The 6 things you need to do in order to accomplish anything great

I shared my entrepreneurship story at SuperNova South a few weeks back, looking back over the last 20 years as an entrepreneur and the things I’ve learned along the way.

In the end, I uncovered six things that have helped me find success, and that I believe can help anyone accomplish their goals.

#1. Know your purpose

At the most fundamental level, I believe you have to be grounded in who you are and what is driving you toward your goal. Self discovery has helped me tremendously over the last five years, and I believe its imperative for BIG success. More on the importance of finding your purpose.

#2. Network + Reputation = Competitive Advantage

I’ve worked hard over the last 20 years on building a strong network and reputation. Anything that you want to accomplish in life will be easier if you have people that are supporting you along the way. The #1 piece of advice I give college graduates is to work hard on building a robust and diverse network.

Two posts to help you with building your network:

• Advice on how to meet people and grow your network
• Connecting dots vs. collecting dots

#3. Learn to focus

I write a lot about focus. If you are setting your sights on achieving something great, then you have to be able to reduce the amount of distractions that pull you away from attacking that goal. In my career, the times I’ve had the most success have been the times that I’ve been able to focus on the task at hand and minimize distractions.

#4. Embrace the pivot

I truly believe that adaptation is the key to happiness and success. You have to be able to react to the curve balls that life throws at you and adjust accordingly. When focusing on achieving something remarkable, if you’re unwilling to pivot and change course when required, then you’re never going to reach your full potential.

#5. Doing good is always good

I learned this lesson later in my career, but I’ve found that making time to do good in the world has always had the added benefit of helping me achieve my goals. Maybe you make a new relationship, or learn a new skill, or maybe you just feel better about yourself and therefore you’re more confident, but making time to help others will always help you achieve success.

Plus, its the right thing to do. If you’re reading this blog post, then you’re almost definitely better off than 95% of the world’s population. It’s why I started 48in48, and why I’ll continue to look for ways to make an outsized, positive impact on the world (that’s MY purpose).

#6. You must be “all in”

I learned this lesson right out of the gate, when a big deal at my first company, Spunlogic, fell through and forced my partners and I to be “all in” on the business. There’s a snippet of that story on this post.

If you want to achieve something great – not something mediocre, we’re talking about reaching high and accomplishing something remarkable – then you need to be fully, 100% committed to that goal. You can’t be doing it as a “side hustle” or with half effort because you’re juggling too many things. If you really want to break through and do something BIG, it must be all consuming.

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Photo by @joshuaearle