8 traits of successful people - Richard St. John

7,093,715 views ・ 2013-04-05

TED-Ed


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:14
Now, my subject is success,
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so people sometimes call me a "motivational speaker."
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But I want you to know right up front I'm not a motivational speaker.
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I couldn't pass the height requirement.
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(Laughter)
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And I couldn't motivate anybody.
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My employees actually call me a de-motivational speaker.
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(Laughter)
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What I try to be is an informational speaker.
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I went out and found out some information about success,
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and I'm just here to pass it on.
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And my story started over ten years ago, on a plane.
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I was on my way to the TED conference in California,
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and in the seat next to me was a teenage girl,
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and she came from a really poor family, but she wanted to get somewhere in life.
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And as I tapped away on my computer, she kept asking me questions,
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and then out of the blue, she asked, "Are you successful?"
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I said, "No, I'm not successful."
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Terry Fox, my hero, now there's a big success.
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He lost a leg to cancer, then ran thousands of miles
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and raised millions for cancer research.
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Or Bill Gates, a guy who owns his own plane
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and doesn't have to sit next to some kid asking him questions.
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(Laughter)
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But then I told her about some of the stuff I'd done.
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I love communications, and I've won lots of awards in marketing.
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I love running, and I still sometimes win my age group,
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old farts over 60.
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(Laughter)
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My fastest marathon is two hours and 43 minutes
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to run the 26 miles, or 42 kilometers.
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I've run over 50 marathons, in all 7 continents.
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This was a run my wife and I did up the Inca trail to Machu Picchu in Peru.
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And to qualify for the 7 continents,
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we had to run a marathon in Antarctica.
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But when we got there, it didn't look nice and calm like this,
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it looked like this.
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The waves were so high, we couldn't get to shore.
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So we sailed 200 miles further south to where the seas were calm
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and ran the entire 26-mile marathon
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on the boat.
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422 laps around the deck of that little boat.
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My wife and I have also climbed two of the world's seven summits,
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the highest mountains on each continent.
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We climbed Aconcagua, the highest mountain on the American continent,
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and Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa.
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Well, to be honest, I puked my way to the top of Kilimanjaro,
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I got altitude sickness.
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I got no sympathy from my wife.
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She passed me and did a lap around the top
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while I was still struggling up there.
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In spite of that, we're still together and have been for over 35 years.
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(Applause)
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I'd say that's a success these days.
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So I said to the girl,
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"Well, you know, I guess I have had some success."
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And then she said, "Okay, so are you a millionaire?"
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(Laughter)
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Now, I didn't know what to say,
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because when I grew up, it was bad manners to talk about money.
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But I figured I'd better be honest,
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and I said, "Yeah. I'm a millionaire.
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But I don't know how it happened.
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I never went after the money, and it's not that important to me."
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She said, "Maybe not to you, but it is to me.
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I don't want to be poor all my life.
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I want to get somewhere, but it's never going to happen."
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I said, "Well, why not?"
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She said, "Well, you know, I'm not very smart.
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I'm not doing great in school."
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I said, "So what? I'm not smart. I barely passed high school.
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I had absolutely nothing going for me.
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I was never voted most popular or most likely to succeed.
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I started a whole new category -- most likely to fail.
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But in the end, I did okay. So if I can do it, you can do it."
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And then she asked me the big question:
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"Okay, so what really leads to success?"
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I said, "Jeez, sorry. I don't know.
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I guess somehow I did it. I don't know how I did it."
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So I get off the plane and go to the TED conference,
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and I'm standing in a room full of extraordinarily successful people
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in many fields -- business, science, arts,
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health, technology, the environment --
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when it hit me:
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Why don't I ask them what helped them succeed,
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and find out what really leads to success for everyone?
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So I was all excited to get out there and start talking to these great people,
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when the self-doubt set in.
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I mean, why would people want to talk to me?
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I'm not a famous journalist. I'm not even a journalist.
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So I was ready to stop the project before it even began,
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when who comes walking towards me but Ben Cohen,
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the famous co-founder of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.
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I figured it was now or never.
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I pushed through the self-doubt,
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jumped out in front of him, and said,
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"Ben, I'm working on this project.
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I don't even know what to ask you,
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but can you tell me what helped you succeed?"
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He said, "Yeah, sure, come on. Let's go for a coffee."
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And over coffee and ice cream, Ben told me his story.
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Now here we are over 10 years later,
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and I've interviewed over 500 successful people
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face-to-face, and collected thousands of other success stories.
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I wanted to find the common factors for success in all fields,
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so I had to interview people in careers ranging from A to Z.
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These are just the careers I interviewed beginning with the letter A,
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and in most cases more than one person.
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I interviewed six successful accountants,
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five corporate auditors, five astronauts who had been into space,
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four actors who had won the Academy Award for Best Actor,
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three of the world's top astrophysicists,
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six of the world's leading architects
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and, oh yeah, four Nobel Prize winners.
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Yeah, I know it doesn't start with A, but it's kind of cool.
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(Laughter)
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And I want to say a sincere thanks
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to all the great people that I've interviewed over the years.
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This really is their story; I'm just the messenger.
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The really big job was taking all the interviews
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and analyzing them, word by word, line by line,
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and sorting them into all the factors that people said helped them succeed.
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And then you start to see the big factors that are common to most people's success.
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Altogether, I analyzed and sorted millions of words.
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Do you know how much work that is?
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That's all I do, day and night -- sort and analyze.
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I'll tell you, if I ever get my hands on that kid on the plane --
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(Laughter)
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Actually, if I do, I'll thank her.
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Because I've never had so much fun and met so many interesting people.
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And now, I can answer her question.
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I discovered the 8 traits successful people have in common,
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or the 8 to be great:
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Love what you do; work really hard;
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focus on one thing, not everything;
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keep pushing yourself; come up with good ideas;
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keep improving yourself and what you do;
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serve others something of value, because success isn't just about me, me, me;
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and persist, because there's no overnight success.
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Why did I pick these?
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Because when I added up all the comments in my interviews,
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more people said those 8 things helped them
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than anything else.
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The eight traits are really the heart of success, the foundation,
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and then on top we build the specific skills
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that we need for our particular field or career.
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Technical skills, analytical skills, people skills, creative skills --
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lots of other skills we can add on top,
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depending on our field.
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But no matter what field we're in,
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these eight traits will be at the heart of our success.
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(Applause)
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