Issy Sharp, founder of Four Seasons Hotels, said to me, “People ask what my big vision was for Four Seasons Hotels. But I had no vision ­– ever. I didn’t do this to build a business. I did it to build one hotel. I wasn’t even thinking of doing it again.” And with that approach of little vision, small goals, and small steps, Issy built Four Seasons into the world’s top premier hotel chain.

The problem with setting big goals and taking large leaps is they can be very intimidating, and actually discourage us from ever getting starting. The other approach of setting small goals and taking small steps makes it easier to get going and keep going.

Forrest Sawyer told me the small approach is how he went from being an unknown radio announcer to becoming a famous TV news anchor: “I started with 1-minute pieces, and then I would do 3-minute pieces, and I would keep doing them until I got them right. And then I did 10-minute and 13-minute pieces.”

When I first started running, my only goal was to run a few blocks and try to keep up with my wife. But it wasn’t long before I was lying on the ground gasping for air while she kept going. I stayed at it, gradually got better, and a couple of years later thought, “Maybe I’ll try running a 26-mile marathon.” I crossed the finish line, and after I stopped puking I said, “I’ll never do that again.” Then a year later, “Hmmm, maybe I can run a faster marathon”…

Now, at this point in my life, I’ve finished over 50 marathons on all seven continents and run more than 75,000 miles (120,000 km). That’s equal to 3 times around the world, or 25 times across the United States. It’s been a blast, and I did it all with no vision, no big goals, and no big leaps. The same approach led to success in my career.

The bottom line is we can accomplish big things with little vision, small goals, and small steps. So go ahead. Take the first step. What are you waiting for?

It takes 10 years for dancers to develop, surgeons to be trained, and surfers to ride the big waves we see on TV. It took 10 years for Einstein to come up with E=mc² and 10 years for the BlackBerry to be developed. Google founder Larry Page told me it took 10 years to make the Google search engine a success. He said, “It takes a long time to do these things and a lot of success is just due to the amount of time you put into it.”

My book shows many more 10-year success stories, and now there’s another one to add to the list. It’s not a person’s success or a company’s success; it’s a country’s success. It took the United States 10 years to succeed at capturing Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks in 2001. To be exact, it took 3454 days. Schoolteacher Gary Weddle knows, because when 911 shook the world he was so upset he forgot to shave – and then he vowed not to shave again until Osama bin Laden was caught.

So a big Persistence Award goes to all those in the U.S. military who hung-in for the 10 years it took to finally track down the world’s most wanted man – and to you Gary for persisting with your vow. Congratulations on finally shaving off your decade-long beard. You look 10 years younger.

More on Gary Weddle

“Hi Richard. Thank you for making my day. I really enjoyed everything you said. My question is: Should you take crap from someone or leave, even if that ruins your career in the company and everything you have worked for over the last four years?”

Well, Kine, generally, the only time it’s worth taking crap is if you’re getting something good in return. Gardeners put crap (fertilizer) on their gardens and beautiful roses grow. Sometimes the same thing happens when people lay crap on us. It stinks, but out of it we might gain knowledge, insight, opportunities, money, or something else that helps our career. Note: never put up with crap just for the money. There must be some other benefits.

At my company, we once had a client who treated everyone like crap (except his bosses). He was a bully who yelled at people, treated them rudely, and made incredible demands. But he was also a loyal client who gave us challenging projects, supported us, and pushed us to do our best. As a result, we produced good work, won awards, and got new clients. Out of his crap came some roses.

So, Kine, are there any roses to keep you there? If you persist through the crap, will the four years you’ve already invested start to flower? If so, maybe it’s worth staying. But, don’t stay just because of the time you’ve invested. That’s the past. If you look ahead and take your knowledge to another company, it could breathe new life into your career.

The bottom line is, if you’re getting crap from someone ask yourself, “Am I getting any roses out of this?” If the answer is yes, then maybe it’s worth hanging in there. If not, get out and move on. Life stinks if you spend it in a toilet.

In a previous post about adversity, I talked about how the bad luck of being injured and not able to run fast led me to take some good photos. Here is another story about how bad luck led Finbarr O’Reilly to win World Press Photo of the Year.

A picture can be worth a thousand words when it comes to inspiring people to get involved in foreign aid. Photographer Finbarr O’Reilly was shooting in Africa to show the world the plight of people suffering from famine and starvation. Unlike them, he had food, but it was not good food and he was struck by food poisoning. It made him so sick and weak that he was unable to travel out to villages and take photographs, and he ended up crashing in an emergency-feeding tent. He says, “I spent about 2 or 3 hours in this tent, where there were a dozen women and their infants who were all severely malnourished. I didn’t have the strength to go out, so I sat around in this tent for much longer than I would have otherwise.”

