There are No ‘Successful People’

Thought leaders everywhere on the internet want to tell you what ‘successful people’ do. There is no such thing as ‘successful people’. 

Success is not a group you join. 

Success is not binary. Success is not universal. All success is relative. The best success is personal. 

‘80% of success is turning up’ Woody Allen. 

The other 20% is knowing what to do when you get there & doing it. 

Success is not history. Success is not fame. 

Success is the perceived adequacy of the balance between a few prominent successes and many private failures. 

Success takes hard work and everyone’s work is different. 

Success is not what others think. It is what you achieve. 

Success is context, timing, time, strategy, capability, tactics, networks, reputation, persistence, practice, resilience, adaptation, learning, luck and mystery. There’s no universal formula. There’s no group that has these things when you don’t. What works for one person will fail for others. What works one day won’t work the next. 

Copying is rarely a path to success. 

There’s nothing that ‘successful people’ do. They don’t exist. The world is full of people working hard for their own personal success. Sometimes they succeed. Mostly they don’t. 

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