For the past few months, I’ve been trying to formulate the common traits that successful people seem to embody regardless of the type of success. I think I have them figured out, and there are seven of them.

In this new series on the blog, I’m going to tell the stories of people (some who I know well, others who I don’t) who I consider highly successful in some area of their life, and I’m going to go through each of the seven traits for those people. I think we all have a lot to learn from these people. (If you have anyone you’d like to recommend for this series, please contact me at jamey.stegmaier@gmail.com.)

The John Donovan Story

In a way, John inspired this series. He’s a friend of mine who has gone through an incredible and inspiring physical transformation over the last year, and his story is worth sharing. Here’s John a year ago (this was taken before a year ago, but this is how he looked a year ago):

I’ve known John for about 8 years, and this is how I’ve always known him in terms of looks. Beyond that, John is quick-witted, extremely loyal, and an truly good-hearted person. His family’s heritage is Irish, and John embraces that heritage well beyond St. Patrick’s Day.

Here’s what John looks like today:

Again, this is about more than looks, but I wanted to start off with the physical transformation. Now let’s tell John’s story through the seven traits I mentioned above.

Courageous: It takes a lot of courage to admit to yourself that you aren’t who you want to be. A person can either structure their life around their limitations, or they can take control of their limitations and build the life they want. John is the latter type of person.

Even at 271 pounds, John wasn’t unhealthy in that he gorged on mountains of junk food.  But in retrospect, he realizes that he didn’t understand the relationship between the food that he ate and the shape of his body.  His physical activity was social, including some club sports.  But the recreational drinking associated with these clubs nullified much of the physical benefits of his activity.

But nonetheless, here he was, 6 months from his 30th birthday, and John knew he was overweight at 271 pounds. How did he know? Part of it was his big-picture perspective that his body and his lifestyle had shaped his body into something that was limited in the tasks it could perform. As John said in our interview, “[When playing pickup sports], usually I’d play a position that didn’t require me to run quickly or for an extended period. I didn’t want to set world records for speed. But I did want to be able to fly comfortably in an economy seat.”

The kicker came last January when John sat down on a friend’s porch swing and tore it right out of ceiling from which it was suspended. John could have blamed the ceiling or the swing, but instead he had the courage to realize that he was ready to make a change.

Action Oriented: Anyone can come up with a great idea or dream big. Successful people actually act on those ideas and dreams. And they don’t act a year from now or a month from now–they act today.

It’s worth mentioning that people can be action oriented in selective parts of their life, rather than their life as a whole.  John didn’t get a promotion and increase his net worth at the same time that he decided to go through this physical transformation. But he decided that action needed to be taken to improve himself physically.

John had tried to lose weight in the past and had been somewhat successful, but he hadn’t been able to keep off that weight. He knew he had to do something different this time.

So he called a gym and set up an appointment with weight-loss coach Charles D’Angelo. Charles had come highly recommended by a friend whose diabetic father had lost 100 pounds in the past year thanks to Charles’ guidance.

John says that aside from consulting with a coach, getting a gym membership this time was a big step. It was a new commitment, a key action in process of getting healthy. I doubt John will ever forget his first workout after getting guidance from Charles. Here’s a photo from right afterwards:

Focused: Early on, John set a goal and stuck with it. He wanted to weigh 200 pounds on his 30th birthday. John never took his sights off that goal, but he helped motivate himself with smaller goals. He had a new target weigh every 2 weeks.

Setting these smaller goals that would pave the way to achieving the overall goal is very important to this process.  Failing to meet one smaller goal was not catastrophic.   But failing to meet a few small goals over time meant a trend, and that new action would be needed to get back on track.

Devoted: Being focused is about the vision. Being devoted involves a willingness to carry out that vision, no matter the sacrifice. It’s a mindset that can be extremely difficult to achieve, but I think that’s simply how John’s brain works. He’s a creature of habit. So when he focused on his goals, he was devoted to the task at hand by sticking to the rules and guidelines that his coach gave him.

In a vacuum, devotion is a lot easier than real life. Without distractions, you could work out all day (think prison). But John wasn’t attempting his transformation in a vacuum. He had to deal with the challenges of seeing his friends go out for drinks or to a restaurant or seeing coworkers chow down on birthday cake every few days.

And yet John stayed utterly devoted to achieving his goals. I honestly don’t know if this is an innate trait or one that you can adopt–I think John is one of the fortunate few who have it in their DNA.

