Everyone has a notion of what it takes to be successful. I was born with severe cerebral palsy which left me in a wheelchair. But I too wanted to be successful.

The key principles of success were always important to me because I had to find new ways of achieving it. This is what I have been focusing on since the early 2000s. I don’t want to sound like a contrarian but some common wisdom about success simply doesn’t make sense and may even be stunting your growth if you believe it. I have discussed many of these ideas in my two decades of studying and research.

1. Self-made person

The self-made person does not exist. We are all influenced by those around us and by education. This could be reading books, attending conferences, or watching people succeed (or fail). It could even be asking for advice. We have all done that. But nobody came out of the womb as a full-fledged football player or guitarist.

Every entrepreneur has somebody who gave them their first account,...

Part of amazing success is performing the activities that are required at a high level.  When you perform these activities, they feel uncomfortable. We all have a tolerance for discomfort. Part of being amazing is increasing the tolerance for discomfort.

There is a difference between complaining about your work environment and actually looking for a new job. There is a difference between putting up with unpleasant people and changing the dynamic of the relationship. The former might be complaining to someone else. While the latter may be confronting them. Although the former may seem uncomfortable or annoying, the latter requires being really uncomfortable.

There are activities that we say are uncomfortable, but, in reality, there is some comfort in them. There is some comfort in complaining about our situation. There is some comfort in being passive aggressive. There is a comfort and ease in doing the same thing over and over. After all, we are creatures of habit. There is...

With ambitious goals comes challenges. When we have ambitious goals, we may incur obstacles and roadblocks. When we encounter these, our first instinct is to work through them or put energy towards the goal. For example, if our loved ones have a bad day or encounter an obstacle, our first instinct is to try to solve the issue. We want to quickly get past the issue. In reality, the best thing that you can do may actually be doing nothing. That’s right do nothing. Don’t even bring it up.

I was working on a project that did not yield the results that I would have liked. My first instinct was to stop what I was doing and try something else. I decided that I needed a timeout from that challenge. Once I understood what went wrong, I started to do nothing. I realized that I was too emotional and too raw to jump back into it.  This was not my natural instinct. My instinct was to put more effort and more resources into my venture. I decided that I was not going to do...