But Finbarr didn’t just sit there feeling sorry for himself. He kept his eyes open, observed the women and children, and empathized with them. A mother sat down across from him, holding her malnourished child. The boy raised his tiny, emaciated fingers to his mother’s lips. Finbarr says, “I felt like there was an interesting moment that was about to happen.” He found enough energy to pick up his camera and click. Later, that image won World Press Photo of the Year, in competition with over 83,000 others. So, the bad luck of getting food poisoning led Finbarr to an award for best in the world – and gave the world a haunting image of the famine to help mobilize relief efforts.

Finbarr O'Reilly © Reuters

But then, two weeks before the race, I pulled a calf muscle on a run and could barely limp home. So, should we cancel the trip and do it next year, or persist and see if I could finish the run, even walking? No brainer. Persist!

Doctors say that runners make terrible patients. They should really call us “impatients,” because we’re so impatient we won’t stop running long enough to heal. And that same impatience also makes us go out too fast at the beginning of a race. I’d done it before with a minor calf injury – didn’t let it heal and went out too fast at the start of the next race – and the minor injury turned into a major one when searing pain brought me to a crashing halt halfway to the finish line.

This time I needed to squelch the desire to run a fast time. But how? The answer was sitting on the table in front of me. My camera! Maybe carrying a camera might shift my mindset from fast-run-mode to photo-mode. So, I tried it on race day and it worked. I kept stopping to take photos, which gave my calf a break, and focusing on the people and scenery took my mind off the pain.

I talked to the local people lining the road and high-fived the kids. My male ego didn’t even get pissed off that other runners were passing me, because now I viewed them as photo subjects rather than competitors. As I hobbled over the finish line, it was one of my slowest times, but I didn’t even care because I had such a great time. And I have some good photos that would not have happened without the injury.

Adversity really sucks, but not being able to do one thing often pushes us to problem solve and try something else that results in a different kind of success. As the great Dale Carnegie once said, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”

(Click here to see a few photos of the run, people and temples.)

Helen’s sister Louise used to work for us, and one day she brought her “little sister” into the office to help out for a few weeks. Helen typed some of my research and interviews about success and we discussed them as she did office chores. She loved athletics, but was still trying to figure out what to do with her life. After she left, Louise kept telling us what she was up to, and one day exclaimed, “Helen is going to try bobsled racing.” She had stumbled into it when a friend suggested it, not even realizing that women participated in the sport. She discovered she loved it, but it has been a long haul with many disappointments. In the last Olympics she came fourth and missed getting a medal by 5 one-hundredths of a second. Imagine! Here’s part of an email Helen sent out at the time, four years ago:

“Helen Upperton”
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006
Subject: Sigh!!!! It’s over…

Hi everyone,

Well, It’s done. It came and went in a whirlwind of emotion, adrenaline, excitement, fear, disappointment, joy…basically everything you could imagine. At first I was so happy. We just came 4th at the Olympic games. This is so amazing. And then it started to dawn on me…I missed a medal by 5 one-hundredths of a second…I couldn’t believe it. I was so sad. I stood and watched the other teams get their flowers and stand on the podium, and thought that it was almost me. So close… Sigh.

Hels

Well, Hels, now it is you. You persisted through the downtimes, worked hard, practiced like crazy, stood on the podium and made history. Wow!  A big congratulations!

Click here to see Nick Vujicic video

Matt Moore in Australia writes, “You’ve spent a lot of time hanging out with successful people. Did you ever look for unsuccessful people who followed your 8 traits and did not become Bill Gates, etc.?”

Good question, Matt. In addition to spending a lot of time hanging out with successful people, I also interviewed some unsuccessful people, in order to get a point of comparison. Some were homeless men and women and others were people I met who had not achieved success, no matter how you measure it. Their responses indicated they didn’t follow any of the 8 success principles. They were doing jobs they didn’t like; they didn’t work hard, had no focus, sat back in their comfort zones instead of pushing themselves, and didn’t try to improve. They were only out to help themselves rather than serve others, and they tended to give up rather than persist. So, there was a high correlation between not doing the 8 Traits and not achieving success.

On the other hand, with the successful people I interviewed there was a high correlation between following the 8 principles and achieving success. Did all the people who followed those principles reach Bill Gates kind of success? No, everything is a matter of degrees, including success. In any endeavor, we can achieve: 1. Small success. 2. Moderate success. 3. Big success. 4. Super success. And be careful not to look down on those who achieve small or moderate success. Big success is built on a foundation of small successes and we need to pass through 1 and 2 before we reach 3 or 4. As Bill Gates says, “We took one step at a time and made the software better and better.”

