Successful People Have these Traits [TIER LIST]
Summary
- Self-control is essential for entrepreneurs as it helps resist the temptation for fast cash and maintain a focus on long-term goals. Learning to delay gratification is a key to success and can prevent being overwhelmed by too many ventures simultaneously.
- Arrogance can hinder business growth as it often overshadows team contributions and creates a hostile environment. Confidence is more valuable for leading a company, as it motivates others without suppressing their input.
- Empathy is crucial for building a great company culture. Validating employees' feelings helps in creating a safe and trusted environment, leading to a high-performing team. The ability to empathize can result in employees being more open and less likely to conceal issues.
- Argumentativeness is detrimental because it can silence the opinions of others, hindering group decision-making. It's important to express opinions factually rather than emotionally, to avoid unnecessary conflict and foster better decisions.
- Curiosity drives innovation in business. It is important to explore unanswered questions and assumptions, and this can lead to significant improvements if managed effectively.
- Unathleticism doesn't necessarily impact business success; however, promoting health and fitness can positively influence company culture and set a good example for the team.
- Loyalty towards the business, employees, and clients is fundamental for success. It promotes continuity and trust, resulting in long-term progress due to less turnover and stronger relationships.
- Introversion and extroversion are preferences, not traits. The most important thing is to understand your own preferences and create or find a work environment that aligns with them.
- Manipulativeness should be avoided in favor of influence. Good leadership involves creating win-win situations and influencing people for mutual benefit, not solely for one's own interests.
- Bravery is necessary to confront challenges and uncertainties, which are inherent in business. Celebrating victories over fear can encourage a supportive and bold culture.
- Jealousy is a distraction and should rather be transformed into inspiration. Utilizing the success of others as motivation can aid in setting and achieving personal goals.
- Rigidity can be beneficial when persisting towards a goal but can also cause stress and frustration. Balancing rigidity with flexibility is important.
- Gratitude improves workplace morale and reduces burnout. Consistently showing appreciation to your team encourages a positive work environment.
- Humor in leadership can create a pleasant work atmosphere, relieve stress, and make leaders more relatable and approachable.
- Skepticism is useful for avoiding pitfalls, but it should be balanced with open-mindedness to avoid missing out on potential opportunities.
- Optimism is important, but it must be balanced with skepticism to avoid failure due to unrealistic expectations.
- Initiative is key for leaders, as it demonstrates judgment and the ability to act without being directed, which is especially valued as a business grows.
- Neuroticism, characterized by emotional instability, is counterproductive in business and can lead to failure or unhappiness.
- Creativity is vital for innovation and can be cultivated by creating an environment that allows time and space for new ideas to flourish.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest implementing self-control in your daily routine. Start small, like resisting the urge to check social media every hour. This builds your ability to focus on longer-term projects.
A good way of promoting a healthy company culture is practicing empathy. When talking to team members, acknowledge their feelings and show you understand. It's simple – listen, nod, and offer supportive words.
To avoid being too rigid, balance persistence with flexibility. If you have a plan, stick to it, but if something unexpected comes up, adapt and keep moving forward without getting too stressed.
To cultivate a sense of loyalty from your team and clients, show your own loyalty first. Speak about long-term goals and always act in the best interest of your employees and clients.
Add a little humor to your work environment. It can be as simple as sharing a light-hearted story to brighten up the day. This makes the atmosphere more enjoyable and relieves stress.
Show gratitude to your team regularly. Say 'thank you' for both the big and little things they do. This can really improve morale and make everyone feel appreciated and valued.
Curiosity can lead to innovation, so encourage your team to ask questions and challenge assumptions. But don't change things too often or quickly – research and test new ideas first before fully implementing them.
To inspire bravery in yourself and your team, celebrate victories over fear. When you or a team member does something challenging, acknowledge it. This builds a supportive and bold culture.
Remember, these action steps are focused on habits and behaviors you can start changing today, without needing a lot of time or money. They're foundational business practices that can lay the groundwork for long-term success.
