Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, and his first start-up, Traf-O-Data, was a big failure. J. K. Rowling was divorced, depressed, and on welfare. Theodor Seuss Geisel had 27 different publishers reject his first book. Albert Einstein was expelled from high school and was refused admittance to Zurich Polytechnic. What these people all have in common is that, at one point in their lives, they were abject failures. Yet without these “failures,” we would not have Microsoft, the Harry Potter series, Dr. Seuss, or the Theory of Relativity.

Some people seem destined to succeed in their chosen endeavors, in spite of any failures they encounter along the way. Others seem to experience difficulty bouncing back from defeat or disappointment, and they have only intermittent success or no success at all. What is the difference? Is it intelligence? Interpersonal skills? Charisma? Or is it just luck? There is research about the relationship between emotional intelligence and success, personal characteristics and success, and intelligence and success. However, the research in those areas does not explain how the view or perception of one’s success is what leads ultimately successful individuals to be persistent in the face of failure.

The most important ingredient to being successful on a sustained basis is how we interpret our success. This interpretation, or our explanatory style, is the way we explain our success or failure to ourselves—it is directly related to how likely we are to experience success or failure in the future. Are you a complainer and subject to focusing on a black cloud in every silver lining? Are you prone to having a consistently negative and pessimistic view of life, needing “a check-up from the neck-up,” as motivational speaker Zig Ziglar used to say. Or are you someone who regularly sees the glass as half full and therefore failure as a passing event and a learning opportunity on the way to success? Optimism, pessimism, resilience—or the lack thereof—are all rooted in how we talk to ourselves about our successes and failures. Our interpretations make all the difference in whether we have any control of our lives and our outcomes.

In fact, there is a clear difference between people who consistently complain about their plight and those who do not. Those who have a sustained level of success actually think differently from those whose success is fleeting or non-existent. The way you think about yourself is foundational. These three characteristics are critical to experiencing success on a regular basis:

1. Personal Control: Successful people believe that their success is a result of internal qualities over which they have some control, such as attitude, effort, preparation, experience, or skill set. People with lower levels of success feel like success is more dependent on external circumstances over which their control is minimal. As a result, when a typically low-performing individual does experience success, they attribute it more to luck or coincidence. A typically successful person experiencing the same success will recognize the link between the outcome and personal characteristics, such as their effort, preparation, skill set, attitude, and determination.
2. Generalizability: Successful people believe that success is not an accident of time, location, or circumstance. Instead, they believe they will continue to have similar successes at other times and in other settings. Successful people believe that if they are successful in one situation, they are capable of being successful in other situations. That does not mean they avoid risk or failure. Quite the opposite—they are not afraid of risk or failure because they are determined to persevere until successful. Both Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill were not successful until late in life, after they had both experienced many public failures. In spite of those earlier failures, both of them changed history dramatically.
3. Stability: Stability is the degree to which you think that the capabilities you have are reliable over time, because they are an internal part of you. Successful people know that they can rely on their capabilities when learning new tasks and facing unfamiliar challenges or situations, while unsuccessful people experiencing success do not have the confidence that it can be attributed to a stable trait they possess. They are more likely to say they had a “good day,” “dumb luck,” or “a one-time thing,” not likely to happen again. These people are more likely to live life like a lottery ticket purchaser, with the expectation that the odds are strongly against them winning or being successful.

The roots of victimization are feelings that, no matter what one does, the outcome will be not be good. Individuals who have a “victim” mentality go through life believing the “cards are stacked against them,” and have little motivation to make a difference in their lives or their work. Risk is to be avoided at all costs. Failure and lack of effort begins to define them. On the other hand, people who are consistently successful in life believe that success is a product of personal choices that we all have in response to the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

There is a clear link between the outcomes of our lives and the attitude, effort, persistence, and abilities we apply to various circumstances. When failures do happen, they are considered passing events that do not define us. Zig Ziglar cautioned us to “remember that failure is an event, not a person.” Taking on new risks and challenges can be seen as adventures to explore that offer new and exciting things to be learned. What defines us is a realistic appraisal of our abilities and attitudes, including a confidence that can be applied to any new situation. How we view our success or failure will either move us forward or back. How will you choose to interpret your successes and failures?

