Football Hall of Fame coach Tom Landry said that he had seen the difference this factor makes in individual football players. He said that, given a choice between an outstanding athlete without this factor and a lesser athlete with it, he would choose the latter every time. Tom Landry said that the athlete with this underlying success factor will often perform to his fullest potential and be a successful football player; while the outstanding athlete without it will usually fail to play up to his potential and often won’t even achieve average performance.
There are many aspects of the underlying success factor, and every person who has ever achieved greatly in life has done so because they demonstrated one or more of its aspects.
- Abraham Lincoln had it and it enabled him to become president of the United States.
- Thomas Edison had it, and because of it his inventions have changed the world.
- Albert Einstein had it. He was a genius, but without the underlying success factor in his life he would never have formulated his theory of relativity.
- Joe Namath became a great football quarterback because he had it.
- Alexander the Great had it. He conquered the world.
- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the other founding fathers of the United States of America were able to lead a young nation to become the greatest the world has ever known.
The list could go on and on, because literally every great person in history, or living today, has had the underlying success factor in his or her life.
You and I, too, can have this hidden success factor in our lives!
This is not just for great men and women of history or for football players! The same ideas that Tom Landry expressed about football players can be applied to any area of life. The person with the underlying success factor will often perform to his fullest potential and be successful in whatever he undertakes; while the person with outstanding talent but without the success factor will usually fail to live up to his potential and often will not achieve even average performance.
This hidden success factor is the single most important factor in determining our success, and the good news is that each of us have the ability to develop our hidden success factor and achieve extraordinary success in life.! It is vitally important to each of us that we develop the underlying success factor in our own life! It is critical to our children’s future that, as we educate and train them, we help them to build the success factor in their lives.
Let’s give a name to this underlying success factor.
There are many aspects of it. In fact, at least 49 aspects have been identified. They include such things as Truthfulness, Alertness, Compassion, Creativity, Decisiveness, Determination, … All of these are traits of the root underlying success factor which is CHARACTER. The underlying, and often overlooked, factor in all true success is CHARACTER!
One dictionary defines character as “the complex of mental and ethical traits marking a person.” In another dictionary, character is said to be “the stable and distinctive qualities built into an individual’s life which determine his or her response regardless of circumstances.”
Notice that Character consists of a complex of qualities, or traits, and that those qualities are “built into an individual’s life.” It is those qualities, those character traits, that determine our response in any situation, and, therefore, ultimately, our success. The good news is that we can change our character. We can develop and improve the specific character traits, or qualities, that make up our character. And, as we do that we are building the foundation for greater success in all aspects of our lives. Our job is to work to develop each character quality so that we can live up to our potential. And, there is little that is more important that we can do for our children than to help them develop good character qualities in their lives.
What are the character traits, or qualities, that make up a person’s character? and how can we build them into our life?
The Character Training Institute of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma has developed a list of character qualities that breaks “character” down into forty-nine specific, definable, character qualities that we can focus on as we seek to build character into our lives. To name just a few, this list includes attentiveness, alertness, boldness, cautiousness, decisiveness, and dependability.
How do these character qualities affect our success or failure?
In a more immediate, day-to-day, sense, however, consider these examples of how character qualities might affect our lives.
| Example 1 – AttentivenessTake the character quality of attentiveness for example. A man and his wife are conversing quickly as they prepare for their day’s activities. She say, “Be sure to pick up Amy at school this afternoon on you way home from work. I will be tied up and won’t be able to pick her up.” He says, “Sure.” But, his mind is already on the important meeting coming up this morning and although he acts as if he heard, the truth is it didn’t really register. He was not being attentive, and the result will be that he will totally forget about what he agreed to do. His daughter will be left at school until he gets home and realizes his goof. His daughter will be frightened. His wife will probably be upset. And, his own self esteem will suffer.Example 2 – Attentiveness, Alertness, Obedience, ResponsibilityJohn works in a manufacturing environment. One of the safety rules at their plant is that oil spills must be cleaned up immediately if possible and that until a spill can be cleaned up signs or barriers must be placed over the spill to keep people from walking on it and possibly slipping and falling. Today, however, a forklift was leaking oil and the person operating the forklift did not follow the safety rules (lack of the character qualities of obedience and responsibility). John, who really knows better, is trying to read a report as he walks across the plant. Because of his lack of attentiveness and lack of alertness, he doesn’t see the oil on the floor. He steps on it, his foot slips, he falls, and as he falls he hits his head on a nearby machine and suffers a serious injury.
