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author, and it appears with included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required. Mail to: eagibbs@ureach.comThere are characteristics common among men and women who started out with nothing and achieved great financial success. Characteristics that are responsible for their success. They are traits anyone of average intelligence can develop if he or she is willing to pay price.
It is estimated that today every 58 minutes someone in United States or Canada becomes a millionaire. And rate is accelerating. When self-made millionaires are studied, however, it is found that they are not necessarily smarter than average person.
It is found that most self-made millionaires did not complete college. According to a study, between 68% and 75% of them did not complete college or never attended in first place. Many of them got poor grades in school. Some of them even dropped out of high school and went to work to help support their family.
It is also found that 80% to 90% of self-made millionaires came from a working class background. They did not come necessarily from a background that would open up opportunities for them. Most started with no opportunities at all.
I believe that one reason why people of average intelligence tend to be more successful is that they do not fall into what we call intelligence trap. This is what people fall into when they think that they know it all, they stop learning. Consequently, their peers, who are continually asking questions and learning, move ahead of them.
Mr. Brian Tracy, in his extensive study of one particular group of achievers, self-made millionaires, learned that they possess seven basic qualities and characteristics responsible for their success. To make it easier for us to remember these seven qualities, or keys, according to Mr. Tracy, he used acronym SECRETS. So, let's spell out these keys to learn what Mr. Tracy found in these secrets:
* Sense of Purpose: All men and women who achieve a high level of success in life are intensely goal-oriented. They have what Charles Garfield, in his work on peak performance, calls "a sense of mission". They are extremely focused on what they are doing. They have a clear vision of person they want to become and what they want to accomplish.
* Excellence, more specifically, making of commitment: It means making a decision, at some point in their life, that you are going to be best at what you do, or do it to best of your ability. They do not just finish their work, they finish it to best of their ability. If you do not love your work enough to want to be best at it, get out of that work and find something else. One of your greatest responsibilities in life is to find work that is meaningful to you. We can never be happy or have high self-esteem and be enthusiastic about ourselves unless we are doing our work in an excellent fashion.
