The Common Denominator of Success by Albert E.N. Gray “The common denominator of success — the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful — lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.”THE COMMON DENOMINATOR OF SUCCESS is as timely and inspirational, as it was when it was first delivered in 1940. Though it was written for life insurance professionals, it’s message is equally well suited to anyone in the sales profession, or anyone in any field of endeavor who seeks success in their professional, personal or spiritual lives. — This inspiring message by Mr. Gray is one of the most timeless pieces of life insurance literature.
It first appeared as a major address at the 1940 NALU (National Association of Life Underwriters) annual convention in Philadelphia and has been available to association members in pamphlet form ever since. Although our author has passed away, his words of wisdom and moving philosophy — so manifest in “The Common Denominator of Success” — are part of the current life insurance scene and have real meaning for today’s professional life underwriter.
Mr. Gray was an official of the Prudential Insurance Company of America and had 30 years of continuous experience both as an agent in the field and as a promoter and instructor in sales development. He was known throughout the country as a writer and speaker on life insurance subjects. — Several years ago I was brought face to face with the very disturbing realization that I was trying to supervise and direct the efforts of a large number of men who were trying to achieve success, without knowing myself what the secret of success really was. And that, naturally, brought me face to face with the further realization that regardless of what other knowledge I might have brought to my job, I was definitely lacking in the most important knowledge of all.
Of course, like most of us, I had been brought up on the popular belief that the secret of success is hard work, but I had seen so many men work hard without succeeding and so many men succeed without working hard that I had become convinced that hard work was not the real secret even though in most cases it might be one of the requirements.
And so I set out on a voyage of discovery which carried me through biographies and autobiographies and all sorts of dissertations on success and the lives of successful men until I finally reached a point at which I realized that the secret I was trying to discover lay not only in what men did, but also in what made them do it. I realized further that the secret for which I was searching must not only apply to every definition of success, but since it must apply to everyone to whom it was offered, it must also apply to everyone who had ever been successful.
In short, I was looking for the common denominator of success. And because that is exactly what I was looking for, that is exactly what I found. But this common denominator of success is so big, so powerful, and so vitally important to your future and mine that I’m not going to make a speech about it. I’m just going to “lay it on the line” in words of one syllable, so simple that everyone can understand them. The common denominator of success — the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful — lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do. It’s just as true as it sounds and it’s just as simple as it seems.
You can hold it up to the light, you can put it to the acid test, and you can kick it around until it’s worn out, but when you are all through with it, it will still be the common denominator of success, whether you like it or not. It will still explain why men have come into this business of ours with every apparent qualification for success and given us our most disappointing failures, while others have come in and achieved outstanding success in spite of many obvious and discouraging handicaps. And since it will also explain your future, it would seem to be a mighty good idea for you to use it in determining just what sort of a future you are going to have.
In other words, let’s take this big, all-embracing secret and boil it down to fit the individual you. If the secret of success lies in forming the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do, let’s start the boiling-down process by determining what are the things that failures don’t like to do. The things that failures don’t like to do are the very things that you and I and other human beings, including successful men, naturally don’t like to do.
In other words, we’ve got to realize right from the start that success is something which is achieved by the minority of men, and is therefore unnatural and not to be achieved by following our natural likes and dislikes nor by being guided by our natural preferences and prejudices. The things that failures don’t like to do, in general, are too obvious for us to discuss them here, and so, since our success is to be achieved in the sale of life insurance, let us move on to a discussion of the things that we as life insurance men don’t like to do.
Here, too, the things we don’t like to do are too many to permit specific discussion, but I think they can all be disposed of by saying that they all emanate from one basic dislike peculiar to our type of selling. We don’t like to call on people who don’t want to see us and talk to them about something they don’t want to talk about. Any reluctance to follow a definite prospecting program, to use prepared sales talks, to organize time and to organize effort are all caused by this one basic dislike.
Paper details:
Read the Common Denominator of Success by Albert Gray and write a 1 or 2 page paper on what is the denominator and do you agree with it , why or why not.
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