The Single Biggest Predictor of Success In Life
I’ll skip straight to the answer and you can spend 1 minute on this blog if you’d like: It is the belief that every single problem has a solution that YOU can solve.
There’s a lot to that statement, though, and I hope you keep reading. I’ll use myself as an example; I was not good at many things as a child. I couldn’t whistle. I was the second slowest kid throughout grammar school. My older brother was clearly smarter than I was. When a “new kid” moved into town, within a week he had more friends than I did.
But something interesting happened as a result of the last line I just wrote “he had more friends than I within a week.” I was in 6th grade, so about 11 years old. At 11 I had not thought much about my future, because despite the above I was also a very happy kid. When I did think about my life as a whole though, and who I wanted to be, I realized that something might not be true about who I currently was. I had this belief that I wasn’t “fixed” but could grow, words that Dr. Carol Dweck had not written yet in her groundbreaking book Mindset. Words that I surely did not know to use. What I did know, or more accurately suspect, was that I could get better at things. And I made a vow to myself that I would be more outgoing. Amazingly, in fact to this date at 51 years old still probably the most amazing thing I have ever done, I stuck to that vow. I turned myself from shy to outgoing simply by believing that I could. Overnight. I started running too. I went from the second slowest kid in my grade to the fastest in the state by my senior year in high school. Two accomplishments set off a series of self-belief and I started having success in the college admissions process, in my early jobs, and in other areas I set my mind to.
I follow online the people I admire greatly in the athletic, business, writing, speaking and other arenas. Over the past few years it has become acutely aware to me that almost all share this same mindset. Some are exceptional skilled, many are not. Some charismatic, many not. Some incredibly smart, others not as much. The singular commonality I have found is simply their belief that they all can do what they do better. That the outside world does no contain them, rather they are in control of their future. I’ll steal the words of Tom Bilyeu (Founder of Quest nutrition which he sold for 1 billion dollars), and now podcast host of Impact Theory: Igniting Human Potential. Per Tom, and I really believe him when he says he thinks like this because I have the exact same belief system, everything is his fault. Sounds negative to some, I think, and he gets beat up a lot online for saying that. Being shot by a criminal, developing a disease. etc. Surely that would not be anyone’s fault. Equally surely, I actually can’t solve any problem. Who. Freaking. Cares. Tom uses an example that if he found out today an asteroid were going to hit Earth tomorrow it would be his fault. What? His point, there are many groups filled with people tirelessly working on finding asteroids that could hit our planet that he has not once reached out to. That he has not once given money or sent an encouraging email to. Would that money or email have actually mattered. Again who cares? That kind of belief is what people who do not blame others. Who do not settle all have. The surest way to not live a life of purpose and meaning, the life of your dreams, is the constantly blame others.
The notion that if I fail at something it was my fault is the most liberating thing I know of. Because it means that I can try again and fix it. If I fail again, I can try again. Fall down 7 times, just get up an 8th. That’s going to be life anyway. As the Korean Proverb goes “Behind mountains, are more mountains.” If you are going to make it in life — you had better believe you can climb that first mountain. That is a agency. That is the belief you can control your destiny.
I remain incredibly average at many many things. I matters zero percent to me. Since 11 years old, I still hold firm to the belief that there is not an obstacle I can’t overcome if I just keep trying. That next year, I can be 100x better at something than I am today if I set my mind to it. That, I believe, is the single greatest predictor of success, when you live your life moving ever forward with that belief.