80 | MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 2
something to my favourite quote of "the se-
cret to success without hard work is still a
secret"... my best advice to entrepreneurs is
that success is the uncommon application of
common knowledge. Now let me explain
that.
When I wrote the book, I interviewed a lot
of people and I talked to business people -
the average business person - the people
that you will find... entrepreneurs and busi-
ness people that you would find in BNI. And I
asked them
what are
some of the
secrets to
success and
Neil they
would tell me things like creating a strategy,
systems, processes, leverage, people skills,
you know... They gave me a whole list of
things.
I then asked really successful business peo-
ple, people that are in my book, big names,
well known people Buzz Aldrin the astro-
naut, Erin Brockovich (the movie was made
about him), people like Jack Canfield...you
know, what are the secrets to success? And
they gave me the same list - systems, pro-
cesses, dealing with conflict, leverage, peo-
ple skills. They gave me the exact same list. I
though this is really interesting that the aver-
age business person said the same things as
the really successful person.
So then at the time I was teaching at a stateuniversity in California and I started...I asked
them, these college kids, undergraduates
what do you think the secret to success is,
what are the skills needed? And do you
know what they said Neil? Systems process-
es, leverage, people skills. I mean they gave
me the exact same list. The exact same list
as everyone else and I remember thinking
wait a minute. If we all know what it takes to
be successful, then why is it that we are all
not as successful as we want to be? I mean
think about it... I have never asked anyone
ever what is
the secret
to success.
And then
they gave
me something where I go 'oh my god that's
the secret. I had no idea that was the secret,
nobody ever told me that was the secret.'
No, what do they tell you? They tell you the
same thing over and over again.
So, if we all know what it takes to be suc-
cessful, why aren't we all successful as we
want to be? I think the secret to success is
the uncommon application of common
knowledge. That we all know what it takes,
It's the way we apply that concept. Do we do
it with a different spin, a different flavour,
with more effective systems with more pas-
sion? You know there has to be a combina-
tion that is sort of the secret sauce to make
that work. But it is the application of the ide-
as not necessarily the ideas. You have gotIf we all know what it takes to be
successful, then why is it that we
are all not as successful as we want to be?