The Pillars of Success
What defines success? You might say happiness. Somebody else might chime in with freedom. The guys down at the bar might insist it's a 401(k) full of f-you money.
Our point? Each of us defines success for ourself. But one thing is universal: We all want more of it. So we sought out men who live on that elevated plane every day. And the more they told us, the more we came to see them as models of particular virtues we call the pillars of success: ambition, intuition, focus, courage, and leadership. These qualities can help you reach your goal, whether you're trying to build a hundred-million-dollar software firm or open an old-school diner out on the four-lane.
The men we've selected to guide your pursuit don't just appear successful, they feel successful. As you'll see, there's a huge difference. Artist, architect, army general, whatever you want to be, this story is your blueprint.
Now start building.
Ryan Leslie proves that intelligence is no match for ambition. He scored a 1600 on his SAT . . . at age 15. He graduated from Harvard at age 19. Smart guy. Law school, medical school--hell, even both--would have been a breeze. So what did he do? He went into music. "I was on academic probation three times because I was focusing 30 to 40 hours a week on learning how to be a producer and songwriter," he says. "It wasn't a career goal. It was the career goal."
He ended up where a lot of humbled postgrads do: living at home with Mom and Dad, in Arizona. They could tell young Ryan's ambition still burned, so his father offered him a $15,000 loan for basic recording equipment. Then Leslie scored a 30-day internship in New York City. "Sure enough, the producer I was interning for played some of my music for Diddy," he says. "That led to a meeting, and I unleashed eight or nine things I'd developed. One of them became a single for New Edition."
The partnership with Diddy led Leslie to launch his own label, NextSelection, as well as write and produce for Beyoncé, Britney, and R & B star Cassie, with whom he produced a number one single, "Me & U." Score another one for ambition. "Now I really just press on, full throttle, every day," he says. "The further I move each day, the more people respect, the more people admire, until I become someone worthy of being followed."
Strive for respect first.
Forget money and power. Make earning respect your primary goal, Leslie says. Money and power will follow, because everyone will want to work with you. But respect is worth more than money and power, because it validates your ambition. "If your heart is true and your intentions are clear and real, any vision is extremely healthy," Leslie says. "Passion will drive you to achieve your absolute best."
Never miss a workout.
Leslie hired Oscar Smith--the trainer who helped supermodel Petra Nêmcová walk again after the Indian Ocean tsunami--and Leslie can't believe how much a regular workout contributes to his success. "I've been working out every morning and even changed my sleeping habits just so I'm able to get in there and really operate. My day-to-day work performance was rigorous before, but it's increased even more. One hour of concentrating on myself allows me to push my game even further the rest of the day."
Demand ownership.
Leslie can't believe how many businessmen leave money on the table. "I'm always sure to garner equity in any venture in which I'm adding value," he says. This is a true wealth builder, but it can take time to earn. Things to negotiate for: stock and/or options, profit sharing, partnerships, or just a plain, old-school percentage of the business.
When Angus Davis was in prep school at Phillips Academy Andover, in Massachusetts, he hacked into the phone system and stole unlimited long-distance calling for his fellow students. "I see that spirit in most of the entrepreneurs I meet: a knack for questioning authority," he says.
Davis skipped college, became the youngest Netscape product manager at age 18, and 3 years later, in 1999, cofounded Tellme, Inc. His goal: turn your cellphone into a voice- operated search engine. Say "Italian restaurant" and every one in the area would appear on your screen, with directions. "We're building a new way to use your phone," he says.
Is it that easy? Of course not, but the young tech wizards make it appear easy because they have a different mentality. "I grew up breathing this online oxygen, and I see technological possibilities before most people do," Davis says. "But I don't get excited about what I've done. I find more inspiration looking forward to the next 10 years."
Edit your ideas.
Your best idea is the most universal one, says Davis. When he started Tellme, his search idea would've worked great--but only on PDAs. "But there are more than 2 billion phones around the world," he says. "The bigger the problem, the harder the solution--and the bigger the reward."
Think big, but grow slowly.
"Having a big idea doesn't mean having to go balls to the wall out of the gate." His example is the Internet-based grocery-delivery service Webvan. "They spent a billion dollars and went out of business before they had success in any city. Start small and scale up."
Think like an 11-year-old.
"People in Silicon Valley think nothing is impossible," Davis says. "You'll be out and someone will say he's going to build a rocket and do private space travel. And the reaction is, 'Cool, what type of rocket fuel are you using?' That attitude pervades everything." Adjust yours accordingly.
Focus brought Jim Cramer millions of dollars. Focus has always been his gift. "Automatic" is how he describes his ability to parse the financial information of publicly traded companies, react to market turns just by feel, and deliver massive returns for his hedge-fund partners.
But his gift nearly destroyed him. "In the financial world, I had Ted Williams-like statistics. And yet I was miserable that they weren't better. If I batted .400, that meant that 60 percent of the time I sucked! I focused on one thing: winning. Just beating everyone. Every day was Super Bowl Sunday. And actually, in real life, simply making the playoffs is doing well."
