How to build a success mindset

SARAH ROBB O’HAGAN: We’ve got a culture of success right now where we’re all putting out these perfectly coiffed pictures. Everyone in the world seems to be crushing it except you. And it’s like, “Ugh!” That will not do. We’re putting this pressure on this generation to be so perfect. It’s really hard to believe that you can become great.

MICHIO KAKU: What are you gonna do, give up? Not correct.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: If everyone had the luxury of expressing their unique combinations of talents in this world, our society would change overnight. Your task is to find the combination of facts that apply to you. Then people will smash a path to your door.

TODD ​​ROSE: When people think of a “dark horse,” I think most people think of people who were successful that nobody saw coming. In fact, in our research, we found that Dark Horses are people who prioritize personal fulfillment over traditional notions of success. Ultimately, these lessons will be useful to anyone who wants to lead a more fulfilling life. And so we’ve found four elements that we believe combine to make up this dark horse mindset that enables everyone to embark on a path to greater fulfillment, no matter your starting point, how much money you have or what Your ambitions are. The first is to know your what we call “micromotives”. When we think about what motivates us, we tend to look at what society tells us we should all be motivated: universal things like competition, money, collaboration. The truth is that people are just more complicated. There are also a whole host of very specific things that are special to you as an individual. For example, we’ve actually talked to people who were really motivated to organize other people’s closets or to align physical objects with their hands. How really motivated. I can’t understand this for the life of me. It doesn’t have a motivational boost, but when it comes to living a fulfilling life, those specific motives are just as important as the big, general ones.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Several people came up to me and said, “What can I do to be you?” And the only aspect of me that’s really doable is that I can tell you about the academic pedigree. The rest is up to you to do what you do best, based on the formal education that might be behind it. I think the greatest people that ever existed in society were never versions of anyone else. They were themselves. You don’t think of Michael Jordan, the basketball player, and you’re like, “Oh, he was just like that other player.” They don’t even say he was like this player plus that player divided by two plus that – no, he’s Michael Jordan.

TODD ​​ROSE: The second is knowing your choices. While we might tweak our choices against things that society thinks is important to us, Dark Horses are really awesome at recognizing that you actually have plenty of choice every day if you look for it.

ALEX BANAYAN: In all sorts of industries, Maya Angelou for poetry, Jane Goodall for science, Pitbull, Quincy Jones, Tim Ferriss, Larry King – they all couldn’t have been more different in appearance. But as I heard their stories and began to analyze how they launched their careers, I realized there was this common tune. It’s like going to a nightclub. So there’s always three ways in: There’s the first door, the main entrance, where the line goes around the block, where 99% of the people are lining up hoping to get in. And then there’s the second door, the VIP entrance, where the billionaires or celebrities walk through. And school has this way of making us feel like those are the only two choices. You’re either born into it, or you wait your turn like everyone else. What I have learned is that there is always, always “the third door”. How did Spielberg become the youngest director in Hollywood history without a single hit? He was rejected from film school, so he decided to take matters into his own hands rather than give up his dream. One day when he was about 19 years old, he jumped on a tour bus at Universal Studios, drove around the parking lot on that tour, jumped off the bus, hid in the bathroom, waited for the bus to pull away and started to run around the lot. And as he’s walking around, he meets this man named Chuck Silvers who works at Universal Television, and Spielberg tells him his dream. Over the next few months, Spielberg goes back to the grounds, hits editing rooms, learns as much as he can, sneaking onto set and soaking it all up to truly create his own education. He takes producers out to lunch, talks to actors and actresses, but eventually Chuck Silvers, who became his mentor, gave him one of the best pieces of advice: stop talking and make a quality short film that you can hold in your hands and show people. And it kind of debunks that myth of “It’s not, you know what you know, it’s who you know.” It’s really also what you know or what you have to show. So Spielberg takes the advice to heart and makes this incredible short film called ‘Amblin’. And when Chuck Silvers sees it, he’s so touched that a single tear falls to his face, and Chuck Silvers picks up the phone and calls Universal Television Vice President Sid Sheinberg and says, “Sid, I have something Sheinberg watches the film. The next day, he says he wants to see Spielberg right away and gives him a seven-year contract on the spot. In doing so, he becomes the youngest director in Hollywood history. The Third Door so it’s not a recipe or recipe. It’s really a way of thinking, and it’s a door where you jump out of line, run down the alley, knock on the door a hundred times, crack the window, walk through the kitchen. There’s always a way in, and it doesn’t matter if that’s how Gates sold his first software or Lady Gaga got her first record deal, they all took the third door.

TODD ​​ROSE: The third element is knowing your strategies. When we think of improvement or achievement, we tend to believe there is a right way to do it. There is one right way to learn math and climb the corporate ladder. That’s actually not true. For anything you ever want to achieve, there are always multiple ways to achieve it.

MICHIO KAKU: Success in life means understanding the challenges of the future, working on future scenarios. As a general, President Eisenhower was asked about his attitude toward victory, fighting, and war. And he was basically saying, “Pessimists never win wars; only optimists win wars.” What distinguishes them from the pessimists? The optimists see the future – the bright side of the future – a future that offers opportunity. Pessimists just say, “Ah, you can’t – you can’t, end of story, that’s it folks.” One must not only have optimism, but also keep an eye on the future. If you want to understand the future, you have to understand science. You have to pay your dues. Eisenhower could do that. He could see the future of a war because he understood the mechanics of war and how war would progress. That’s the key.

TODD ​​ROSE: The last element to a Dark Horse mindset is ignoring the goal. The trouble with obsessing over a long-term goal is that most of it is out of your control, right? And it takes focus away from something you should be focusing on, which is figuring out who you are. In our society, we are constantly taught from an early age to care about our kind of long-term goal. We ask kids all the time, “What will you be when you grow up?” And we kind of expect them to have an answer.

SARAH ROBB O’HAGAN: Success is not a destination, just an ongoing journey. In my late thirties, I had finally achieved some successes in my career, which society would call successes. I had led the turnaround of a $5 billion company as president, which is obviously no small feat, and I started seeing articles being written that said, ‘She’s done this great thing, she’s got this great thing Done thing, she ran this company, she’s called that in the media, she’s amazing.’ And I would literally sit there and squirm in my chair and be like, “Oh my god, no one is telling the truth!” The truth is that I’ve had some really embarrassing failures along the way, and I think it’s important to see that those who have become successful have had all those moments of insecurity, all those moments of, frankly, mediocrity. Every successful person in the world didn’t know they were going to get there. Pretty much every one of them didn’t start out with these natural, God-given talents. It was a real story of a willingness to experience and try things and then finally find out where you will be successful. And it’s okay not to know where your true greatness lies, because it’s a process, and I don’t care what generation you’re from, I believe that path exists for absolutely everyone.