Quotes by Leila Hormozi
"The biggest thing that I see especially in people that are starting business and people that are new to business is that they don't have the self-control to say no to the fast cash"
– Leila Hormozi
"The people who are arrogant stand out and get a lot of publicity because they are arrogant"
– Leila Hormozi
"Leaders that exemplify high empathy have a much more effective high-performing team because the team trusts them"
– Leila Hormozi
"Being curious and open to change is imperative to growing an organization"
– Leila Hormozi
"I think that loyalty brings continuity to a business both within the customer base and the employee base and without that it's really hard to make progress"
– Leila Hormozi
Full Transcript
today I'm going to be ranking character traits on a tier list the characteristics that I'm going to be ranking are ones that will make you a ton of money or just overall make you more successful in life the first one I'm going to start with is self-control what is self-control it is the ability to delay gratification and resist urges or adverse behaviors the biggest thing that I see especially in people that are starting business and people that are new to business is that they don't have the self-control to say no to the fast cash that they could make with opportunities that pop up and I'll give you a story story to kind of help you understand this a little bit more I have a friend and that friend started in business around the same time that Alex and I did and that friend was very talented they had a great skill of not just being a great marketer or a great CEO but having both of those together so it almost like this person was a combination of Alex and myself over the years I thought that they would be more successful than us that many times but what I saw is that though he had all of these skills he lacked the character trait of self-control he indulged in a lot of short-term Comforts that then derailed him from his long-term goal had multiple divorces he ended up cheating on multiple women he ended up doing a lot of drugs he had a really successful business and rather than doubling down on that business he actually ended up starting four other businesses within the span of 18 months where that person is at today they don't have a business at all he ended up saying like it I'm over it because he was so overwhelmed the overwhelm was created by things that he could have controlled and I think it all stemmed down to what we told him which is just like you're not able to delay gratification the worst thing that can happen happen in business is that we get quick wins in the beginning which then teach us that we don't have to put in the hard work and delay gratifications to get the bigger wins later things are going to happen where you're going to say this business I want to do something else and the reality is is that you can't let your emotions of the short term change your entire Direction logic is a reason not to follow your feelings it doesn't get rid of them like any skill if you want to increase how quickly you acquire the skill you would want to increase how quickly you get reinforced for it so the reason that I feel like I am able to delay gratification is because I do a lot of things to put in place short-term reinforcers for me if I say my goal is to get acquisition. comom to 10 billion and that's the only mark that I am successful then like how do I feel along the way there feels like I'm constantly probably losing but if I am measuring towards that goal then I'm getting constant reinforcement of if I'm going in the right direction or not the reason I think reporting is so good especially for entrepreneurs who lack self-control is it indicates to you if you're making progress or not and a lot of people just need the reinforcement of progress to stick with the path and so I like to say let's make it as easy as possible for you to be self-controlled rather than putting yourself in an environment and gritting your way through it there's only so much of that that people can do why not engineer in your favor I would rank self-control at s tier what is a character trait I look at them as the foundational skills that we have to learn in order to become the people that we want to be and I think that they're often the skills that people think are inherent that or born with but they're not there are skills that are 100% learned it's not like I came out of the womb knowing time management right or being patient what I would love is that at the end of this video identify what are the top three where I am weakest and that if I worked on those would give me the most progress towards my goals so the next trait is arrogance the quality of being unpleasant unpleasantly proud and behaving as if you are more important than or no more than other people there is a very common belief amongst new entrepreneurs that many people who are successful are arrogant the people who are arrogant stand out and get a lot of publicity because they are arrogant now would I say that most all leaders who are successful are arrogant I would say no they succeed despite being arrogant not because they are arrogant and that most likely that person that's arrogant has a pool of people around them that guard them from the rest of the company who are not arrogant there's arrogance and there's confidence confidence I would say is a character trait that is very important when leading a company because it's very hard to get people to Rally behind a cause behind a mission if you exemplify nothing but uncertainty arrogance on the other hand suppresses many other people around them an example of this is you know we had uh had somebody in the portfolio had a really fantastic business we could not for the life of us get anyone to work for this guy all I heard from everyone