Member-only story
The Two Things 99% of Successful People Value More Than Talent
Highly successful people prioritise ruthlessly
It’s possible to be talented and not be successful.
It is also possible to be successful without being too talented. The same can’t be said the other way around.
Highly successful people prioritise two things to get ahead and stay ahead of their peers: thinking clearly and taking action.
You can’t think your way to success. You have to take action. But you can’t take better action without thinking clearly.
A good thinking habit precedes proactive action.
Great innovators like Thomas Edison, The Wright Brothers, Ada Lovelace, Leonardo Da Vinci, Marie Curie and Steve Jobs made vast leaps in innovation by embracing the “thinking outside convention” habit first.
One common theme in their success is thinking outside domain knowledge. They saw possibilities where others didn’t and thought about the future in a completely new way.
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking,” Albert Einstein once said.