Spent some time the other day researching successful people and what they said about making their lives successful.

Surprisingly some completely different people said remarkably similar things.

Let’s take a look.

Well, I started with Karen Brady, successful business woman and entrepreneur, side kick of Lord Alan Sugar on The Apprentice television show. She made her way to fame and success as the Managing Director of Birmingham Cootball Club. She took over as their manager when the club was in administration and brought it to success selling it four years later. Not only did she make her way in a tough competitive world, it was a man’s world at that.

She is now on the board of West Ham United as well as involved with other business activities. She was created a Baronness and is now known as Baronness Brady of Knightsbridge. She has been voted Business Woman of the Year and is rated on of the 50 most inspirational speakers in the world.

And one of the first things she accredits with her success is knowing herself, working out what was important to her, what she valued and believed in and then being true to that in the way she lived her life, keeping her own personal integrity.

And then to find someone completely different, there was Arnold Schwarznegger, born in a small village in Austria, he dreamed of a different life, larger than his village could contain. In the peace and quiet of the village life in the mountains he could hear himself think and worked out what he wanted.

And having worked this out for himself, he set about his path to achieve this goal by becoming a body building champion, so that he could get to America and get into films and be a movie star and earn a lot of money with his name up high up in the billboards.
Not just any champion, but Mr Universe!

And he did it.

It started with the quiet voice inside himself, and working out what HE wanted, who he wanted to be, not what his parents and teachers and friends told him to be. And then having worked this, out trusted himself.

And worked like hell to achieve his dreams, to make his vision come true.

After that, he wanted to give something back and that led him to his role as a public servant as the Governor of California. As he puts it in his words, the governor in the best state in America, in the best country in the world.

It wasn’t easy, born in another country, an Austrian with a thick accent, to rise to a prominent political position. But he did it despite the barriers and obstacles. making him an inspiration to many.

For his many contributions and results, the University of Southern California awarded him its highest honour as a Doctor of Humane Letters, an honorary degree, in 2009. He then spoke to the assembled and audience giving his 6 Rules for Success.

You can watch the full speech here.