was the same word they said this guy's an arrogant that was the biggest impediment to him growing his business and so I think for a lot of people they see all of these like big figureheads who act arrogant at times and they think that's what I have to act like to get people to respect me and they misconstrue that with what's actually creating the success which might be that that person just happened to get lucky and hit the market at the right time don't look at the outliers look at the majority of people running companies the majority of people running companies don't find Success Through arrogance I'm going to rank arrogance at a c and I would say a c and not an F because there's things that are worse the next one we've got is empathy so I would say that it is acting in a way that validates others feelings it's not that you're feeling what they're feeling it's that you are acting and behaving in a way that demonstrates to that person that you know what they're feeling if somebody is telling you something and it's clearly something that's upsetting to them and I sit there and I go like this that doesn't come across as empathetic at all what I'm thinking in my head I could be like oh my gosh this person like I feel so bad like but if all that's coming out is like M they would not consider me empathetic on the other side if somebody's telling me terrible news my father just died I'm crying and I sit on the other side I go that comes across as empathetic a lot of people say well Lea I'm just not empathetic and I'm like can you nod your head give someone a hug smile when they give you good news look sad when they give you bad news the reason this is important to building a great culture is that that people want to feel safe they want to feel like they're not going to get punished for confronting somebody about a hard situation and the more that you can show that you validate where they're coming from the better that they will feel coming to with those things leaders that exemplify High empathy have a much more effective high- performing team because the team trusts them they feel safe with them and therefore they will put discretionary effort towards whatever the task at hand is if you can make someone else's life better through your interaction with them you should do that every time and so I think that that is why it's so important to the workplace is it creates a culture where people aren't going to hide things from you they're not going to do things behind your back they're going to be able to constantly bring things to you because they know that they're not going to be punished so because of that I would say that empathy is a tier it's not the very top because I think that there are a few things that if you have those traits which we'll get to will actually supersede empathy so the next trait that we have is argumentative argumentativeness argumentativeness the tendency to argue or disagree or argue with people in an angry way you can probably think of somebody that's either in your company and works for you or has been in a company that you've worked for before where like every time there was something new they argued about it right and because of that that person stood out in the organization and the reality is is that over time what happens is that that person doesn't actually stand out what they do is that they suppress everybody else and push them down which creates the illus of them standing out because what happens when somebody displays anger towards others in an organization is that everyone else gets a lot quieter and they stop expressing their opinions if you display your opinions in a way that is aggressive you get worse results than you want and so if you have a team for example where there's one person who's always disagreeing and they're very verbal about it you have to be really careful with that because what's happening is that you trade their one opinion for like the six others who are no longer going to share theirs and I think that a lot of the best ideas come from people who disagree and then can see each each other's perspectives take those into consideration and then come to a better conclusion but to be angry and aggressive in your disagreement I think actually just causes more harm than good so an example of that would be something that I deal with all the time which is me and Alex we disagree on a lot of things if every time we disagreed I was like you you piece of then like how is Alex going to feel about being my partner right if every time I disagree with Alex and he's like you suck and we're doing what I want to do and you're wrong and here's why you're wrong give you 10 reasons why you're wrong how often do I want to share my perspective with Alex not very often the value of having more than one person in a company is that you have multiple perspectives and those perspectives combined are often what create the best decisions the best way to disagree with somebody is to State the facts a lot of times what we do is State the facts plus our feelings I really try to remove those from my vocabulary when I'm having a discussion about a decision often times it just creates another layer of complexity people are not just talking about the decision that needs to be made but they're now having anxieties about making someone else feel bad they're having anxieties about pissing someone else off and so it actually creates I think worst decision- making in an organization if you feel emotional about something don't have the conversation until it goes away argumentativeness I would rank a f tier I think it's a very punishing experience for other people to have to argue with somebody when we're just trying to get to the same result together so the next trait that we're going to rank is curiosity um curiosity is to be curious to explore and discover