Today I am going to talk about what are the factors that separates the top 10% of success from the bottom 75%.
When you look at successful Chief Executive Officers, Chief Financial Officers or those at the top of the business world, you would think that these people are somewhat sociopathic, narcissistic and self-centered, which is exactly what these people are. And these features are an important part of their success and succesful life.
These people have very bright ideas and have built companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
And, today I will share with you the difference between successful people at the top and unsuccessful people at the bottom. I will do this in a very specific way.
The general problem is that when most of us look at very successful people, we say that these people are very disciplined and can manage their time and resources very well, and at the same time we do not know exactly how to be so disciplined and manage our resources in the best way. We only and desperately say, “I'm not good at managing my resources and these guys are good at it,” but we don't know how to get better at it, we just leave it away. Let's be more action oriented right ?
With this article, I will teach you three cognitive characteristics that I observe in most of the high-performing people I work with. These are traits related to narcissism, sociopathy and neuroticism.
We think of these traits as negative ones, but actually they are traits of the ideal human species, we all have them in various degrees. Antisocial personality disorder, which is called narcissistic personality disorder or sociopathy, actually stems from the fact that these characteristics, which we all have to some degree, are at extremes and therefore become a problem. Here I will show you how you can acquire these characteristics in a positive and good way.
Let's start with sociopathy.
Imagine two brothers in almost the same situation, one of whom left home and his parents when he was 17-18 years old. And the other one of these siblings lean towards short-term compassion, that is, do the "right thing" by sacrificing himself for his family and stayed with them. He didn't go to university, he started working in unqualified jobs and earned money to help his family, saying "my mother or father cannot live and survive alone, this is my only option." After 10 years, the brother stayed home in this family are generally not much more successful because the current culture in the comfort zone and in the family is based on survival, not success.
Let the other brother say, "Yes, the situation is very bad, but in order to offer them a better future, I have to leave them behind temporarily and go to university." This person study hard at university, get a good job despite growing up poor, and earn very high salaries. 10 years later, this person is now a positive role model for his smaller age family members, and they are on their way to becoming very successful. While this man earns 250 thousand euros a year and provides a very good life for his family, the first brother earns 35 thousand euros a year and cannot be very useful. Even though the family of the second young man went through a very difficult time for 3-4 years, they later found relief. And this happened thanks to the brother choosed the so called "wrong thing" which was leaving the comfort circle.
(This is an extreme example, but) the main point here is this: successful people are resistant to turning into punching bags with a sense of compassion. What I want you to do is to examine your own life and look at the cost of short-term compassion, the sacrifices you make to be kind, generous, and supportive of others. Because what I generally see in people who are in the bottom 50% of success is that many of these people are sucked into traps of short-term compassion, ridiculous guilt, and constantly shooting themselves in the foot. These people make a lot of sacrifices, and although the people in their lives reap the benefits of these sacrifices, those who made the sacrifices are left with nothing years later.
You need to be a little more sociopathic in life and focus on yourself a little more. You must resist being trapped by short-term compassion.
Secondly, we will talk about narcissism.
Narcissism does not appear in the minds of successful people in a perspective like they are only thinking about themselves. It comes out in a pretty specific way. I observe a specific trait of narcissism in the extraordinarily successful people I work with. These people are very skilled at saying no. Just pay attention to the words I use. Being skilled at saying no does not mean saying no more or less than the average person. These people are masters of the concept of saying no. They know very well when to say no and when not to say no. In example, they know how to say no when their friends, colleagues, and even bosses ask for help with small things.
If you have trouble saying no to people around you, then people around you will come to you asking for more stuff. This can be very frustrating, especially if you have low self-worth. Because some part of your self-worth comes from people being grateful to you. But when you, as a good person, constantly help, you become an unappreciated punching bag. You give to others what you should invest in yourself.
Here, as much as possible, say yes to things that will benefit you in the future. If you say yes to maintain the current situation, be very careful about it. What I observe in successful people is that these people prefer to help new people rather than helping people around them for the fourth or fifth time.
