“Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’ ” ~ Brian Tracy

I’ve interviewed lots of people – highly successful people, about their ingredients for real life career bliss. They are people that feel compelled to do what they do for work, treat their lives as experiments, make money enough to support the lives they want, that also have genuine smiles and beautiful laughter. Not to mention loving relationships and time to spend on the things that matter to them.

5 Things Highly Successful People Do Differently

Want to learn from them? (I hope so.)

Pulling from those interviews, here are five themes, enlightened bites, and footnotes that you can take into your own life to make career bliss your reality:

1. The significance of (an)other

Everyone interviewed, without fail, revealed very candidly how their success was directly related or attributed greatly, in large part or whole, to the person that holds the title of significant other, partner, wife, husband, spouse. This person is a champion of their being, a believer and schemer in their aspirations, and co-creator in life’s journey. And these interviewees were glad to return that love and support any way they could.

I admit it was reassuring to hear (for an eternal romantic like me) that romance is part of the equation for a fulfilling career. You wouldn’t expect it, but it’s true. The secret wasn’t good grades in school after all.

2. Ideas are experiments in life’s lab

Whether you are a “popcorn machine” of ideas or just have one (at a time), these folks act, innovate and expand upon their ideas. They learned not to take the failure or the success of their ideas personally either – and have experienced both success and failure as extremely valuable in becoming who they are today.

They allow their ideas to communicate with life and listen for the tell-tale signals of when it’s time to keep going and when it’s time to let go.

3. Focus and devotion to your thing

When other people are trying to do everything for everyone and be everything to everybody, these folks don’t do that. Not because they don’t care about others, but because they are aware of who they can and cannot really help and who can and cannot really accept their help. So they simply honor that.

4. Artists and business people living in harmony

For the record, these aren’t job titles – these are roles, archetypes, skills and ways of being and seeing the world housed in a single body. Highly successful people who have found career bliss aren’t afraid of these two roles as they merge them in a healthy marriage to experience a most desirable career.

If the relationship between these two sides of you isn’t developed, you end up being either a “starving artist” or a “hostage to golden handcuffs” (money).

Freedom and security are the two wings that make a bird fly. Two wings of freedom and it’s painful to live with unrealistic expectations without a sense of reality. Two wings of security and nothing feels satisfying when you’re cut off from your essence – literally grounded. But together, the pairing can absolutely create career bliss. And all of the people I interviewed thrive because these parts of them get along exceptionally.

5. Enough-ness + authenticity = experts with expertise.

My interviewees realized, at some point, that they knew something that others wanted from them. Most importantly they paid attention to what that was because it felt useful and happy to do so. And so they started to give just that. Rather than worrying and wondering if they knew enough to give enough. They just started. And trusted.

Their self-esteem was healthy enough to say: “What I don’t know I’m willing to learn.” And because they feel like enough – which is the secret to being enough – they don’t talk about things they don’t actually know. Nor do they pretend to care about things that they don’t really care about. Nor do they do things that they aren’t exceptional at. They get help when they need it and are the help for others that need them.

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