to take an interest in ongoing experience for its own sake being curious and open to change is imperative to growing an organization so I'll give you an example right now I have a theory for our portfolio of what will make it better and so what I decided to do was put together an exercise with everybody which was like what are the unknown or the unanswered questions about the business you know the assumptions that we have that are assumptions they're untested assumptions and so once we put it all down it came down to one thing should we build or buy certain companies and the question was like I don't know if we should build or buy we've bought a lot of them but we haven't built them what it led me to do was to put together a test of building one on our own which we will deploy next quarter and that all came from being curious like wow you know I wonder you know we're really great at recruiting Talent we have a ton of CEOs that follow us uh we have a huge brand that we can use to push companies like wow would it be easier for some companies to start them on our own than to build them and it was that Curiosity that led to that test and that test itself if it works better than our current model might change the whole trajectory of the business I would say that one of the advantages you have to Bringing new people on the team would be that you can ask them what looks up here what big obvious things are we not doing that if we did do would grow the company further most Innovation stems from a place of curiosity often times the beginning entrepreneurs are too curious it's like everything should change all the time every other day versus is being curious for the sake of looking for better faster ways to do things and constantly saying are we playing to our unfair Advantage as a company what are the assumptions that are creating the results I have right now that if I tested could change the whole business just because you find something interesting or you hear about this big new trend that doesn't mean you should change everything all of a sudden any directional change in business warrants a lot of testing and research you don't want to let curiosity get the of you but you want to have a tasteful amount that can drive the business forward so because of that I would rank curiosity at an A and I think I'd probably rank it an a because I might be so busy paying attention to being patient the Long Haul Etc that I can recruit in my leadership team to kind of test assumptions ask the unanswered questions so I think that as long as somebody in the company is curious or multiple people are and they can address the Curiosity and test I think that that's what we want so the next character trait that we have is UN athleticism I don't think this is necessary to being successful in business one side effect of people who are athletic As Leaders is that it definitely stems down to the team so like I've seen that you know I walk a lot I work out every day and the people on my team start doing that when they start working for me because they realize oh she makes time for it like that's okay for me to make time for it and so I do think that if you are being healthy and just like doing things that are good for your body generally other people in the company will do it as well which sets a great example for everybody a lot of very successful people definitely don't work out you know no judgment from here if you can eat cookies all day and smoke cigarettes and still build a billion dollar company and love your life you know maybe you'll live longer than me I think it's going to it's going to go over here if you don't identify as an athletic person you can still be successful so next one we've got is loyalty I would Define loyalty as a person's Devotion to a person thing or circumstance a lot of the times people are devoted to one of three things either the business and maybe like the financial metrics of it the employees and wanting to make their lives better or the clients and wanting to make their lives better most of the times the best leaders have loyalty to all three of those parties if you want loyalty from others I think that you have to first display that loyalty for example there is a company that when we first started working with them they had such high churn in their team when I looked at the leader it was clear that he didn't speak to them in a way that demonstrated loyalty when something wasn't getting done on time he might send a message in slack and say like I've got 20 people here like why the isn't this done like and so he had people take clients behind his back start up their own businesses like all sorts of stuff and he always would get so mad and say like I'm just hiring idiots and I was like are you hiring idiots or are you creating them because the way that we treat people has a consequence and it's usually the consequence is how they treat us your team is just a reflection and so is your client base of the effort that you're putting in if I ever see a lack of loyalty in the workplace I ask myself what I've done to cause that in that person you know did I ever say something did I do something I think remembering that loyalty is an action it's to act devoted to speak in a way that displays that Devotion to people and if we do not exemplify that then we are not going to get it back from our customers or or our employees and therefore the business won't reflect it either if you would like to get better at loyalty I would say act in a way that shows that you are devoted to your employees and customers you know talk about what's going to be happening in 5 or 10 years don't talk about the fact that I'm going to fire somebody if I don't get an answer loyalty we're going to rank as a s tier and I ranked it there because I think that loyalty brings continuity to a business