High-achieving executives may wonder how well success correlates to happiness. We have been molded, especially in America, to believe that the more we have in terms of money, assets, position, power, or authority, the happier we will be. But what if the link between success and happiness is not as clear-cut as we have been taught to believe?

Research on Happiness

Positive psychology is a field that has emerged in the past 15 years that focuses on understanding and applying the key principles of happiness. So what do we know about the link between happiness and success? Most people operate under the following assumptions:

• If I work harder, I will be more successful.
• If I am more successful, I will have more external validation, including more money, a higher position, more status, and more things.
• If I have these rewards of success, then I will be happier (a commonly held belief reinforcing parenting and management styles intended to motivate others to behave in specific manners).

According to Thomas Merton, a highly esteemed Catholic theologian, “We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have—for their usefulness.” Research has found that the way the brain works keeps us in a constant state of seeking, whereby every time our brain experiences success, we simply move the goalposts of what success looks like in the future. Here are some typical examples of how goals can shift:

• If I have a good job, I have to get a better one.
• If I get good grades, I need to get better ones.
• If I am in a good school, my next one needs to be better.
• If I hit my sales target, I need to set a higher one next time.

But what often happens to us once we have the success we thought we wanted is we find that the happy feeling is fleeting. Very shortly after the success, we begin to focus on the complaints, the competition, the workload, and the stress. The joy of the success is soon lost on us as we quickly return to our previous state of happiness or unhappiness. In fact, researchers can predict only 10% of your happiness by knowing about your external conditions (e.g., the car you drive, the home you own, where you vacation, your family), while 90% of your happiness is created by your internal world. Let’s take a closer look at happiness.

Happiness and Generosity

A study of happiness that might surprise you was published in a 2008 article in Science. This experimental study concluded that money could buy happiness as long as the money is spent on someone else. Analysis of surveys and data led to the following findings:

• For participants who disclosed personal spending data, the amount of money people spent on gifts to others or on charitable contributions was positively associated with general happiness, even when controlled for income variances.
• For employees at a company who had received profit-sharing bonuses, the amount of the bonus the employees spent on others was a greater predictor of happiness six to eight weeks later, whereas the amount of the bonus spent on themselves was not.
• For survey participants who were given either $5 or $20 and instructed to spend the money either on themselves or on others, those who spent the money on others were happier, and the amount of money did not matter.

This brings us to Conclusion #1 about happiness: Happiness and deep satisfaction are found when you extend yourself on behalf of another, either through acts of service or acts of generosity.

Happiness and Money

Surely having more money equates to happiness. Yet a survey of 43 countries by the Pew Research Center found that people in developing countries express nearly the same level of satisfaction with their lot as do people in wealthy countries. In 2007, 57% of respondents in rich countries counted themselves as happy, compared with 33% in emerging markets and only 16% in poor countries. However, in 2014, 54% of rich-country respondents said they were happy, but the share in emerging markets increased to 51%. Poor countries still lagged behind, with a share of 25%. The conclusion to draw here is that there must be some level of financial security to be happy, but after that threshold is crossed, additional wealth does not equate to additional happiness. As income increases, its added contribution to life satisfaction becomes smaller. The impact of additional income is greatest among those who have little money, but matters increasingly less once someone is able to meet basic needs.

This leads us to Conclusion #2: Greater happiness comes through maintaining an attitude of gratitude for what you already have and getting into the habit of noticing what you appreciate and why. Adopting this attitude strengthens your appreciation for what you have in your daily life and takes the focus away from things you want but do not have.

