The Secret to Success (From 7 Billionaires)

If you set any goals this year, there’s a good chance a few of them involved becoming more successful. It’s good to look to better ourselves financially and ease the burden of everyday expenses. When it comes to success, there are few people in the world more qualified to speak on the topic than the following seven billionaires. Each offers his or her own take on the secret to success – hopefully, their advice will help you hit your goals.

1. Warren Buffett: Do Something You Love

“The secret to reliable, sustainable success does not come from forcing yourself to do something you don’t love. In fact, true achievement comes from the opposite of that–doing something you do love.”

Mr. Buffett is an advocate of “tap dancing to work,” and you should be too if you want to be successful. Enjoying your job is critical to your success – without happiness at the office, you’re sure to burn out and not give your best. So, if you can, do what you love – if not, love what you do.

2. Bill Gates: Be Consistent

“Do the right things, long enough, consistently.”

Do not just be consistent – you have to be consistent about the right things. Once you figure out what you love to do and how to make money at it, you’ll need to bear down and get to work. Good things take time. Bill Gates knows it, and now you do too.

3. Richard Branson: Live With Intention

“A day without intention is a day wasted,” the Virgin Group CEO writes in a recent blog post. “Without intention, there can be no productivity, and in turn no success.”

In order to be successful, you need to live with purpose and intention. Richard Branson goes as far as suggesting that without intention, a day is wasted, so get prioritizing. Every day when you wake up, create a list of your intentions for the day. Knock them off one by one, and watch yourself feel better about your success.

4. Mark Cuban: Be Resilient

“I can’t count how many times I have gotten up in the morning dreading the day,” Cuban says. “Everyone goes through those moments, but it’s the ones who fight through them the quickest, having learned something from the experience, that become truly successful.”

We all have bad days, even billionaires. It’s the willingness to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off that defines who we are. If you want to be successful, you’ll need to have a short memory in certain instances. Use failure as a lesson – as the Marines say, “pain is just weakness leaving the body.”

5. Mark Zuckerberg: Have a Vision

“First and foremost, successful entrepreneurs have a specific vision,” the Facebook co-founder and CEO said. “They pinpoint the exact problem that they’re trying to solve.”

Most successful people have a well-defined, clear vision for what they want to do. That does not mean that the vision was set in stone from the start, but once the exact problem you’re trying to solve is uncovered, you need to focus your efforts. Commit to deep, involved work, and don’t look back.

6. Jeff Bezos: Put The Customer First, Invent, And Be Patient

“We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.”

If you’re consistently focusing on your customers, their problems, and acting with intent – then all you have to do is be patient. That’s what sets Amazon apart from many of its competitors. They continue to innovate and play the long game, aiming to lower the price of their products and give their consumers the best possible experience.

7. Oprah Winfrey: Have Radical Focus

“I have learned that your full-on attention for any activity you choose to experience comes with a level of intensity and truth,” she says. “It’s about living a present life, moment to moment—not worrying about what’s going to happen at 3 o’clock and what’s going to happen at 7 o’clock.” In other words: radical focus. “That whole thing about multitasking? That’s a joke for me. When I try to do that, I don’t do anything well.”
Oprah thinks a lot like Zuckerberg on the secret to success. She acknowledged that her network struggled initially because of a lack of focus on her part, and since narrowing her attention she’s again flourished. If you’re multitasking and juggling a bunch of different projects, try focusing on the one thing you believe in. It could make all the difference.