Patient: You can’t expect meaningful results overnight, not with anything. When you launch a new business, you’re not going to be a millionaire overnight. When you get married, you won’t have the perfect marriage from day 1. The same happens when you try to transform your health–it takes time.

Because there wasn’t much of a learning curve for John, it wasn’t long before he saw results. He lost 15 lbs in the first two weeks.  But every week didn’t see the same results.  He stayed focused and devoted to his goals whether nine pounds or four pounds.

Passionate: Passion doesn’t just ignite new projects and goals. In fact, a lot of people have that type of passion. Think about the last time you got excited about something big and didn’t follow through? I do that all the time.

The type of passion that truly successful people have is lasting passion. John has it. He reached his goal of 200 pounds in late May, but he still saw some things that he wanted to work on. He had the passion to keep going, to continue to move towards optimal health.

I’ve heard from a lot of people that one of the hardest things about losing weight is maintaining a healthy body after you’re reached your goal. John’s been working on that for over three months now, and he says he’s still learning. He says he’s like a colt talking his first steps in his new body.

And he’s not done. This surprised and really impressed me (it’s from the interview). John said, “I’ve never run a mile. So I’d like to run a 5K around April.” Becoming successful isn’t a one-time deal if you truly have that passion for the heart of what you’re trying to do.

Absorbent: The final category has to do with one’s willingness to absorb and remain open to new information. It takes a special talent to truly do this.

Honestly, I went into the interview with John with a goal in mind–after seeing what John did, I wanted to spread the message that anyone can make a significant change in their life merely by putting in the time and energy.

I no longer think that’s true.

I think that John is the type of person who can put his mind to something, stick with it, and achieve results. I don’t think everyone is like that. I think the key is that John opened himself up to new possibilities that he had never considered before. I’ve seen this absorbent nature in John for more than just becoming healthy–he embraces knowledge in many areas of his life.

As John says, “I didn’t use a quick fix, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any out there, especially if you only want to drop 10 or 15 pounds. But there is value in sweat equity. Because I had to sacrifice to get it, I think I value the change more than if I had taken a magic pill.”

I think that sums up the difference between John and most other people. And I don’t mean to slight or discourage the general populace. But think about one thing in your life you’d like to significantly change, whether it be your health, your wealth, your relationship status, anything. Would you rather work  at that thing for the next 6-12 months, putting in a ton of time or energy, or would you swallow the magic pill if you could achieve your goal instantly without any effort? I know I’d take the magic pill for most things.

But I also know that I wouldn’t take the magic pill for a few specific things, and that’s a sign that those are the things that I might care enough about to actually succeed in. I think that’s a good meter of success.

John, you’ve inspired and impressed me. Thank you for sharing your story with me and my readers, and I look forward to seeing your other successes–health and otherwise–in the future.

1. Crunchy foods help keep your mind awake, as do spicy foods. I’d particularly suggest baby carrots since you typically don’t eat much healthy food on road trips.
2. I would pay double for fast drive-thru food on road trips if there were healthier, organic options available. I still like burgers and chicken tenders on the road, but I don’t want processed crap, and I’m willing to pay for it if it’s fast.
3. Idea: Drive-thru restaurants where you get your gas pumped while you wait in line for your food.
4. I unabashedly unbuckle and unzip my pants during long road trips. You don’t realize how constricting your pants are until you undo them. I also tend to wear my oldest jeans since they’ll end up serving napkin double-duty during the drive.
5. I’ve discovered the key to taking fewer bathroom breaks is to take longer bathroom breaks. Don’t rush them. Pee, then simmer down for a 15 seconds, and then pee again. It’s almost as if you have two separate bladder–the first is immediate relief, and the other is long-term storage. Empty both of them.
6. The hands-down scariest vehicle to see on the road is a stormchaser van.
7. My number one new tip is that you should get some stand-up comedy CDs for the ride. They’ll jolt you awake and keep you that way for a full hour. My favorite from my recent trip was Aziz Ansari (you can borrow mine if you know me). Buy them used on Amazon. I tried to find a Netflix for comedy CDs, but there is no such thing. You could make tens of dollars if you started one of your own!

What tips would you add to this list?

I held this 5-day-old baby! And I didn't even drop her!

