From Zero to Hero: How to Become a Remarkable Person From Nothing

Have you ever wondered how a person can become successful from nothing? How individuals are able to succeed in areas where they had no previous experience before? I have tried to answer these and other questions for a long time, and in fact they are one of the major reasons I got interested in personal development in the first place.

I strongly believe that our potential is only limited by our imagination. And I don’t just want to impress other people, I really believe this to be true.

All of us have certainly seen countless examples of people who got rich from nothing (apparently), and we already know that overnight success is only a myth. As a result of that we know that what it really takes is real (and effective) work to become successful. In this post I want to show you the exact steps you need to take to become successful in any area.

What I’m about to say is the result of years of trial and errors, and countless hours of study and application. What I’ve started to see lately is a pattern of common behaviors that apply to most situations.

You can consider this list of traits as a general purpose framework to excel in most areas. You can apply it to most areas including blogging, programming, marketing, design, entrepreneurship, etc., but more important you can apply them to your life as well.

Keep in mind that you still have to dedicate a your time if you want to become a remarkable persona, so don’t expect overnight success.

How to become a remarkable person from nothing

Here’s exactly how you can become a remarkable person in virtually every area.

Learn as much as you can

I personally quit school at 18 and I’ve been a self learner since then. Despite that, I can’t recommend highly enough the importance of getting a proper education. It doesn’t matter if you had a poor education in school, you are still responsible for your life, and so it’s only up to you to stay up to date.

Fortunately it’s easy to gain new information thanks to the large availability of books on virtually every subject, and if that wasn’t enough, we also have internet which is the richest library in the world.

I recommend studying various subjects (despite what you thought about them in school), but if you want to excel particularly in one area, you should probably invest more time there.

Make a habit of dedicating part of your day to learning new things. For example you can read 30 minutes early in the morning and then apply what you’ve learnt during the day; in the evening you can then draw your conclusions if that makes sense for you. This is a terrific approach to learning, as you are assimilating new informations in the morning when your brain is fresh (get plenty of sleep) and then you are actively testing them out during the day.

As an example, let’s say you are in sales. There are literally hundreds of excellent books and tapes about the art of selling. If each day you invest some of your time to learn new selling techniques or new concepts related to selling, and then you test them during the day, I’d bet you would soon become one of the top sales individuals in your company in just a matter of months.

As an additional incentive, let’s say that by reading 30 minutes per day you are able to read 1 book per week. That would mean you would have read, understood and put to practice 50 books in just one year if you follow this method.

Here are some more resources related to learning:

How to keep track of what you’ve learnt.

The often forgotten part of learning: doing.

How to read a book.

Provide terrific value

Often, the only difference between someone who is succesful and someone who’s not, it’s in the quality of their work. If you want to succeed in any area, you want to provide terrific value. How much value should you provide? The most you can, and probably a bit more.

Let’s take blogging for example. Successful bloggers are those who can provide excellent content on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter if they are good at marketing their blog, if they can’t constantly provide great content, people are going to unsubscribe and move elsewhere. This is true because our time is extremely valuable, and we don’t want to spend time in things which don’t provide any kind of value to us.

If you are a web designer you can offer some of your work for free online. There are many individuals who offer stock images or entire layouts for free, and they get great exposure for that.

If you are a blogger, try to make your articles as valuable as possible, and ask yourself if you would read your own posts. Be honest.

If you are a marketer, then you can probably blog your experience and offer advices to those who are starting out.

If you are a web developer, release some web applications for free. For example I’ve built a free web application for people to keep track of how much their websites are earning (you can find it here). I also have several other web applications.

It doesn’t really matter if the kind of value you are providing is free or not, as long as you do your best every time.

Do your best every time.

All of these things should be done with the intent of providing the greatest possible value. Don’t be afraid of giving away your secrets, and be a fan of transparency. Unless you are doing something top-secret, then there’s no way you would be harmed in the long-term by being open and sharing your knowledge publicly.

The most you give away, the most you’ll get out in return.

Make genuine connections

You’ll not become successful without the help of others. Take the time to build genuine connections with fellow people in your niche. If possible attend events and introduce yourself to others. If you can’t attend events, use internet.

Remember that when you try to contact someone, you should never abuse their time. Don’t introduce yourself just for the sake of doing it, try to provide some benefit instead. We are all busy after all.

It’s hard sometimes to get in touch with the leaders in your niche, especially if you are a nobody. The secret is to provide great value and to offer genuine help for free. Sooner or later they are going to notice you anyway, so don’t feel a sense of urgency.

Remember that even the top guy in your niche is as human as you, so be friendly and don’t manipulate others. More often than not, you can create a genuine relationships that goes behind business.

Act as if you were already successful

When I started this blog, nobody knew me or this website, but I still written all my articles as if I already had an audience of thousands of people. This helped me because when then people came, they could already find interesting content.

People don’t want (of course) to deal with inexperienced people, so it’s up to you to give the right perception from the beginning. Of course you’ll learn a lot along the way, and you’ll have to correct your path as needed.

When you are just starting you, nobody knows you, but don’t let that diminish your ego. Act as if you were already successful, and soon you’ll become one.

Focus on the big picture

It’s easy to lose motivation if you don’t look at the big picture. The long-term perspective is always what you should be aiming for.

On a related note, if you only focus on the short-term it’s hard to maintain motivation, that’s why for example looking at your website’s statistics every single day is bad, as you could easily lose motivation if you don’t see immediate results.

You already know that it takes time to become successful, so focus on creating assets that appreciate with time. Ask yourself what results you can expect after one year or more of what you are doing.

If you focus on the big picture, then you’ll never lose motivation to work on your passion, because you know that by continuing to work on it you’ll soon become successful.

Having a concrete vision of the big picture can also help with your goals. Each morning think of one or two things that would move you closer to your goal, and do them before doing everything else. After one year you’ll have done at least 365 little things to move you closer to your goal.

Keep going

As with everything good, it’ll take time to become successful, otherwise everyone would do it. How much time depends on your particular niche, but usually the time frame varies from a few months to a couple of year. Again there’s not a real limit, so you could become very skilled in a particular area in just a few months where others take years. Just keep going and trust yourself, one year from now you’ll be glad you started today.

One year from now you’ll be glad you started today.

Putting everything together

Let’s summarize everything again one more time. To become successful in any area, there are 6 fundamental steps you need to follow:

• Learn as much as you can.
• Provide terrific value.
• Make genuine connections.
• Act as if you were already successful.
• Focus on the big picture.
• Keep going.

If you do this, especially the first two points, I can guarantee you’ll see a huge difference, regardless of the particular area you want to improve.

If you have skimmed through the article, I highly recommend that you go back and read everything again. This is really what it takes to become successful in any area, and now it’s only up to you to follow it or not.

Photo source

Posted on January 04 2010

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