Happiness and Life Circumstances

You may be thinking that surely people with privilege, better circumstances, and more opportunities are happier than those without. But are they? Looking at happiness relative to life circumstances, we bump into what’s known as outcome bias, the idea that outcomes, even non-monetary ones, will have a greater positive or negative impact than they actually end up having. Examples of such circumstances include:

• Winning or losing an election
• Having or losing a romantic relationship
• Gaining or losing weight
• Moving to a more or less desirable place to live
• Getting good or bad medical lab reports

The impact related to these events is often much less than you might expect. In fact, if something happened over three months ago, with very few exceptions, the outcome has very little impact on your happiness. In fact, people who have experienced negative outcomes tend to confirm this. In his 2004 TedTalk, Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, considered these examples:

• Lottery winners vs. paraplegics—Believe it or not, one year following either winning the lottery or receiving a diagnosis of being a paraplegic, the levels of happiness on a survey were exactly the same. Three examples of this phenomenon are Christopher Reeve (quadriplegic), Amy Van Dyken (paraplegic), and Stephen Hawking (Lou Gehrig’s disease).
• Jim Wright (1989)—He resigned in disgrace after 34 years in Congress, ultimately as Speaker of the House of Representatives, when it was discovered that he had a shady book deal. As a result, he lost everything—money, power, etc. He said, “I am so much better off physically, financially, mentally, and in almost every way.”
• Harry Langerman—He could have purchased a McDonald’s franchise for $3,000, but was talked out of it by his investment banker brother-in-law. Instead, Ray Crock bought the franchise and became, for a while, the richest man in America. As Langerman said, “It worked out for the best.”
• Moreese Bickham—He spent 37 years in the Louisiana State Penitentiary for a crime he did not commit and was exonerated, at age 78, through DNA evidence. Upon his release, he said, “I do not have one minute’s regret. It was a glorious experience!”
• Pete Best—He was the original drummer for the Beatles before they became famous. After Best decided not to tour with the band, they found Ringo Starr. As Best said, “I am happier than I would have been with the Beatles.”

So, is the secret of happiness to:

• Have a debilitating disease or physical problem?
• Accrue power, wealth, and status and lose it all?
• Make someone else really, really rich?
• Spend as much time in prison as you possibly can?
• Never join the Beatles?

• Of course not!

Maintaining Happiness—and Success

So what do we make of all of this? How do we increase our happiness while also striving to attain more professionally? We must understand that happiness resides entirely in the internal world. Our longings and our worries are overblown because we have within us the ability to create for ourselves the very thing we are constantly chasing.

You have probably heard the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Research in the field of positive psychology has determined that we can train our brains to become more positive—tapping into serenity—through the following activities:

• Exercising—Exercise increases the level of dopamine in the brain. This increase in dopamine elevates the feeling of being content and teaches your brain that your behavior matters.
• Meditating—Meditation allows the brain to focus and not try to do too many things at once, focusing on the issue at hand in the present.
• Performing random acts of kindness—Write one email per day to affirm someone else. Even in the absence of an email, do not let a day go by without telling someone how important they are.
• Keeping a gratitude journal—Create a journal in which you write three things you are grateful for every day for 21 days and record at least one positive experience that occurred within the past 24 hours. Recording such things will allow you to see the world in a more positive light, more optimistically, and more successfully.

Finally, this brings us to Conclusion #3: Real happiness is in accepting and appreciating the things and conditions we cannot change and working to make the most of them.

When you consider the obstacles and challenges that stand in the way of you moving from being a good leader to being a great leader, you may be surprised at just how simple, and obvious, the answer is. It is common to assume that those great leaders whom we admire have risen to their lofty heights through superior intelligence, exquisite interpersonal skills, effective networking, benefit of cronyism, being subject matter experts, tenure in the company, and even luck. It is true that these assets play a role in creating great leaders; however, none of these is the root characteristic of great leaders. You may be surprised to learn that individuals who ascend to leadership positions in organizations have one thing in common—they have overcome their own inertia! With the wealth of available advice about leadership, it can be confusing to know what is really helpful. However, learning to overcome your own inertia is foundational to becoming more than just a good leader. In other words, the path to great leadership requires overcoming internal, not external, obstacles and challenges.

It is not enough simply to do the things that we know are necessary for good leadership. Even a delay in doing what we know is necessary can contribute significantly to leadership stagnation. This means that great leaders must exercise a level of discipline that goes beyond doing “more of the same.” Making that uncomfortable call, taking an opposing position, having that difficult conversation, or meeting with that tough client are all very important. The list is endless. For leaders, time is always the most important variable. Once we lose it, it cannot be recovered. How we use time impacts exponentially the options available to us in the future. Becoming intentional about taking action puts you in control of the direction of your leadership. We have amazing powers of rationalization when we are faced with tasks that we do not want to do but we know in our hearts we need to do. This procrastination ties up energy and brain space. So, why do we procrastinate and what can we do to overcome it?