If a person constantly asks for help, they say no to that person and prefer to help a new person. For example, they say no to their boss when they ask them to work several weekends, but they say yes to someone who asks for advice on a new project or they even help someone from another company.
I'm not saying you shouldn't work hard at your job or that bosses are bad people. But what I have observed is that very successful people prefer saying yes to new opportunities and new people over saying yes to the same people over and over again.
The third topic we will talk about is neuroticism.
Successful people tend to use more "type B" coping techniques. Let me explain it to you.
In psychology and psychiatry, there are basically three levels of coping mechanisms. At the top, there is cognitive reframing. And following that there are action-oriented coping mechanisms at the middle level. And at the lowest level, there are emotion-focused coping mechanisms. Type B coping techniques are the ones that are using action-oriented coping mechanisms.
I observe that very successful people use these middle-level coping mechanisms more. When these people are unhappy or have a negative experience, they correct their environment to correct this experience.
When these people feel ashamed of the bodies they see when they look in the mirror, they start joining the gym and getting in shape to correct this shame. These people are trying to replace suffering with success. When you use this type of coping mechanism, you are not gaining inner relief, and it is important to understand this. To correct their inner feelings, they reshape their outer environment. These people know that complaining and being emotional won't solve anything.
Successful people always work harder if their bosses are unhappy with them. They are not complainers, they always find a way to solve the things with action-oriented coping mechanisms, not complain-oriented coping mechanisms. However, I would like to draw your to a one important point. This is a bit of a sensitive issue, what if the boss is narcissistic and has unreasonable expectations? And what if the boss is actually someone who will never be satisfied? In this case, no matter how hard you work, the boss will not be happy with you.
This is a very interesting situation because on the one hand, the person continues to suffer because the boss is never satisfied, he becomes a more successful person because he constantly works hard to satisfy the boss. Therefore this creates something I call “toxic fuel”. Unsuccesful people in the other hand would choose the way of complaining, gossiping and running around like a headless chicken instead of having solution oriented mindset.
Generally the medical students have very high levels of neuroticism. In other words, they are more prone to internal anxiety and are constantly anxious. But this causes them to study at the library on Friday nights instead of going to the party. While a normal person says I have worked all week and now it is time to relax. For these students, working all week is not enough. They constantly worry about "what if I fail the courses, what if I fail, what if I don't get the grades as much as I want".
This strategy is very adaptive in the short term. For example, if the person which seen in the mirror makes the person feel ashamed, going to the gym and working out is a very healthy thing. But even after that, if the person are still not satisfied, the one can go for some botox, some plastic surgery, or fill in some areas. In this case, nothing satisfies the person. Someone whose girlfriend or boss is never satisfied can easily get out of control. Although this strategy can sometimes bring success, it always causes great suffering.
In summary, these are the cognitive characteristics which I generally see in those who are in the top 10% of success. These people are a little more sociopathic, a little more narcissistic, and a little more neurotic. If you're in the bottom 50% of success and you're not happy, I recommend using before-mentioned three cognitive traits.
Ask yourself if you are a victim of short-term compassion. Ask yourself if your effort to help others today is sabotaging not only your own capacity, but also your capacity to help others. If the answer to these questions is yes, you need to limit your short-term compassion.
Try to get a little better at saying no. Try to master when to say no and when not to say no. See if the people you help constantly ask for help from you. I'm not saying don't help such people, but if you don't limit it, these people will pull you down.
Those in the bottom 50% of success try to cope with their negative emotions by using emotion-focused coping mechanisms. When they feel negative emotions, instead of trying to change something external, they choose to go and numb themselves by using drugs, playing video games, watching porn, or constantly complaining.
If you want to be successful, I recommend that you do not resort to emotion-focused coping mechanisms, but use “toxic fuel”. Use action-centered coping mechanisms.
Disclaimer : Always Consult a doctor before following my advices.
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