I’ve been away from the blog the past few days (and last week) at a family reunion and a separate soccer tournament back in Virginia. It was a good trip, one that involved some quality soccer with old teammates (some of whom were much heavier than the last time I saw them), good family time with my dad’s side of the family, an interesting adoption discussion with a fellow adopted child and two adoptive mothers, multiple kisses from my grandmother, the good fortune of holding not one but two very little babies (not at the same time), and the scariest drive back to St. Louis I’ve ever experienced. If you heard about gale-force winds in Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois today, I drove through them.

I observed something about people this weekend while being surrounded by 40 family members that I wanted to share here. I hope this doesn’t come across as preachy. And obviously I love my family very much.

But they don’t ask many questions. And the questions they ask aren’t very good.

For the most part, this isn’t an issue. In fact, I doubt many people notice it at all, because I belong to a Stegmaier family of talkers (so is my mom’s side). But even in a family of talkers, I think you lose something when no one is asking questions.

When you’re at an event like that, pretty much the only questions you hear are “What are you doing now?” and the even more generic “How’s life?” Is that the best people can do? Aren’t people more curious than that? What does it say about mankind’s search of knowledge if the best question we can think of is, “How are things?”

I want to know what people are reading, what their pets are like, what they do in their free time that is completely different than what I do in my free time. I want to know what people are thinking about, what they get excited about, what makes them tick.

And I’m not saying that I want more serious discussions. There are always plenty of serious political discussions at these family reunions. But they’re essentially just a serious of statements pasted together, declarations for all to admire. Why not replace some of them with a shared curiosity for our fellow man? Some sort of acknowledgment that people lead completely different lives than ours and that we don’t already know everything about them.

I don’t just see this lack of good questions within my family–I see it at work, on dates, and with some friends. It’s everywhere.

So try this today: Think of one really unique question and ask it to someone you see all the time. Ask them something new, and learn something about them. It can be outlandish, but it doesn’t need to be outlandish for outlandish’s sake. Just ask an interesting question that you genuinely want to learn the answer to, not because you want to share your answer. In fact, don’t even think about your answer.

Have you experienced this? Are you intentional about asking good questions?

Thirteen years ago when I was entering college, I was a terrible dancer. To most people that wouldn’t be an issue. But my perception of college was that dancing would be really important. I envisioned an ongoing series of dance parties–both frat and ballroom–and possibly a number of West-Side-Story-style dance-offs. College was full of dancing, and if I had no rhythm, I would be ostracized.

For some reason, I pictured breakdancing as the pinnacle of rhythm. I had probably seen a video on YouTube (or whatever we had back then…TV? I can’t remember a time before I could watch videos online on demand) and thought I had seen the best dancer ever.

So I joined the breakdancing club at Wash U.

The details of my dancing career aren’t the point of this story, but I’ll say this: I had fun in breakdancing club, and it proved a lucrative way to meet women (including a half white/half Japanese beauty with purple eyes–purple eyes!–who will forever remain etched in my memory. I think she’s either a model or a character in Final Fantasy XVIII now)…but I never gained a sense of rhythm. I could do some of the breakdancing moves like the 6-step and a few freezes, but I couldn’t link together any of the moves. I probably looked like a robot, if a robot could be really bad at The Robot.

That was 1999-2000. Eventually I stopped attending breakdancing club meetings, and the years passed by.

2005: After a friend’s wedding, I was sitting at my table finishing my dinner when the dancing portion of the evening began. People circled up as they do at weddings, and a few little kids were pushed to the middle of the circle. They had a grand old time running around in circles.

At some point, there was no one in the middle of the circle for a while, but the circle remained intact. There it was, a big, wide circle with no one in the middle. And it dawned on me.

This is it, I thought. This is my time. This is what that year of breakdancing was for.

I kept sipping my fuzzy navel, trying to find a reason not to plunge headfirst into the middle of the circle. But I couldn’t think of one. So I tossed back the rest of my drink and stood up. Let’s do this.

Before I could take a single step, a guy who had been sitting a few tables over leaped into the middle of the circle and performed the single best breakdancing routine I’ve ever seen in my life.

The guy was a blur of legs and handstands, headspins and twirls. He juked in and out of freezes like a dancing mime, and his transitions were as fluid as water. It was amazing.

