Four key beliefs help us become successful. Each can make it tough for us to change. And that’s the paradox of success: These beliefs that carried us here may be holding us back in our quest to go there.
This is the classic definition of self-efficacy, and it may be the most central belief driving individual success. People who believe they can succeed see opportunities where others see threats. They’re not afraid of uncertainty or ambiguity. They embrace it. They want to take greater risks and achieve greater returns. Given the choice, they will always bet on themselves.
When I surveyed executives about why they felt overcommitted, none of them said they were trying to “save a sinking ship.” They were overcommitted because they were “drowning in a sea of opportunity.”
People will do something—including changing their behavior—only if it can be demonstrated that doing so is in their own best interests as defined by their own values.
If you press people to identify the motives behind their self-interest it usually boils down to four items: money, power, status, and popularity.
Among the myriad wise things I have heard Peter Drucker say, the wisest was, “We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.”
Fortunately, there’s a simpler way to achieve the goal of “being nicer.” All you have to do is “stop being a jerk.” It doesn’t require much.