Richard St. John: Success (Especially in Investing) is a Continuous Journey
“Why do so many people reach success and then fail? One of the big reasons is, we think success is a one-way street,” author and TED speaker Richard St. John explains.
On our journey to success or a specific goal, most of the time we do almost everything right to reach success. But as soon as we have a taste of what success feels like, some of us push a little harder while some of us get comfortable and fall back down.
And that’s the case for investing too, actually. Many retail investors buy a winning stock and get complacent. When the “winning” stock becomes a losing one, they refuse to sell because of they can’t accept being wrong or possibly loss aversion as well.
The people who achieve success eventually, might not actually be able to sustain it. John was one of those people, which is why he wants to educate people about how success is achieved and sustained. It is those who fail and picked themselves back up, the ones who are truly enlightened.
The eight secrets to success
John wrote a book after interviewing more than 500 successful people and TED speakers, The 8 Traits Successful People Have in Common: 8 To Be Great or 8 Secrets of Success in short and gave a very short, three-minute TED talk about it too.
Just very quickly, the eight secrets — or principles as John would prefer to put it, instead:
1. Passion — But don’t stop at passion, use that passion to create a desire to reach a certain goal.
2. Work — Every successful person in the world put in hard work. There’s no another way around this, not even genius.
3. Focus — If success is a goal, focus allows one to stay on track and not deviate from that single goal.
4. Push — Forward is where you want to go but things will pull one back. Push harder to counter that pulling force.
5. Ideas — Extremely important especially when one meets with problems. Ideas create solutions.
6. Improve — If one does not learn and improve, one does not grow. Growth is what brings one closer to one’s goals.
7. Serve — It is often impossible to reach goals by yourself. Serve others with value and others will reciprocate.
8. Persist — The most important principle. The path to success and sustaining it are littered with setbacks and failures. Without persistence, giving up always becomes an option.
While not every principle can be applied to every single thing in life and achieving success in those aspects, they are worthwhile to remember and live by.
One can look at them as cornerstones or a point in the right direction when we are unsure if our goal is still worth it to work towards to.
Success is a continuous journey
Success may exist in many different forms but one thing is for sure, it is a continuous journey. If you had noticed, John labelled it 8 Secrets of Success and not 8 Secrets to Success.
Instead of looking at the above mentioned eight secrets or principles as a means of achieving, John suggests it is actually how we can sustain success. And the beauty of it is that we can apply this to most aspects of our lives — study, work, family, love, relationships, and investing.
Like John said, when we get too comfortable and complacent, we should quickly regather our bearings. The moment we think we are a great investor or trader just because we are right for a few times, that might actually be the beginning of our end as a successful investor or trader.
*Key points in this article were taken from two TED talks back in Dec 2006 and Feb 2009, by Richard St. John.