So, if successful people follow the 8 Traits, what differentiates the ones who achieve super success from those who achieve moderate success? Again, it’s a question of degree. The Gates and Oprahs of the world not only do the 8 Traits, they do them to a greater degree than other people. They love what they do more than most people. They work more hours (even after he was a multimillionaire, Bill Gates worked most nights until 10pm and only took 2 weeks off in 7 years). The super successful focus more, push themselves more, come up with more ideas, improve more, serve others more, and persist more. They do the 8 to a greater degree, and that correlates to a greater degree of success. By the way, this applies to success in any endeavor, from the mother who succeeds big time at creating a family, to the CEO who succeeds big time at creating a company.

You may think, “I’m doing all those 8 things, so how come I’m not super successful?” Well, how long have you been at it? Remember, there’s no overnight success. We need to apply the 8 principles and PERSIST for a long time before achieving any success, let alone BIG success. As EDS founder H. Ross Perot once said, “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown.” So, if you’re doing everything right, but haven’t succeeded yet, hang in there and persist.

One last point: Forget about achieving “BIG” success, or comparing yourself to the Gates and Oprahs of the world. It just drains energy away from doing the 8 things that really will get you there. Legendary basketball coach John Wooden said, “Don’t compare yourself to somebody else, especially materially. If I’m worrying about the other guy and what he’s doing, and what he’s making, about all the attention he’s getting, I’m not going to be able to do what I’m capable of doing.” So keep your head down, focus on doing the 8 Traits, and build a trail of small achievements. That’s the path to big success. 

When Susan Boyle walked onto the stage of Britain’s Got Talent, the audience saw a dowdy, middle-aged woman who announced she was unemployed, had never been married, and “never been kissed.” They instantly wrote her off as having no chance of success as a singer. But when I saw Susan I suspected she’d be great. Why? Because she’s not great-looking. She’s an ALP, an Average-Looking Person, and my research shows that the top people in any field are usually ALPs, not BLPs or Beautiful-Looking People.

Yes, contrary to popular belief, being good-looking doesn’t lead to success and may even hinder it. My book Stupid, Ugly, Unlucky, and RICH has many examples. But you don’t have to believe me. Just go on the web and look at photos of the world’s richest people (of course, money isn’t the only indicator of success, but it’s one of them). It’s hard to find a good-looking billionaire. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Rupert Murdoch are not head turners, just average people you wouldn’t look at twice. And even though they’re among the world’s top CEOs, they would never be chosen by a Hollywood casting agent to play the part of a CEO in a movie or TV show. They’re simply not good-looking enough. Of course, Hollywood has it all wrong. In the real world, it’s the average-looking people who make it to the top.

Why do average-looking people finish ahead of the beautiful ones? Because many beautiful people sit back in their comfort zones, rest on their looks, and float through life. Doors are opened for them. They get the best seats at restaurants. They automatically get noticed, so they never learn to do the 8 things that really will help them succeed, like WORK hard and PUSH themselves. Meanwhile, the average-looking people, like Susan Boyle, have to work their butts off and keep pushing themselves in order to get noticed – and in the end that takes them further than looks ever would. I’m not saying good looks won’t help you get a date. I’m just saying, if you want to succeed, the top 8 Success Factors are much more important than looks. PERSIST is one of those factors and it took Susan Boyle, this average-looking woman, 47 years of persistence to be able to sing like an angel, blow an audience away, and prove herself. Hats off to Susan!

Ten years ago, I wrote to Microsoft and asked for an interview with Bill Gates. They sent me a rejection letter that said, “Bill really appreciates your interest in his perspectives on what it takes to succeed, but he regretfully must decline.” It was such a nice letter, I wasn’t even discouraged. I thought, “I’ll just keep doing my research and maybe some day I’ll get to talk to Bill.”

Well, that day was today. At the TED conference, I walked around a corner and stumbled into Bill Gates. I went up to him and introduced myself, we chatted for a while, and I told him about our 8 To Be Great Educational Program for colleges.

Then I said, “Would you like a copy of my book, 8 To Be Great?” But, as the words came out, I noticed he had no briefcase or bag to carry a book. So, what did I do? I stupidly tried to talk one of the world’s most influential people out of taking my book!  I said, “Well, maybe it’s too hard for you to carry.” Bill said, “How big is it?” I said, “It’s small,” and dug into my backpack for a book. He took it, looked at it, and said, “Thank you! I’ll read it.” And he was very sincere.

A few hours later, a man came up to me and said, “I just saw Bill Gates, and he was carrying your book under his arm.” Needless to say, it made my day. But not because it’s “my” book. Because it might help get the content out to more young people who are struggling, and give them a boost in life.