-
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)
Yasushi Aoki
Title and description are blank.
Title: 8 traits of successful people - Richard St. John
Description: 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.
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 3/23/2015.