11 Ingredients in the Magic Potion of Success
A mad scientist stands before you, wearing a white lab coat and holding a glass beaker. Inside the beaker, a green liquid bubbles and foams.
“This is a magic potion,” says the mad scientist. “If you drink it, your behaviors and attitudes will change in such a way as to make you amazingly successful and happy.”
We can imagine the mad scientist working in his laboratory, surrounded by bubbling brews and test tubes filled with colored liquid. We can imagine him mixing magic powders with exotic leaves. And we might wonder what ingredients he used to make his mysterious potion of success and happiness.
But there’s a more important question: What characteristics would the potion imbue upon its drinker? Once you know the characteristics of success, you can adopt them or teach them to others, no potion necessary.
You extend your hand, and the mad scientist places the beaker within your grasp. You give it a swirl and hold it up to the light, watching the vortex of green bubbles.
And you wonder again: What are the characteristics of success?
I’m not so naïve as to think there is only one formula, but if you had to identify the traits that make a person successful and happy, what would those traits be?
Here’s the list of 11 characteristics I would pour into my version of this potion:
1. Understanding of Self: Successful people understand their strengths, aptitudes, and motivations; what they’re good at and what drives them.
2. Personal Definition of Success: Does your personal definition of success include a big house? A loving relationship? A prestigious career? Or are you simply looking for inner peace? Creating your own definition of success will help you focus on what’s important to you.
3. Passion and Connectedness: The allusive combo of success and happiness requires a strong connection between motivations and aptitudes (on the one hand) and activities and relationships (on the other). In other words, a connection between passion and lifestyle.
4. Growth Orientation: Learning, specialization, and growth facilitate success. Don’t be afraid to go back to school, learn a new trade, or try something new.
5. Personal Accountability: Success by any reasonable definition requires a willingness to embrace that which contributes to your life, to repel that which detracts from it, and to accept responsibility for everything in it.
6. Genuine Goodwill: Being social by nature, a person can only be so happy by himself. To make the most of relationships, develop a respect and admiration for the finer qualities of the people around you; a willingness to give people the benefit of the doubt; an ability to trust; a desire to help.
7. Working with Others: Just as happiness requires a social symbiosis, so do most forms of accomplishment; therefore, communication and teamwork are vital.
8. Focused Generosity: Are you making the world a better place? If not, you’re missing one of the great joys of life. Identify a cause you feel passionate about and devote yourself to it.
9. Relentless Pursuit of Goals: Regardless of how smart you are, how much money you have, or whom you know, success usually boils down to tenacity, determination, and perseverance.
10. Faith in Yourself: If you believe you can do it, most of the time, you really can.
11. Balancing Today and Tomorrow: If you live exclusively for today, you’ll seldom achieve your goals; likewise, if you live exclusively for the future, you’ll never enjoy today. Somewhere between these extremes lies balance.
Although it may not be possible to distill a universal formula for success and happiness, I’ve got my finger on the pulse of the thing. The beating heart at the center pounds out a rhythm of accomplishment, happiness, fulfillment, and purpose.
It’s not just about getting ahead; it’s about being happy with your station, setting priorities that satisfy you, and living your own personal definition of success.
What characteristics would you mix into your own magic potion of success?
See, the thing is, if you can identify the characteristics of success, you can tell the mad scientist you don’t need his silly potion. You can grab the beaker from him, throw it against the wall, and watch all that bubbling green bile splatter on the wallpaper.
Because you’ll have the whole success thing figured out as well as anyone.
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Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 3:02 am under
Once you figure all that out, the difficult part is sticking with the changes necessary. It’s very easy to backslide, even once you feel the differences start to come into your life. I don’t know why giving up is so easy, but it certainly is.
July 27th, 2007 at 10:49 amYep. Giving up is certainly easier than sticking to it, that’s for sure.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:03 amPerhaps you need to define what you mean by success. I could be a successful assassin and kill many people. I could be a successful freedom fighter in and ‘liberate’ our country from the invading foreigners. I could be a success in taking the garbage out.
July 30th, 2007 at 11:29 amGood point, Duncan. That’s precisely why the first two ingredients are “knowledge of self” and “a personal definition of success.” In other words, it’s up to us. That’s also why each reader is encouraged to develop his own list of ingredients to add to his own personal potion of success.
Of course, the rest of the ingredients in my list assume that one chooses something Appollonian and not Dionysian.
We could probably have a long and interesting conversation about whether it’s even possible for the Dionysian mindset to ever be both successful and happy (the tag-team we’re discussing here), since the Dionysian is often tortured.
July 30th, 2007 at 12:22 pmI would put passion and personal accountability at the top of the list. You need the passion and energy to succeed at anything and you also not to get out of the blame game and accept that what you have is down to you and you alone.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:39 amExcellent point, MDB. These weren’t in any particular order.
August 9th, 2007 at 10:58 amThis topic is quite trendy on the Internet at the moment. What do you pay attention to while choosing what to write about?
April 15th, 2009 at 6:24 am