both within the customer BAS base and the employee base and without that it's really hard to make progress when things are constantly turning out you have no compounding effect of the business the next trait we've got is introversion introverts are the people who prefer listening instead of speaking who innovate and create but don't like self-promotion and who favor working on their own over working in teams so this came from Susan Kane it's interesting cuz I feel violently opposed to the concept of introversion and extroversion I don't subscribe to these labels I think that people are introverted have a preference for being alone and you probably have preferences to be alone in the context of certain situations and not others I too like to be alone when I'm surrounded by shitty people but when I'm around cool ass people I like to be extroverted you can still build a business it just might be harder if you surround yourself who are the opposite right so I know a lot of people who have for example software companies and they do no meetings they only do slack etc etc I would say that every single person in that company identifies as as an introvert they don't like being on meetings they like working alone they like being siloed that works because everybody has the same expectation and the same preferences whereas I would probably say that I am more extroverted and I like having a workplace where we are more collaborative we talk more we work on teams we see each other more both work and I have seen both create multi-billion doll companies more companies I have seen be created from people that are extroverted but I also think it depends on what is your role you might say that within the context of work Alex prefers to be introverted because he works in silence in a closet with no light with no people right so he likes working alone but the moment that Alex is done with work all he wants to do is talk to people so is Alex introverted or extroverted Alex has preferences of wanting to work alone because he sees that that produces very good results versus he also prefers to surround himself with people cuz he has a lot of people he really likes you know whereas I might be the opposite I like to work around a lot of people because I've also been reinforced for how much more I get done the more times I talk to people the more conversations I have where as after work I might want to be introverted because I'm tired and I want to preserve my energy for the day and get ready for the next day I don't think that this is like a trait that anybody needs to have or not have I think you just need to be aware of if it's your business you can do whatever the you want and I think it's also good to be aware of when you hire people what their preferences are but in no way do I think that one person is better or worse than the other whether you're extroverted or introverted for that reason I think that I don't really think it fits in here I think this is a preference I don't think it's a trait I think it is something that people exemplify from time to time and there's nothing good or bad about it it just is what it is so the next trait that we've got is manipulativeness okay so what is that it is attempting to influence the behavior or emotions of others for one's own self-interest there's a difference between influence and manipulation influence is looking to change someone's behavior for their own interest the best leaders are great at influence they ask the person what do you want what are your desires what are your goals and then they use their influence on that person to help that person achieve those goals I think that a lot of people are manipulative because they don't have the skill of influence I think that it takes a more intelligent person to influence people than it does for somebody to scare people like I think about my manager when I worked at Subway you know and I remember her yelling at me and telling me she was going to fire me if I didn't do wiwin eat and that's a form of manipulation she lacked the skill of thinking is this in that person's best interest as well and if it's not in this person's best interest how could I make it so that it is how could I create a win-win situation we just got an office and a lot of people you know when they say like what are you going to do are you going to tell people to come in the office are you going to do this you're going to do that you going to say if you don't work in the office then X Y and Z happens and I was like no I would love people to come into the office and so if I would love them to come into the office then I'm going to build an environment that makes it more likely they will come into the office and then I might get what I want which is more people in the office and they might get what they want which is like a cool place to work with people they like being around with work environments that they enjoy that make it easier to do their job the best companies in the world always are thinking how do I make this a win for everybody rather than how do I get this person to do something for me so I would say that being manipulative would be enough F when you don't have the skill of influence you default to being manipulative because you are in a place of authority and it's a cheap way to get people to do things okay the next trait we've got is bravery so bravery I would Define as confronting difficult challenges fears or threatening situations so I think that bravery is really important to starting a business because essentially if you're waiting to feel good you're you're going to be dead by the time this business starts if you're watching this you haven't started a business because you're scared and because your situation is so different than everybody else's I just want to remind you that it's not that everybody all has