done so. Here are 13 success tips from some of the world’s most successful and renowned people:

1.Think big.

From Michelangelo Buonarroti, Great Renaissance Artist: “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”


2.Find what you love to do and do it.

From Oprah Winfrey, Media Mogul: “You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job and not be paid for it.”


3. Learn how to balance life.

From Phil Knight, CEO of Nike Inc.: “There is an immutable conflict at work in life and in business, a constant battle between peace and chaos. Neither can be mastered, but both can be influenced. How you go about that is the key to success.”


4. Do not be afraid of failure.

From Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motors: “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”

5. Have an unwavering resolution to succeed.

From Colonel Sanders, Founder of KFC: “I made a resolve then that I was going to amount to something if I could. And no hours, nor amount of labor, nor amount of money would deter me from giving the best that there was in me. And I have done that ever since, and I win by it. I know.”

6. Be a man of action.

From Leonardo da Vinci, Renaissance Genius :“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” 

7. Avoid conflicts.

From Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of America: “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.”

8. Don’t be afraid of introducing new ideas.

From Mark Twain, Famed Author: “A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.” 

9. Believe in your capacity to succeed.

From Walter Disney, Founder of Walt Disney Company: “If you can dream it, you can do it.”


10. Always maintain a positive mental attitude.

From Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of America: “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”


11. Don’t let discouragement stop you from pressing on.

From Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of America: “Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed.”


12. Be willing to work hard.

From JC Penny, Founder of JC Penney Inc.: “Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top.”

13. Be brave enough to follow your intuition.

From Steve Jobs, Co-founder of Apple Inc.: “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Featured photo credit: Portrait of smart young business executive via Shutterstock

What Is Success?

If you believe success is simply making (or having) a lot of money, you may be setting yourself up for failure.

 

I'm often amazed at how many people define success as making (or having) a lot of money.

It's very strange, because many of the people who think this way are harried, stressed and, frankly, pretty miserable. 

 

The way I see it, everybody's definition of success can be mapped on a simple grid, with one axis being the amount of money that you have and the other being the amount of happiness in your life, like so:

The way a lot of people think, success should be defined as follows:

To my mind, however, a much more sensible definition of success is:

There are two reasons why this definition is better. First, there's no point to being rich if you're not enjoying yourself. Second, you're more likely to get rich if you're happy doing whatever you're doing.

Being unhappy, of course, can definitely spur people to action. However, the action should be pointed at trying to become happier–not trying to become richer, in the rather naive belief that being rich, in and of itself, will make you happy.

Needless to say, if you're struggling to put food in your mouth and keep a roof over your head, none of this applies. When you're just trying to survive, you're not thinking about happiness.

Even so, I'd rather be poor and happy than rich and miserable.
Real Way to Get Rich

Of course, all things considered, I'd prefer to be rich and happy rather than poor and happy. However, I believe that it's easier to get rich if you start from a place of being happy–with what you're doing and why you're doing it.

For example, I spent six years as a marketing executive, making big money with lots of perks. (And when I say perks, I mean perks like two weeks in Munich and Paris doing "market research.")

However, while I was successful by most people's standards, I wasn't particularly happy–because there was always a voice inside me saying that I was born to be a writer, not a marketing parasite.

When I made the leap to writing full time, my income dropped to almost nothing. Even so, I was far happier doing what I knew I was supposed to be doing rather than pursuing a career that to many people would define "success."

But here's the thing. I now make more money than I made back then (even adjusted for inflation), and I work about half the hours. I'm 100% convinced that this is because I defined success as being happy rather than being rich.

I've noticed this pattern with almost every really successful person I've met. I can't think of a single person who's pursued a career purely because it's lucrative and who's happy as a result. They may be rich, but they're losers.

How about you?