The Five Qualities Needed for Success in Life

There are five things needed to be successful in life. A person can be successful with one of any of them, if they have enough of that quality, or a combination of just two or three of them in varying strengths. They are confidence, passion, talent, likability and intelligence.

The Complete and Total Loser lacks them all.

Many idiots are too dumb to know how dumb they are but are confident in their abilities or beliefs. Most in positions to hire others or otherwise make things happen are as insecure as everyone else and are therefore drawn to confident people.

People also like and trust those with passion but even if they’re not, passionate people will work hard to achieve their aims even the outcome looks uncertain or bad, and they often succeed. And if they only partially achieve what they set out to do, it’s fine with them; they’ve enjoyed the quest.

Those with talent, either naturally present or achieved through hard work thanks to passion can succeed. They can do things well others do badly and they can do them faster. It’s important, however, that their talent is for something that will be in demand for a long time.

Likable people know how to network and when people meet them they hire them. When someone’s hiring someone else, the main question they’re asking themselves, in addition to whether or not they can do the job well, is if they’ll want to spend all week in a room with them.

Intelligence is valuable when applied to a career. If someone’s very intelligent they can have poor hygiene, be socially inept and not care much about what they do yet still succeed.

The Loser has forever doubted his abilities in everything and self deprecates so often it annoys others. He doesn’t feel strongly about much and certainly nothing that would earn money. His interests and likes are broad, yet shallow. He has never been very good at anything and admires those who are. The kid who could draw, sing, hit a target with a rock, make adults laugh. How do they do that? the Loser wondered.

For years others told the Loser that how he feels about himself determines how others feel about him, but he’s never seen any evidence of this. There have been periods as long as months at a time when he’s felt positive and optimistic about himself and the world but even then women looked away, children withdrew and dogs snapped at his extended hand.

The Loser has always been at or near the bottom of his class from elementary school through college. He did do well in graduate school, but it was a third-tier school (if that) and the course of study was in a dying field (journalism).