Editor’s note: This article was first published in April 2014. Perella’s 40 years on Wall Street and the reference to billionaires with fortunes of 50 billion are as of 2014.
Most people want to succeed at something, whether in business, in their career or simply with money. We set ourselves a goal and draw up a plan to reach it. We add hard work, persistence and perseverance, and there we have the recipe for success. But the interesting point of view of Joe Perella, a Wall Street veteran with a 40-year career, gives us some traits shared by the people he considers successful.
Perella says that over his 40 years he has seen many people come and go on Wall Street. Some were very successful in the short term but then wrecked their careers, while others achieved lasting success and managed to build a thriving business or a renowned personal brand in one of the toughest and most competitive industries.
(Read: How to make 10 million on Wall Street and blow it on cocaine, prostitutes and…)
“Successful people work harder than the average person. They’re all smart, but there are plenty of smart people in this world who aren’t successful. And although luck has something to do with it, what they usually have in common is that their constant effort and drive to improve end up turning into luck of their own making.”
For Perella, successful people have no maximum level; they have no ceiling. They are always moving forward and getting better and better. There is no summit they need to reach, only a constant summit they have to keep going beyond, raising the bar again and again. In other words, for successful people, there is no “having made it”. They are never satisfied, because they know they can do better than they did yesterday, and every day they ask themselves: “How can I get better, how can I build a better firm and how can I get a better return for my clients?”
They rarely believe they have reached the goal. In fact, they are aware that complacency is what precedes failure. They have seen it hundreds of times among their own peers in the industry.
Perella urges young people who want to work in finance, in this case, to always keep this way of thinking in mind, and when they go to a job interview, to remember that everyone there is smart and everyone is a great professional. So they need to answer a very basic question: “If everyone is very good and very smart, why will some fail while others succeed?”
Perella’s approach may explain why the great billionaires with fortunes of 50 billion still act as if they need to earn more. The fact is, they really do feel they need to keep earning more, because it shows they are still improving, moving forward and still in the game. They haven’t hit their ceiling.
It is also clear that if they don’t retire, it’s because they truly love what they do.
Further reading
- A former Goldman banker explains exactly what it means to be rich
- 16 hard things you’ll have to do to succeed
Featured image: Vilho Uomala / Olympia-kuva Oy, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