like their own thoughts and fears and they all appear differently in your own head but they are all the same and we all feel terrible when we start our business but I think it's really important when you start the business to confront that because that's the only way you can get started now as the business continues to grow the reason being brave is so important is because if you've never had a business that's gotten to this size then you're constantly in situations you've never been in where it provokes a lot of fear because it's unknown and fear doesn't have to be like oh my God I'm going to fall off a cliff or oh my God someone's going to die it could be like oh my God how do I file taxes it could be like oh my God how do I hire a cm Mo and so I think that bravery is a trait of the best leaders they're able to confront those situations even when they feel scared I have lots of decisions on a consistent basis I'm making that freak me out that scare me every day there's something I'm doing that's provoking a lot of anxiety but I know that it's making the business better it's making the team better and it's making me better if you want to get better at being brave what you want to do is celebrate the times that you conquer your fears and I think that a lot of times the reason that people have a hard time consistently doing things that scare them is they beat themselves up rather than like yeah good for you for actually doing the thing and so I think that the better that you can get at rewarding yourself for doing those things and celebrating when those things are done the better of the leader you're going to be and also think about the tone that sets for your team nobody's ever going to be perfect people are always going to make mistakes but wouldn't you want to congratulate your team when they do something that scares them you know treat yourself the same way you would treat them and give yourself a little bit of Grace and I think that you will see it penetrate the organization and lots of people will feel more compelled to do things that scare them uncertainty is a condition of business to try and constantly seek out certainty is just going to slow you down I would rank bravery as s tier so the next trait we've got is jealousy let's Define jealousy it would be resentment against a rival or resentment against another person or their success UC in itself a lot of people say that they're competitive but they're actually just jealous I think that jealousy often derails more entrepreneurs than it does help and I think that a lot of people go one of two ways either they're like feed me the haters and the competition like I eat it up and that's my fuel for everything right and then on the other side people are like I don't look at what anybody's doing I don't want to look at anybody from the outside cuz like it's all in here I actually have probably been one of each at some point in my life and I've come to a middle ground of I look at people who I envy right I want something they have as inspiration without that person existing how would I know it's possible it's like the 4minute mile nobody even knew it was possible to run a 4-minute mile until the first guy did it I have gratitude for people who are ahead of me and who have things I want because they show me the catalog of things that are possible and I get to say I would like what that person has and then I get to study how they might have gotten there being jealous of somebody is purely a distraction why not instead find people that you idolize who have things you want and then reverse engineer how you might get those things that you want that they have I think that jealousy has become more prevalent in entrepreneurship because people create a self-fulfilling environment that creates their jealousy you know who you follow on Instagram the feed that you're scrolling through I think people have lower resistance in terms of like they have a hard time not looking at their Newsfeed they have a hard time unfollowing people they have a hard time not snooping and looking at people's Pages who they don't like if anything makes me feel icky when I consume it or makes me feel angry or resentful I I don't want to look at it if anything makes me feel jealous I will make it as hard as possible for me to consume that content jealousy in itself we're going to rank it f i don't think that on its own is useful the next one we've got is rigidity I would Define being rigid as refusing to change I think that there are ways in which rigidity serves us if we want to make progress towards a goal once we've defined a plan that can accomplish that goal to stick to it rigidly until we hit it can help us achieve that goal when though we are so rigid that we try to control the situation and circumstances around us often we become very upset and we can piss ourselves off because we demand things to be a way that they are not a person who decides they want to lose weight and sticks with the plan to get there every day they get to the gym at 6:00 a.m. every day they eat the shake every morning they do this that's great I think it's good to be like hey I'm going to wake up every day at 5:00 a.m. and do this thing no matter what no matter how I feel no matter what's going on I'm going to do it but what about when you wake up and your kid is throwing up and it's 5:00 a.m. do you have to go at 5:00 a.m. to the gym you know or maybe you wake up and you're throwing up are you still going to go to the gym on the other side of rigidity is flexibility when I think of rigidity it's like I have to do all these things in this order at this time in this way otherwise I will be upset whereas I think flexibility is I would very much like to do all of these things when am I going to do them and in what order and at what time under what circumstances I will