WHAT ARE THE SPECIAL QUALITIES THAT MADE THE GREAT CEO’S OF YESTERDAY SUCCEED?

There are things that a young person does in their early years that will signal they indeed will become successful as they grow older. There is a simple test to see this: Do they have passion or drive, do they have talent, and finally do they have luck? If they have all three, they will prosper beyond all possible imagination. Tod Buchholz has examined these factors as he studied many of those who were wildly successful in the 20th century, and he tells us that this energy is still alive across the world. Tod looked, in his new book “New Ideas From Dead CEO’s”, at 9 giants of our economy in a serious way and not only picked the above out of their success but also suggested that their characters and drives could be applied to other greats of recent times to move them into this area as well.

The ones he picked to examine included: A.P. Gianini/Bank of America, David Sarnoff/RCA, Thomas Watson Jr./IBM, Akio Morita/Sony, Sam Walton/Wal-Mart, Estee Lauder/Estee Lauder, Ray Kroc/McDonald’s, Mary Kay Ash/ Mary Kay Cosmetics, Walt Disney/Disney.  These outstanding individuals understood they were working for tomorrow. They would sacrifice everything for the future. Just what does that mean: an example is that when many of them were very young they had newspaper routes, but instead of delivering themselves they would hire others to deliver and spend their time managing the workers. Sam Walton made $4,000 a month in this manner in his early teens.

The CEO’s in this study teach us about the forces that made the last century uplifting and how these individuals not only would do the same now but would be able to lift some of today’s almost-successful organizations and individuals into sustained progress and growth as well. If you are just beginning, these lessons would serve you well into your future.