The 12 factors of Business Success: Discover, Develop, and Leverage Your Strengths

Chapter 11. Support Structures

A high level of achievement requires that you put significant support structures in place. Successful people understand the need to go beyond themselves and rely, in part, on others for their success. Every person has different skills, talents, and abilities that when combined with those of others, lead to an individual's success. It will always take more time, effort, knowledge, and resources for you to achieve success by yourself.

We need to heed the judgments of others. The fact is other people can see a lot about you that you can't see yourself. We need people to see if we are succeeding or failing. We need to be accountable. We often need to pick the brains of other people. Success is much easier to achieve if you have people on your side.

The need for support structures grows as you become even more successful. The reason is very simple. Once you've reached one level of success it is very likely that you'll immediately strive for another. Or, as you reach milestones in your quest for success in an area, you'll expand your definition of what success you want. The result is that your need for support structures grows.

Humans crave connection with others. This doesn't change in the pursuit of success. Personal relationships fulfill our psychological and biological needs to connect to others and are important to a fulfilling life. Successful people understand this and make the effort to actively cultivate additional relationships to support their success. ...