understand that I have a preference for how I would like to get these things done but they doesn't always have to be at the same time in the same way every day when it comes to growing a business it does take a little bit of rigidity in that we want to be persistent in Paving a path that allows us to make it as easy as possible to achieve our goals but when something impedes that path if we fight it and we fight reality and like do everything in our power to get it done I think we waste a lot of energy that could have been put towards doing something more productive so for that reason I would probably put this at a B tier a little bit can go a long way but more than a little bit I think is pretty detrimental to honestly just people's stress levels the next one we've got is gratitude and I'm actually going to say that the more correct term would be grateful oh thought it was going on the table grateful I think would be demonstrating a deep sense of thankfulness for a person in a place a thing a situation I think that expressing gratitude toward people that are around you creates a more sustainable work environment constantly saying thank you even though you pay people to do the job I still think expressing the Gratitude to them only creates a positive environment rather than a negative one showing gratitude is probably one of the best things you can do as a leader I think it sets the tone for the culture of a team so showing that you are grateful for people doing things people do a lot of things on a daily basis when they work in a company that are unrecognized or you know they do every day day in and day out and it feels like nobody ever notices and so I think that thanking people for simple things that they do on a consistent basis goes a long way because if our work is never rewarded it gets very hard and arduous to do the work if you feel like you're not good at that I think that you have to remind yourself until it becomes second nature I think that burnout is often the result of not getting any sort of benefit from your work for a long period of time you know a lot of people say Lea I'm feeling really burnt out I'm like of course you've gotten no reward for your work no recognition no monetary reward you haven't seen the company grow and I think that we have to be very intentional about creating an environment where we facilitate the positives otherwise sometimes it can just feel like it's all negative the only thing that will be there putting you like getting you through that time is the things that you put in place to reward you in the short term until you can get through that rough patch into a better spot we will put gratit ude on the a tier so the next one we've got is humor I would say that it is anything that you do that makes somebody else smile or laugh different people smile or laugh for different reasons so different people find different things funny often what it does is it makes light of a situation it creates a sense of camaraderie and it creates an environment where people feel less drudgery in some of the best CEOs that we've talked to and that we've partnered with they tend to have a good sense of humor humor can balance out the intensity that some very driven people have and it can bring a sense of relatableness and lightness to the workplace it can be learned because the way that you learn what is funny or how to be funny is just by the reaction of people you make a joke you see if somebody laughs or not if they don't laugh you probably don't make that joke again if you make a joke and people do laugh you probably make more jokes like that joke there was one time when I did a speech and I did the same speech in the span of 2 weeks I made a joke in the beginning at each event and at one event the whole crowd died laughing and so I made a bunch more jokes like that whereas at the other event I made the joke and nobody laughed and I was like oh so I didn't make any more jokes the rest of that speech I learned that within the context of the situation I was in this is what these people found funny and this is what these people didn't find funny and the same goes for the workplace I personally like to find what my team finds funny and other people find funny you know I just want people to smile I want them to like working here I want them to have positive experience making someone laugh or smile as a positive experience and so if you have the ability to make someone's experience working for you better I don't know why you wouldn't do it some of the best leaders that I look up to have a fantastic sense of humor and it makes me really want to be around them more I think I will rank it oh it's tough I'd put it like here it's like a Ab it's not like necessary but I think it's very much a preference when it comes to getting done the next one is skepticism skepticism is the attitude of doubting knowledge claims set forth in various areas skepticism is valuable in business you will probably actually be more right than you are wrong somebody who's skeptical there's 10 situations in front of you say that you doubt all 10 of them you are going to probably be right nine out of 10 times but there is going to be that one out of 10 times and you miss that opportunity because you are skeptical and so I do think that it serves people more times than it doesn't the question is how do we deploy open-mindedness while also being skeptical and I think that the answer to that is to also force yourself to take the redside approach which is basically be the person that says you're looking at a situation you're saying like this is why it won't work okay well what I want you to do on the opposite side of that is is give me an argument for why it would work if you can do that and you can balance both sides of the equation I think that you can really use this to your advantage