8 traits of successful people - Richard St. John

Ten years of research and 500 face-to-face-interviews led Richard St. John to a collection of eight common traits in successful leaders around the world.

Now, my subject is success,

so people sometimes
call me a "motivational speaker."

But I want you to know right up front
I'm not a motivational speaker.

I couldn't pass the height requirement.

(Laughter)

And I couldn't motivate anybody.

My employees actually call me
a de-motivational speaker.

(Laughter)

What I try to be
is an informational speaker.

I went out and found out
some information about success,

and I'm just here to pass it on.

And my story started over
ten years ago, on a plane.

I was on my way
to the TED conference in California,

and in the seat next to me
was a teenage girl,

and she came from a really poor family,
but she wanted to get somewhere in life.

And as I tapped away on my computer,
she kept asking me questions,

and then out of the blue,
she asked, "Are you successful?"

I said, "No, I'm not successful."

Terry Fox, my hero,
now there's a big success.

He lost a leg to cancer,
then ran thousands of miles

and raised millions for cancer research.

Or Bill Gates,
a guy who owns his own plane

and doesn't have to sit
next to some kid asking him questions.

(Laughter)

But then I told her
about some of the stuff I'd done.

I love communications,
and I've won lots of awards in marketing.

I love running, and I still sometimes
win my age group,

old farts over 60.

(Laughter)

My fastest marathon
is two hours and 43 minutes

to run the 26 miles, or 42 kilometers.

I've run over 50 marathons,
in all 7 continents.

This was a run my wife and I did
up the Inca trail to Machu Picchu in Peru.

And to qualify for the 7 continents,

we had to run a marathon in Antarctica.

But when we got there,
it didn't look nice and calm like this,

it looked like this.

The waves were so high,
we couldn't get to shore.

So we sailed 200 miles further south
to where the seas were calm

and ran the entire 26-mile marathon

on the boat.

422 laps around the deck
of that little boat.

My wife and I have also climbed
two of the world's seven summits,

the highest mountains on each continent.

We climbed Aconcagua, the highest
mountain on the American continent,

and Kilimanjaro,
the highest mountain in Africa.

Well, to be honest, I puked my way
to the top of Kilimanjaro,

I got altitude sickness.

I got no sympathy from my wife.

She passed me and did a lap around the top

while I was still struggling up there.

In spite of that, we're still together
and have been for over 35 years.

(Applause)

I'd say that's a success these days.

So I said to the girl,

"Well, you know,
I guess I have had some success."

And then she said,
"Okay, so are you a millionaire?"

(Laughter)

Now, I didn't know what to say,

because when I grew up,
it was bad manners to talk about money.

But I figured I'd better be honest,

and I said, "Yeah. I'm a millionaire.

But I don't know how it happened.

I never went after the money,
and it's not that important to me."

She said, "Maybe not to you,
but it is to me.

I don't want to be poor all my life.

I want to get somewhere,
but it's never going to happen."

I said, "Well, why not?"

She said, "Well, you know,
I'm not very smart.

I'm not doing great in school."

I said, "So what? I'm not smart.
I barely passed high school.

I had absolutely nothing going for me.

I was never voted most popular
or most likely to succeed.

I started a whole new category
-- most likely to fail.

But in the end, I did okay.
So if I can do it, you can do it."

And then she asked me the big question:

"Okay, so what really leads to success?"

I said, "Jeez, sorry. I don't know.

I guess somehow I did it.
I don't know how I did it."

So I get off the plane
and go to the TED conference,

and I'm standing in a room full
of extraordinarily successful people

in many fields -- business, science, arts,

health, technology, the environment --

when it hit me:

Why don't I ask them
what helped them succeed,

and find out what really
leads to success for everyone?

So I was all excited to get out there
and start talking to these great people,

when the self-doubt set in.

I mean, why would people
want to talk to me?

I'm not a famous journalist.
I'm not even a journalist.

So I was ready to stop the project
before it even began,

when who comes walking
towards me but Ben Cohen,

the famous co-founder
of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

I figured it was now or never.

I pushed through the self-doubt,

jumped out in front of him, and said,

"Ben, I'm working on this project.

I don't even know what to ask you,

but can you tell me
what helped you succeed?"

He said, "Yeah, sure, come on.
Let's go for a coffee."

And over coffee and ice cream,
Ben told me his story.

Now here we are over 10 years later,

and I've interviewed
over 500 successful people

face-to-face, and collected
thousands of other success stories.

I wanted to find the common factors
for success in all fields,

so I had to interview people
in careers ranging from A to Z.

These are just the careers I interviewed
beginning with the letter A,

and in most cases more than one person.

I interviewed six successful accountants,

five corporate auditors,
five astronauts who had been into space,

four actors who had won
the Academy Award for Best Actor,

three of the world's top astrophysicists,

six of the world's leading architects

and, oh yeah, four Nobel Prize winners.

Yeah, I know it doesn't start with A,
but it's kind of cool.

(Laughter)

And I want to say a sincere thanks

to all the great people
that I've interviewed over the years.

This really is their story;
I'm just the messenger.

The really big job was taking
all the interviews

and analyzing them,
word by word, line by line,

and sorting them into all the factors
that people said helped them succeed.

And then you start to see the big factors
that are common to most people's success.

Altogether, I analyzed
and sorted millions of words.

Do you know how much work that is?

That's all I do, day and night --
sort and analyze.

I'll tell you, if I ever get my hands
on that kid on the plane --

(Laughter)

Actually, if I do, I'll thank her.

Because I've never had so much fun
and met so many interesting people.

And now, I can answer her question.

I discovered the 8 traits
successful people have in common,

or the 8 to be great:

Love what you do; work really hard;

focus on one thing, not everything;

keep pushing yourself;
come up with good ideas;

keep improving yourself and what you do;

serve others something of value, because
success isn't just about me, me, me;

and persist, because
there's no overnight success.

Why did I pick these?

Because when I added up
all the comments in my interviews,

more people said
those 8 things helped them

than anything else.

The eight traits are really
the heart of success, the foundation,

and then on top we build
the specific skills

that we need for our particular
field or career.

Technical skills, analytical skills,
people skills, creative skills --

lots of other skills we can add on top,

depending on our field.

But no matter what field we're in,

these eight traits will be
at the heart of our success.

(Applause)