Lacking the confidence and discipline to confront difficult decisions is, by far, the strongest underlying reason for not taking action. This lack of confidence can take several forms, including:

• Lacking Courage: When we are fearful because we are faced with strong opposition, we can allow those internal voices of “not being good enough” to overwhelm the facts of our competence. For most of us, the personal apprehensions we feel about ourselves early in life have not caught up to the real capabilities we have developed. In times of stress, those inner voices can drown out our genuine competencies and capabilities. We allow our unreasonable fear of failure to control and dictate our behavior. Furthermore, any negative consequences of our actions would rarely be as dire or calamitous as our inner fears would lead us to believe. In contrast, the results of our being decisive and taking action typically bring a sense of inner satisfaction and usually “move the ball down the field” for our organization. As Winston Churchill once said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”

• Wanting to Be Liked: The Achilles heal in leadership is the irrational belief that being liked trumps getting results. Unfortunately, many of us wrongly put a premium on being liked and getting along, rather than keeping our focus on getting results. Taking difficult positions, having hard conversations and tough negotiating do not negate being kind and respectful. However, yielding when your position is substantiated by data in order to preserve being liked, risks not getting results and not being respected. We are trained to be competitive, to win and get ahead, but not at the expense of exploiting others. When we frame our ambitions so dichotomously, we put ourselves in no-win situations. Either we win at the expense of others or we lose but everyone likes us. In reality, trying to please everyone runs the risk of pleasing no one. It is important to take your leadership behavior out of this frame of thinking and focus your attention on accomplishing your goals. Disagreements, hurt feelings, and difficult conversations do not necessarily mean broken relationships. In fact, great leaders are able to establish a loyal following, while also being able to hold others accountable. It is not a mutually exclusive choice. As management-guru Peter Drucker said, “Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked, leadership is defined by results, not attributes.”

• Perfectionism: Believing that a solution can be perfect will not only delay decision-making but is misguided thinking. The search for the perfect answer is almost always a fruitless exercise. Perfectionism is rooted in low self-esteem, in which people believe that they will be perceived as incompetent unless they present flawless work. Perfectionists usually spend excessive time in gathering data, reviewing their work, double-checking for errors, working extra hours and doing the work themselves, rather than delegating. Some studies suggest that even successful general managers are correct only about 65% of the time. In his work with his patients, psychologist David Burns (author of Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy) has determined that perfectionism undermines both productivity and happiness. As a result, perfectionists end up watching the world pass them by as they pursue their perfect answers when excellent answers will do just fine. Very rarely are problems as complex as brain surgery or rocket science. Most decisions are routine. Even if solutions to problems can be transformational, the ability to identify themes from a subset of data is almost always sufficient. As Voltaire is quoted as saying, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

In summary, the first and most elemental principle of becoming a great leader is meeting head on the issues, problems, and people that present the greatest challenge to you. By committing to dealing with the least desirable issues you face first, you are able to get them out of the way and free up time and energy to focus on other important issues. Once you muster the courage to conquer your inertia, stop worrying about what other people think, and calibrate your efforts to be commensurate with your tasks, you will be well on your way to becoming a great leader. Getting out of your own way is remarkably effective!

Another surprise in this year’s presidential campaign has been the popularity of Bernie Sanders. He came seemingly of the nowhere to catapult to an almost-even position with Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton. Who is Bernie Sanders, and what has he done in such a short time to rise to such prominence? Although he has been in the House of Representatives since 1991, serving as an Independent from Vermont, he is hardly a household name outside of his home state! How can his popularity be explained? He has been attracting unexpectedly large crowds across the country and has a broad, growing base of support.