Example 3 – Patience, Determination, Endurance, Truthfulness, Diligence, Orderliness, Creativity, Thoroughness
Jane is a sales representative. For more than a year, now, she has worked toward gaining the confidence, and the business, of a major potential client. Jane has demonstrated patience, determination, and endurance in her dealings with this potential client. During that time she has been truthful in the claims she has made about her product. She has been diligent in her efforts, orderly and thorough in her presentations, and creative in her evaluations of how her product could be used to solve the potential client’s problems. Today, Jane’s efforts (really, her character) has been rewarded as the potential client became a very happy actual client. |
We do not often think of character as having such a direct effect on our successes or failures. But when we break character down and consider the individual qualities that together make up our character, we can easily see how true it is that Character Determines Success.
At their root, each of these problems springs out of the lack of or misapplication of good character qualities. If we are ever to find lasting solutions to the problems of our day, we must deal with the roots! We must work to improve our own character and help those around us to improve theirs! Character education is essential! Character is the Key to Success!
In the business arena, many companies have learned that it is counterproductive to focus exclusively on achievement and profit, without emphasizing the character qualities which underlie the achievement. We must think in terms of developing and rewarding good character. Character training is essential for lasting success in business as it is in every other aspect of life.
How Can We Build and Improve Character Qualties In Our Lives?
From Benjamin Franklin’s plan we learn the value of focusing our attention on one character quality at a time. During that time we should seek to understand as much as possible about the character quality – what it really is, how it has been illustrated in positive and negative ways in history, how it can be applied to our own life situations (more below about resources to help us do this). We should also attempt to live our lives as if we fully possessed the character quality upon which we are focusing. We should be aware of how the character quality (or the lack of it) is demonstrated in the lives of those around us and evaluate the results and consequences we see in their lives.
As is generally the case, it is helpful if we can have others who will share with us the effort to develop a character quality in our lives. Shared effort increases our enthusiasm for the project and gives us a sense of accountability that we do not have otherwise.
What should we do if we want to have greater success in our lives?
Resources
One of the best resources available for developing character qualities by focusing on specific qualities one at a time is the Character First!tm character quality bulletin series available from the Character Training Insititue. This bulletin series is available on an annual subscription basis directly from Character First!tm. Each month you receive a new full-color eight-page bulletin (no advertising). Each bulletin inspires true success through accounts of historical men and women of character who influenced our world. Additionally, character illustrations from science, medicine, mathematics, and other disciplines confirm the value of the character quality and offer suggested ways and motivation to apply it. A reference card is included in each bulletin for quick personal reference. Click here for more information.
Amazon.com Associate Store
There are many other excellent resources to use in building character in our lives and providing character education for our children. Some of them are available through Amazon.com. To take a look at them, visit our Amazon.com Associate Store.
“Character Quotes” Newsletter
Since character is the critical underlying factor that determines how much success we will have in all areas of our lives, we should not leave our character development to chance. We must seek to improve our own character, and if we are to be successful, we must have a plan for doing it. We should also intentionally seek to build good character qualities into the lives of our children and family members. We must demonstrate good character on the job and in our community and encourage others to do the same. We must recognize the vital importance of character to the success of our lives, our businesses, the organizations to which we belong, and to our country and world, and we should seek to impact the part of the world that we touch to develop character. (See How to Implement a Character Emphasis Program
Benjamin Franklin was certainly not an ideal example of morality, but he was successful in many ways. He designed a character quality improvement plan for himself that was very effective. Ben Franklin identified thirteen character qualities that he felt needed to be better developed in his own life. He then devised a method of focusing his attention on each of those qualities for one week at a time. At the end of thirteen weeks, he started over again. Thus, during a year’s time Ben Franklin would work through his entire list of character qualities four times.
How does character affect the world around us?
Today’s world faces many difficult problems. Terrorism, escalating crime, drug and alcohol abuse, workplace violence, gang activity, vandalism, school dropouts, deteriorating work ethics, domestic violence, juvenile delinquency, racial tensions, broken families … The list seems endless.
In a moral sense, we would probably all agree that CHARACTER is the foundation for all true success. A person may have money, position, or power, but unless he has “good” character he or she is not considered by the world to be truly successful.
If you and I were to make a list of “character qualities,” our list would probably include such words as honesty, integrity, dependability, loyalty, enthusiasm, etc. And, of course, we would be right. Each of us will have our own list. It is helpful, however, to be as specific as possible when considering something as important as “what is character.” For example, the idea of honesty includes the ideas of truthfulness, responsibility, diligence, and dependability. Therefore, when I seek to become more honest, I do so by seeking to become more truthful, more dependable, more responsible, more diligent, etc. By breaking character down further into more basic elements we are better able to focus on building those qualities into our lives. As we do so, our overall character is improved and the foundation for success in all areas of our lives is strengthened.
What is character?
Isn’t character something that a person is born with? Isn’t it true that someone either has character or does not have character? No, the truth is that everyone has character. Our character defines who we are. But it is true that in some people some of the traits, or qualities, that make up their character are more fully developed.
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