That's why Cramer left his soul-crushing hedge-fund days behind 7 years ago. Now he's refocused to become "part educator, part entertainer" on his CNBC show, Mad Money. And he's much, much happier. His mission is to make sure no one ends up as miserably successful as he was. And the trick is, yes, to focus--but in an intelligent way.
"The things that drive you to be successful don't switch off when you achieve success. When you overfocus, you never know that you're there. You're going to work hard, and you're going to be successful. When you're there, you have to recognize it and not torture yourself as I did."
Approach your work like a detective.
"Why did Google go down after a great quarter and Yahoo! go up after a lousy one?" asks Cramer. "I solve puzzles like that, and I love doing it." Do you read between your business's lines? Trends, patterns, tendencies? "Try to understand your work on a higher level and bring new ideas to your superiors. Or better yet, exploit your own venture--with equity, baby!"
Let one solution lead to the next great idea.
"I'll give you an example. Time Warner reports a great quarter, and it says customers are taking the cable triple play--voice, video, data. And Comcast is selling the same thing. So you ask, 'Who else is about to?' Sure enough, there's a British cable company, NTL. Comcast was at $28 when it was about to launch, and it went to $45 after. Bang, new investment idea."
Remember when to refocus.
Let the day end. Let yourself exhale. Let yourself see the picture from another angle. Cramer only just learned how necessary this is. "Did I need to wake up at quarter to three every morning? Did I need to become a machine? No, but I couldn't tolerate just being successful. That wasn't good enough. There had to be no one more successful than me. And that's a tortured perspective."
Defining courage as it applies to success is simple: Can you make the move you have to make in the face of pain? Jonah Wilson learned that at the raw age of 21, when he dumped a guaranteed career in music to start from scratch in the Los Angeles real-estate market.
A guaranteed career? In music? Yes. Wilson is the son of Beach Boy Carl Wilson. That's how he became road manager of a multiplatinum band, Wilson Phillips, at age 19. Two of the three singers, Wendy and Carnie Wilson, are his cousins. "The music business was handed to me," he says. "And it does take courage to give up something that's handed to you. But I wanted to create something for myself."
Seventeen years and millions of dollars in deals later, Wilson has no regrets. "In the beginning there was fear, yeah," he says. "But if you want it, you want it. You fend for yourself and figure things out intuitively."
Feel like an outsider.
Few groups welcome newcomers with fruit baskets. Win them over with performance, says Wilson. "Once I had a few sales under my belt," he says, "I started to feel like I belonged. It was a progression."
Use your friends.
It's simple human nature: People work with people they trust. "I had a friend in the business who got me an interview with Prudential. They took me on, and off I went," says Wilson. Oh, and his first three sales? They were condominiums for the girls of Wilson Phillips.
Never fear the flush.
"It's not that hard to make a hundred grand in real estate if you know a few people who want to buy or sell a house," Wilson says. "But you can only go so far on connections, or you'll be flushed out when the market takes a downturn." The simplest remedy: tenacity. The best raise their game because they want to stay.
Avery Johnson's leadership traits are backed up by his nickname, "The Little General." But he's no Napoleon. He's the reigning NBA Coach of the Year, and his Mavericks began the season by winning 51 out of their first 60 games, as of press time. But it all started with a 5'11" guy trying to fight for the right to play in the NBA. "I had to stay ahead of everybody by being smarter, craftier," he says. "I had to study my opponents harder. I also studied the other coaches to figure out what they would call. I maximized myself." He played more than a thousand games at the pro level.
He takes leadership seriously on two levels: as a day-to-day job and as a long-term responsibility. Today's job is to win a championship. But 2, 5, 10 years out? He wants to show others how to lead. "Above all, great leaders develop other leaders," he says. "If you're such a great leader, there should be a trail of leaders in your wake."
Johnson knows there are many elements to leadership, but for his team, the most important one is obvious: "You have to have genuine care for the people who are following you. I try to get to know, without being too personal, something about my players outside [the context of] the team. At the end of the day, if we win the championship and each man on my team is a bad father and bad husband, what has he given to society?"
Cultivate the four Cs.
This is Johnson's formula for leadership: "Be competent. Know your business inside and out. Communicate--paint a picture for those who are following. Third, have strong character. Have integrity, and admit when you fail. Finally, have class. Do everything in a first-class manner."
Lock in your vision.
How will you beat the numbers? How will you find the talent? What's your time frame? What resources will you need? Answering these questions is how Johnson convinced Mavericks owner Mark Cuban he was the man for the job. "I came in with an all-or-nothing goal: a championship," he says. "I won one as a player [in 1999, with the Spurs], so I know how championship teams are built."
Exploit the negatives.
"When you sign on for a leadership role, the criticism is part of it," says Johnson. "You need that stuff to happen so the men and women following you see how you respond to it."