1. Authenticity

Sanders’ message and platform are congruent with his behavior. Sanders fights for what he believes in. His belief in civil rights has led him to be arrested for coordinating a sit-in protest. He was at the forefront of representing LGBT rights. He has introduced legislation for raising the minimum wage. He has been against the invasion of Iraq from the beginning. He was an early voice warning about the dangers of climate change. He has not been afraid to go up against the establishment. His long-term record is consistent with this.

Unlike the view that most politicians cater to polls and their audiences, Sanders does not seem to care what other people think of him, and he says what is on his mind without regard for the consequences. At a time when Super PACs and wealthy supporters rule candidates, Sanders takes pride in not having a PAC or taking corporate money to finance his campaign. Prior to getting into politics, he worked as a carpenter for a period of time. He came from a working-class family and did not grow up in a wealthy environment. Part of his appeal is that he relates well to the common people.

At a time when people’s opinions of candidates are unfortunately shaped by negative-ad campaigning, robo-calls, and pointless vague phrases about why they are the best candidates, Sanders presents a platform that has been consistent over time. People hunger for this kind of authenticity.

2. Targeting His Message

Sanders has a long history of having represented the poor, minorities, and those otherwise disenfranchised, rather than the wealthy and those he considers entitled. This message alone speaks to those who share the feeling that they have little power and that the wealthy and powerful are the decision makers. He targets those who want to see change, not just on a personal level, but also on a global level. He wants to represent the needs of everyday, ordinary people, and not the rich and powerful. Sanders, himself, has the lowest net worth of any of the candidates in either party—again, demonstrating that he is not part of the rich and famous.

Sanders works to inspire and motivate people who see themselves as having been victimized by the powerful and wealthy. His message of engaging people to be involved in the political process has resonated with this group. He gives people the sense that they can make a difference and are not alone and powerless. This message has had particular impact on young voters. His message of wanting control of the government to be in the hands of the people, not in the hands of a few powerful elite, has struck a chord with his base. He addresses the growing discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots and the inequality of the distribution of wealth.

3. Communication

Perhaps the greatest reason for Sanders’ popularity has been his extraordinary success in communicating to his supporters and would-be supporters. Before each speaking event, Sanders’ team puts out “blast” social media messages as to the time, place, and purpose of each event. His use of social media is unparalleled, even by those candidates with more campaign money than Sanders. His campaign has a huge number of volunteers that have adopted a method of signing up supporters at all his events for text message alerts. These volunteers have nationwide conference calls every other week to train people how to best use Twitter and Facebook for his campaign. These grassroots efforts have contributed significantly to the record crowds he has gathered.

In addition to his effective methods and frequent communication, he was also among the first of the candidates to have clearly laid out his platform. Often, other candidates offer vague platitudes when moderators ask about their positions or they disregard questions completely and use the time to expound on their rehearsed talking points. In contrast, Sanders published his “Agenda for America: 12 Steps Forward” at the same time that he announced his candidacy. While many candidates continue to waffle on where they stand on certain issues, Sanders has been clear from the beginning on how and where he will focus his efforts.

When we look at Sanders’ campaign and his unexpected popularity, we see that he has provided three major lessons in leadership that have resonated with his following:

Authenticity: He has demonstrated that the manner in which he has lived his life has been consistent with the positions he has taken as a candidate. Employees consistently view authenticity as one of the most desirable characteristics in their leaders—right up there with trustworthiness.

Clarity of Messaging: Sanders effectively offers a clear and compelling message. It is not uncommon for organizations to have “lost their way” or to have difficulty articulating their strategies. A Sanders-led organization will have no such problem.

Communication: Sanders has demonstrated high levels of effectiveness in the variety of methods and frequency of his communication. Poor communication consistently ranks among the chief complaints employees have of their leaders.

Whether or not you like Sanders’ politics, he provides good examples of how to lead in an environment in which the candidates in the rest of the pack often seem indistinguishable. In today’s competitive business environment, when employees distinguish themselves from the predictable blandness, lack of courage, and lack of focus of their colleagues, they garner the respect and following of those around them. Maybe Sanders has something to teach in that regard. Do you agree?

Leadership lessons can come from both sides of the aisle. Read more in last week’s post about leadership takeaways from Donald Trump.