Richard St. John and the DNA of Success

One of the most popular TED lectures ever is Richard St. John’s four minute talk on the “Secrets of Success”. He covered eight topics in four minutes. That’s quite a success in its own right!

Here’s the video, well worth watching!!

Richard breaks success down into eight categories:

passion

work

focus

push

ideas

improve

serve

persist

We (Dr. Alon Amit, Hagai Cohen and I) recently gave an academic course at the Holon Institute of Technology called “The DNA of Success”. The idea for the course came from an interview I conducted with my very famous and successful brother Dave Rosenberg.

The first is what one might call the “I’ll Show You” factor. Very often young people grow up in the shadow of a “tormentor” – a parent or teacher who dismisses their talent, their efforts, their dreams. “He’s a bum and he’ll never make anything of your life”. This is what Charles Darwin’s thought about his son (I’m paraphrasing). Darwin sure showed him.

And then there is the opposite, the “mentor”, or “angel”. The person who believes in you when nobody else does.

My famous brother spoke about the high school teacher who changed his life. “You can make something of yourself”, he told him. David did. Big time.

The next point is what Jeff Pulver and I call “My Ten Minutes”. It’s the brief episode in one’s life which ends up changing one’s future in a stellar manner. It could be a chance meeting or encounter (ah, but are they chance?).

It could also be an observation. Ah, but to observe you need to be curious. Successful people are very curious. And very observant.

My friend Max Shatner believes that a critical part of success is being a good storyteller. I agree with that too. I’m sure that Steve J. would have agreed as well.

Good storytellers can resonate, enchant, empower, coax, persuade, engage. Can you?

You might not agree with anything that I’ve said. So I’ve included a padlet on the opposite page. Double click and leave your comment for everyone to see.

Here’s another TED talk on a related subject by Bill Gross. Mike Tyson said:

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

What do you say?