As I watched, I eased myself back into my seat, realizing that I had come this close to a monumental embarrassment. Not that people would have mocked my hapless routine–I’m sure they would have enjoyed seeing a grown man do what would appear to have been a series of somersaults on the dance floor. But next to that gazelle king of breakdancing, I would have paled in comparison.

And that, my friends, is why I gave up breakdancing for good.

Would you rather work here or in a cubicle?

I don’t know anyone who thinks they have the perfect job. Sure, there are plenty of people who love their jobs (and plenty who loathe them), but everyone has something to complain about.

I enjoy my job, but it has its frustrations. Sometimes those frustrations overwhelm me a bit. I think it’s okay to vent on occasion. But when I’m frustrated, more than anything, I try to realize the amazing things about my job. After all, I have a job. That in itself is awesome. I don’t want to take for granted the little things about my job that make it special.

So today, instead of focusing on your crazy boss or the terrible coffee or the neverending meetings or the constant stream of interruptions, think of the 3 best things about your job. Write them below and refer to them the next time you have a rough day and start to update your resume. Go beyond 3 if you want–I have 9 to share from my own job.

1. No office politics
2. Free soup for lunch several days a week
3. I work in a big old house instead of a fluorescent-lit cubicle
4. I live 5 minutes from my job
5. Completely flexible schedule for doctor’s appointments, errands, lunches with friends, etc.
6. I can come in any time before 10:00 as long as I work 40 hours/wk and get the job done well
7. I have what feels like an enormous amount of responsibility and autonomy
8. I have my own bathroom
9. I get to work on a college campus without going to class or worrying about homework

Daily Quickie: Although we haven’t quite gotten the book back from the presses yet, my publishing company’s first novel was released in Kindle format on Amazon.com today. Check it out here.

When I was a teenager, I was crossing an intersection in my parent’s sweet Dodge Caravan when I ran over a broken bottle in the road and destroyed one of the tires. As I waited for the tire to get replaced, I found myself trying to place blame in my mind. Specifically, I blamed the person who carelessly threw a glass bottle in the middle of the road. I got more and more angry at this stranger who had caused me such inconvenience–who had put me in danger, even.

But then it dawned on me: There is no stranger. There’s just a broken glass in the middle of the road. And I drove over it. I did. Some stranger wasn’t driving my car. I was. I am responsible.

I am responsible.

Say that to yourself the next time you make an excuse or point a finger or think the world is out to get you. Stop blaming everyone and everything but yourself. Just stop. And say this: I am responsible. I am responsible.

It’s freeing. We’re talking life-changing freedom here. If you are responsible, you have control of your life. You have the power to improve your life, to do good things, to steer your minivan clear of the glass in the road, to be on time.

I am responsible. Because of that, I know that I have the power to do great things.

You may regret not going to a funeral or wake, but you’ll never regret going to one.

Remember this advice. You will need it, because you will rarely be eager to attend a funeral. You’ll avoid it. You’ll find excuses not to go.

But you’ll never regret going.

The great thing about funerals (I can’t believe I just wrote that) is that they’re one of the few settings where it’s the thought that counts, literally. If you simply make an appearance, express your sympathies, view the casket, and then leave, that means the world to the person (the living person, not the dead one. The dead one probably doesn’t care).

If you’re worried about what you should say at a wake to a person who is grieving, here’s a tip: Ask for memories. It can be so cathartic for someone  to talk about their loved one, to tell a story or two. Give them permission to do so. Asking a question and then listening is such a gift.

Hopefully no one associated with you will pass away this December. But if they do, go to the funeral. Trust me on this one.

My three:

1. I would take only the classes that really interested me. I’m glad I went to Wash U. It’s a great school, the quality of education is better than most universities, and it looks good on my resume. I’m not as glad that I went with a business degree. Although I love entrepreneurship and elements of organizational behavior and marketing, I trudged through tons of other business classes that were of no interest to me simply because I thought I wanted to go into business. I much rather would have enjoyed the majority of my classes than kept my eyes open for calculus, accounting, and finance. Oh, and I’d have taken Spanish in addition to Japanese. I think languages are some of the best things you can study in college, as a complement to going abroad. I also wish I had studied graphic design and programming, things that I could teach myself at this point, but it would have been great to have a professor to guide me.
2. I would seek internships at every opportunity. I’ve learned so much while working in the real world, and I could have started to learn some of those life lessons during college and every summer. Now, I don’t think I necessarily wasted my summers–there was a period where I wanted to open a restaurant after college, so I worked as a waiter for two summers to see if that’s something I really wanted (it turned out that it wasn’t). But I could have made so many connections and learned so much through internships.
3. I would loosen up a lot quicker. I don’t mean that I would have started drinking sooner or gone around hooking up with every cute girl I saw. But I carried a lot of stereotypes and stigmas into college that I wish I had let go of a lot sooner. Perhaps the slow process of learning was what I needed, but I also think I could have learned things first hand (and probably made some mistakes) up front and been the better for it.