rather than disadvantage I think that I would rate it B I think it's important and useful I don't think it's going to make or break the next trait that we are going to talk about is optimism optimism is a mental attitude characterized by hope and confidence in success and a positive future you need a good balance of optimism and skepticism or pessimism if you go to the extreme and you're consistently optimistic in all situ ation I think that you don't take proper measures to prepare for the worst case scenario and then therefore it's a self-fulfilling prophecy and you fail if you're constantly pessimistic then you might behave in a way that perpetuates nothing ever working you want to be optimistic about the future and I think that it inspires others and if other people feel that the leader doesn't believe in the future of the company then I think that it's very difficult to move people forward the issue is that I've just seen a lot of new entrepreneurs be overly optimistic therefore not take the precautionary steps to protect against the downside and then the downside occurs I actually feel that pessimism is more useful in situations than optimism optimism should be embraced once you have taken all necessary measures to protect against the downside and do your homework on the situation to become informed and the irony of it is the more informed you are the more you can see the reasons why would something wouldn't work but you carry on despite that and I think that it's more useful to pair the two together if you feel like you're very pessimistic and want to be more optimistic deploying a little bit of encouragement is probably a great place to start you can be pessimistic and optimistic at the same time it's a dichotomy to manage most people think I have to be one or the other whereas I think it's just like what would be more useful given the context of my situation right now I would say that optimism I'll put it at a B I think it's important but it goes hand inand with being skeptic the next trait that we have is initiative it's really the ability to use your judgment to make decisions and do things without without being told what to do it is important that leaders take initiative but it's also really hard because I think that it's very hard for somebody to take initiative in a situation that they are new to because when you're new to a situation you have less ability to predict what needs to happen next taking initiative results when you have experienced in the past in similar situations that you can pull from to then say this is probably what I need to do next therefore I can do it I know for me when I was growing gym launch like the only way I was able to take initiative is I had people light years ahead of me telling me this is what you want to be doing next if you don't know how to take initiative it's probably because you you haven't been in the situation for or or one similar and so find somebody who has and get their advice ask them for help or even just reverse engineer how they got to where they are I would rate initiative a cuz I think it's important the next trait that we have neuroticism neuroticism is a personality trait characterized by sadness moodiness emotional instability so they tend to have like a lot of mood swings I don't think this trait serves anybody in business people create a lot of superstition around being neurotic and how it might drive success and I think that the reality is that they might not have the skills to not be neurotic and then they also don't have a reason to acquire those skills because things are working for them over a long enough time Horizon I have seen it kill more businesses and entrepreneurs than not I don't think that this is something that leads to success and I don't think it leads to a happy life either I would probably put that one uh at the F tier not necessary the last one is creativity it is thinking of new ways to do things or doing things in a way that hasn't been done before typically a creative person generates ideas or concepts that are novel or unheard of I think that a lot of people say I'm not creative right they identify that way but the reality is they have put themselves under circumstances that make it very hard to be creative you know myself for example uh would it be reasonable to think that Lila would be creative if she has 10 to 13 meetings a day and she does that 6 days a week and then has all these other things she does in the days in between do you think that she has time to think of new ideas the answer is probably no so I know for me if I need to think of new ideas I have to change the way that I operate and I have to create an environment that makes it easy to think about new ideas as in less on my calendar I don't think it's a coincidence that Alex tends to be more creative than me when he has much less on his calendar he has more time to think about new ideas and novel ways to do things if you want to be more creative engineer an environment that makes it easy go I would say like Take 2 days go on a trip get out of the same scenery you're in get somewhere that inspires new ideas right change your stimulus I think that a lot of people think of new ideas when they have less to do and so if you want to be creative make more time for that I would say that creativity probably goes somewhere around here let say it's between a a and a b make more time so if you're still here hopefully you can pick like I said at the beginning of the video the three traits that if you acquired those skills would drive you forward the most in your life and your business and your on R preneurial Endeavors whatever it may be and if you like this tier list then I also ranked a bunch of different business skills and how those relate to building a business and being successful and you can check that out here