A while back, as I was going through some old file folders, I ran across a small yellow pamphlet. It was entitled “The Common Denominator of Success” and was written by Albert E. N. Gray more than 50 years ago.
Albert Gray was, among other things, a life insurance agent. This little yellow pamphlet was written as an address to a convention of other life insurance agents, but the message applies to all of us today. It’s as true today as it was five decades ago.
Gray said he realized that the secret of success was NOT hard work. He had seen far too many hard-working people fail to become successful and far too many successful people who did not work hard.
Rather, he discovered the common denominator of successful people was that they simply formed the habit of doing the things that other people don’t like to do.
Interestingly enough, he did mention that successful people didn’t necessarily enjoy doing the things others didn’t like to do; successful people just did those things anyway.
Now, depending upon a person’s goals and aspirations, what qualifies as something most people don’t like to do may be different. However, the common denominator of success will remain the same.
In the field of life insurance, it related to disliking the need to call on people who didn’t want to be called, and then talking to them about something they didn’t want to talk about. Successful people would make a habit out of calling people anyway, while unsuccessful people would not.
Successful people are not necessarily successful because they love doing what others hate to do. They simply do what others are not willing to do. They make a deliberate decision to make it a habit to do the things most people dislike. They don’t allow their moods to dissuade them, or their feelings du jour to dictate what they accomplish. They make a plan and they stick to it.
Successful people simply are willing to do what unsuccessful people dislike doing.
I once heard Brian Tracy talk about going the extra mile. That extra mile, he said, has very little traffic.
So, here’s to doing what others dislike doing, and I hope to meet you all on that extra mile!
Make it an incredible day!
1 user commented in " The Common Denominator of Success "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackNice Concept.
I Want To Add A Couple Of Things Too.
Success Is Nothing But An Old ABC. Ability Breaks Courage. That means it is perhaps the ability of an individual say be his talents to achieve things that really reap us success.
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