Limiting this to the top three things was tough. There are plenty of little things I’d change, but these are the big three. Overall, I had a great college experience, particularly my year abroad. But sometimes I look back and reflect upon the experience (lately this was prompted by this article and some of the links…I kind of wish I could try it all again.

What are your three?

I'm a little surprised that pets weren't a category--aren't pets supposed to help you live longer?

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I’m fascinated by the idea of happiness. What makes us happy? How can we be happier? What’s really important when it comes to personal happiness?

Thus I was rather intrigued to find an article online that listed 10 keys for determining happiness. The article isn’t a checklist of things to do to be happier; it simply outlines 10 qualities that have been proven to be correlated to happiness.

So I took those qualities and created a simple survey on Qualtrics so you and I could determine our happiness quotient. I asked 10 questions and asked people to make on a scale from 1 to 5 how much they agree with each quality. The higher the number, the higher the score. The qualities of happiness:

1. Ability to let things go.
2. Perception of Equal Treatment
3. Large Number of Friends
4. Level of Active Spirituality
5. Ability to Imagine the Future
6. Specific Developed Skills
7. Control of Your Life
8. Competitive with Self or Not Competitive (opposed to being comparing yourself to others to determine success)
9. Good Genes
10. High Self-Esteem

28 people responded to the survey. With the highest possible score of 50, the happiest person scored a 46 and the least happy person scored a 27. The average score was 38.

What’s interesting to me are patterns within the categories–where do we collectively struggle? Personally, my lowest marks were in ability to let things go and specific developed skills. Overall, the three categories with the lowest average score were:

• ability to let things go (3.4 average)
• level of active spirituality (3.4)
• competitive with self (3.6)

The categories where we’re all doing really well are:

• perception of equal treatment (4.3)
• ability to imagine the future (4.4)

So how can we use this knowledge? To a certain extent, we are who we are. You either have good genes or you don’t. You’re either spiritual or you aren’t. But, as category 7 says, we have free will, and if we choose to exert it, we’ll be happier people.

Thanks to everyone who took the survey. It’s still open if you’d like to determine your happiness quotient.

It’s the kind of book that is easy to read but is so dense that almost every other line is quotable. Here are a few of my favorite lines from the first 50 pages of the book:

• “Why is expansion always the goal? What’s the attraction of big besides ego?” I’ve always wondered this. I read about a new startup  boasting of its staff of 50 employees (and growing), and I wonder, why am I supposed to be impressed by the size of you staff? Shouldn’t I be more impressed if you can be just as successful with fewer people?
• “Workaholics aren’t heroes. They don’t save the day, they use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done.”
• “A strong stand is how you attract superfans. And they spread the word further, wider, and more passionately than any advertising could.”
• “Lots of things get better as they get shorter. Directors cut scenes to make a great movie. Musicians drop good tracks to make a great album.” Fried even exemplified this point by sharing that he cut the length of Rework from 57,000 words to a lean, hard-hitting 27,000.

I’m done with the book, and I’d love to share it with you. But I’m hoping you can help me out as well. I’d like to ask you to take a short, 3-minute survey about your work self. These are fun questions (all multiple choice) like what your desk looks like and how you make decisions about buying a car.

I’m hoping to collect a critical mass of data that at the very least will reveal some interesting things about the roles in which we’re most successful at work. At the very most, it will help me launch a new job search algorithm that could potentially aid a lot of people.

If you fill out the survey or if you refer the survey to someone who takes it before Sunday, August 29, you’ll be entered in a drawing to win my copy of Rework. I’ll even sign it for you (“Jamey read this!”) Thanks so much for your help.

Daily Quickie: Speaking of acting on amazing ideas, my friend’s food truck restaurant website just launched. It’s based in Austin. Check out The Peached Tortilla here. Very slick, if you ask me.