Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2014. Marissa Mayer is described as being “of Yahoo” (she left in 2017), and Kim Ung-Yong is called “currently” the highest IQ in the world.
We can all reach any goal we set ourselves, but on the road to success we have to compete with other people, and unfortunately some of them are already halfway through this success marathon before we start, forcing us to work much harder and even to compete on unequal terms.
Even when we share a goal, the truth is that we don’t all start from the same place. Let’s look at the most unfair advantages a person can have over everyone else, advantages there is nothing we can do about.
1. Not needing much sleep
Some may consider this advantage a myth, but it is a real advantage that many people have, and it is, of course, a genetic trait found in some successful people.
Napoleon and Margaret Thatcher (the Iron Lady) needed no more than 4 hours of sleep a day, and the same goes for Marissa Mayer of Yahoo and even Donald Trump, who says 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night is enough for him. Madonna doesn’t sleep more than 4 hours a day either, and Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards can stay awake for 5 days straight without losing any of his talent, which is perfectly normal for him. With cocaine, he reached a record of 9 days without sleep.
It may sound trivial, but in the world of high finance you would find many people who consider needing more than 4 hours of sleep a disadvantage.
And it’s not only the obvious benefit of having 3 or 4 extra hours a day to be more productive. These people gain an incredible business advantage: they can socialise with clients into the small hours, sleep a little and get up as fresh as a daisy to carry on with their working day.
See also: How to fail in business without losing your dignity: Chris Poole’s anatomy of failure
Anyone who tries to compete with this and keep up with them finds that accumulated tiredness pushes them into bad decisions.
Unfortunately, this advantage of not needing sleep is genetic and cannot be learned. In fact, on Wall Street, trying to adapt to a pace that others keep naturally has cost people their health and even their lives.
It is said that some companies look for this trait in their employees, because some psychologists believe that people who don’t need much sleep are potentially more intelligent and shrewder than the rest, while those who sleep more than 8 hours tend to be lazier than average (most people generally need between 6 and 8 hours of sleep).
2. The genetic gift of intellect
It is said that you can work with a child to develop certain skills early. That is completely true, but some parents find themselves with genuine prodigies without having to work on anything. For example, the Korean Kim Ung-Yong, currently considered the highest IQ in the world (210), is said to have been conversing fluently at 6 months, and by age 3 he had also learned to speak Japanese, German and English perfectly.
At 5 he was solving mathematical calculus problems that university professors considered eminent in their field struggled with, and at 7 he was invited by NASA, where he worked for 10 years. Clearly, no matter how hard you try, minds this prodigious can’t be manufactured. They are simply born, and nobody can compete with them intellectually.
3. Early habits and development
More and more studies reveal how important it is to work on habits with young children. It is said that between 6 months and 3 years of age we build a large part of the skills our children will have in the future, as well as many of their competitive advantages. For example, early brain development through motor skills can be boosted by the kind of games we play with our baby, and a child can be made more intelligent by learning a second language at 2 to 4 years old.
Risto Mejide (a Spanish TV personality and publicist) once said he had sent his children to school not to learn and study English, but to study in English, so that they would lose the accent that would mark them as Spaniards speaking English. They will speak perfect English and, later on, they will find it easier to learn a third language.
Having parents who understand that young children are like sponges, soaking up all kinds of knowledge and habits from an early age, gives them a competitive advantage over others, who will have to unlearn certain habits in order to acquire the right ones and will start training their brains later.
4. Optimism
To some extent, being optimistic or pessimistic is a choice we can all make. But it is true that, depending on our childhood, we may develop inferiority complexes that take their toll later in life, making us more insecure, more introverted, shyer, and so on.
A lack of optimism can become a brake on success in any field. A pessimist rarely manages to succeed.
5. Emotional detachment
Being able to feel less (emotional detachment) is a quality (also considered a flaw) that is found, to some degree, in sociopaths. Of course, as we discussed in our previous article, psychopaths have many qualities that help them succeed.
Emotional detachment makes you a distant person who is unlikely to suffer over emotional situations, and therefore has fewer disappointments and worries distracting them from their goals. It makes you more productive and more focused. It spares you from reaching for tranquillisers or herbal tea because of emotional stress, and gives you a colder approach. Put simply, such people are able to think more with their heads and less with their emotions, so their decisions will be much smarter and sounder than those of people who decide based on emotion, which is a big mistake in finance and business.
6. Being born into a rich family
Most millionaires had to work very hard to build something, while the job of someone who has inherited a multimillion fortune and hundreds of companies consists only of not screwing up and bringing down the empire they inherited.
Clearly, if this person comes from a rich family and, on top of that, their wealthy parents have taught them the values of honesty and competence, they have the biggest advantage of all: while the rest of us are fighting to reach the finish line, this person was born right at the finish line we are trying to reach. In other words, they were born successful.
Even so, as we have said on several occasions, no matter how much talent a person has, if it isn’t put to use, it can always be beaten by someone else who is working harder.
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
Further reading
- 7 lessons for success from the commander who hunted down Bin Laden
- 10 life lessons that go against popular belief
- Business success and your type of optimism
Featured image: Jacques-Louis David, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
