What are the three most important characteristics to be successful? Sam

Her:

1- The ability to find purpose, organize, focus, work hard, and follow through.

2- The ability to go with the flow, let go of expectations, live in the moment, laugh at life and know when to quit.

3- The ability to find humor in the fact that you are always trying to do both 1 and 2 at the same time, all the time.

This is harder than it sounds. Imagine you worked really hard on a presentation for school. It was perfect and you were ready to go. You woke up that morning with a headache, you were late to class, and when you showed up you realized you and dad had accidentally swapped computers. NO!!! - STOP- This is the moment of truth. Are you mad? Well hell yes you are mad. But what is going to happen next? How will you recover? What did you learn? How did you treat those around you when everything fell apart? What could you do better next time? And, most importantly, do you still have the ambition to try again?

Have a plan and work hard at something that excites you. Work really, really hard. But then (plot twist) know that when the plan falls apart, and it feels like a big wasted mess- that you are human and normal and wonderful and will be able to get back up again tomorrow and try again. Ugh…The ability to find FUN in all of that, to me, is the secret to success.

Honestly, I fail to plan, a lot. Sometimes I give up. I get mad and quit when my plan falls apart. When it does fall apart I usually don't find it funny. I can live in the moment, oh, for about 5 minutes, but then my brain wonders off into mama-worry-land. It’s a work in progress - finding the balance between your right and left brain no matter where you are in life: student, son, husband, father, business owner, friend, co-worker, athlete. But I think on the days when you truly are able to, you will find yourself laying your head on your pillow that night and thinking “Wow, today was a really great day.”

…..success.

P.S. Also please try to chew with your mouth closed, recycle, call your mom, wash your hands, don’t eat too much junk food and show to kindness to everyone you encounter…this will also help. xoxo

Him:

This is a tough one for me. I’ve plowed through thousands of words and started over several times, which is a little unsettling. I make a distinction between lower case “success” and all caps “SUCCESS”, and usually, this question has to do with the all caps version - SUCCESS!!!

Little success, as I’ll call it, usually means accomplishing a goal - firm up that “dad bod”, make the soccer team, learn to speak Spanish, land a date to the prom, you get the idea. The exact prescription of traits for this type of success varies from goal to goal. Project “dad bod” is going to demand high levels of grit and self-control, while operation “prom night” is largely down to courage (and perseverance if you get shut down a couple of times). A fairly standard list of traits you need in the “success tool bucket“ includes grit, ambition, passion, work ethic, discipline, optimism, talent, ingenuity, and a little bit of good luck. This isn’t exhaustive, but a good start.

Big SUCCESS, I think, has more to do with happiness and living your best life. To some readers this might sound soft, new age’y, idealistic, milleniallish (I’m just blatantly making up words at this point), etc., etc. I get that; work is hard, it’s not always fun and a lot of the time we don’t have as much agency over our situation as we would like. But I think for most people, if they’re being honest, a happy life is the goal. Purpose and usefulness probably follow close behind.

I can hear Sam now, “Bet. So what do I need to be happy?” Well Sam, let’s talk about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs…just kidding. I’m going with self-awareness and courage and kindness.

Self-awareness - really understanding what you want, what motivates you, what your strengths and weaknesses are - is probably your best shot at doing meaningful, rewarding things. Academics, sports, work, relationships, hobbies etc.; the more closely they align with your personality, the more likely you are to feel happy.

Courage because it is foundational. Putting any of these other traits into practice takes courage since the risk of failure is built into everything you try. Taking action requires courage. And, importantly here, acting on self-awareness takes courage. There will be no shortage of voices telling you what you can, should, ought to, can’t and shouldn’t do. Deciding those things for yourself will take courage.

Finally kindness. If you deploy kindness in all of your endeavors, the likelihood of positive outcomes increases dramatically. Kindness wins, not always in the micro, but always in the macro.

More than anything Sam, it's a process; the application of these traits consistently over time. Trust the process.