Your Will To Succeed

The Most Important Character Trait As An Entrepreneur

In my consulting and coaching practice, I have the good fortune to interact with a lot of top entrepreneurs, CEOs and athletes. I’m in a particularly intense period of such interaction right now, as I’m in the thick of research for a book I’m writing on peak performance and what it takes to be “great” at anything.

My coaching, research and consulting look at many factors that impact peak performance on an individual and organizational level. Even though we look at a wide range of factors, there is one factor that always stands out in successful individuals and organizations: the will to succeed. Given the complexities of talking about this factor as it relates to teams and organizations, I will focus here on the will to succeed on an individual level.

In talking and working with top performers in business and sports, we cover a wide range of factors including: natural ability, clear goals, preparation, belief and the will to succeed, among many others. I see a wide range of variability on all but the will to succeed. In peak performers, almost invariably, when we look at their will to succeed and talk to them about it, its importance comes out as a “10” on a scale of 1-10. When you take a closer look, it’s relatively easy to see why.

First of all, we all start out with different levels of natural ability. In reality, it’s something that’s beyond our control. As the saying goes, “you’re born with it, or you’re not”. Secondly, some people are extremely goal driven, while others are not. Next, some people are fanatical about preparation, while others tend to do the minimum to get by, and yes, this is even true among top performers in many disciplines. In terms of belief, it’s true, most peak performers do have a strong belief that they can be great at what they do, however this belief is something that usually develops over time, with each successive milestone reached.

The will to succeed, on the other hand, is a different sort of animal. While it’s true that many people that have a strong will to succeed seem to be “born with it,” the majority appear to pick it up from environmental factors, often in the early and formative years of life. In my case, for example, I grew up in a very competitive household, mainly with adults. I was not an “only child”, but my siblings are much older than me, so I spent most of my childhood with adults. I observed what they did and how they competed, and from a very early age, even though I was a child, I wanted to and I believed that I could beat them. When I was wrong in certain disciplines, mental or physical, I worked as hard as I could – I studied and trained as much as necessary, in order to beat them, despite the difference in years.

Other peoples’ inner drive to succeed comes from other factors. Perhaps, for example, as is so often the case, a person may grow up seeing what other people have and wanting to be more like them. When I say seeing what people “have,” I’m not necessarily referring to material things. Sometimes we see that other people have the lives we think we want, whether those lives include a lot of wealth, or an apparently happy family, or an apparently rewarding job – whatever it may be. In my coaching work, I often see that people are driven by trying to obtain the lives that other people have. Although this is often misleading, which people only realize once they obtain those things or “that life” that they had been envying, nonetheless, it can be a great source of motivation, drive and willpower.

Then there’s that inner drive that cannot be simply explained by childhood rivalries or by trying to keep up with the Joneses. That harder to explain drive and will to succeed may in fact be the most powerful of all. Where does it come from? I don’t have a great answer for you. For the religious, it comes from a God, that is whichever God they worship. For the non-religious, it comes from some inexplicable source, perhaps from some unknown drive within the human species to continue to evolve and improve constantly.

Regardless of where you may believe the will to succeed comes from, in my experience, it is the single most consistent and powerful factor in all peak performers in all areas of endeavor, including entrepreneurship. Cultivate your will to succeed. Make sure you focus on endeavors where your will to succeed, to compete, and to be at your best is alive and well. If you don’t feel such willpower in what you are doing, ask yourself why. Should you be doing something else? Or is it simply that you need to be more focused so that you can fully engage your will to succeed? Be honest with yourself and realize that without a strong will to succeed in any particular endeavor, your odds of achieving “greatness” are severely diminished, as you simply will not have the strength to overcome the inevitable roadblocks and challenges you will face.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments. Do you agree that the will to succeed is the single most important factor on the road to greatness in any endeavor?

Paul Morin
paul@companyfounder.com
www.companyfounder.com.