An article this morning highlights a New York Times bestseller ‘How Successful People Think’, written by John Maxwell who has written a number of ‘Leadership Books’.  The article is titled ‘15 Tips On How Successful People Think’, and includes an easily viewed 17 slide PowerPoint Presentation – reading time 4 minutes.

Given what I take to be your interest in the Financial Markets generally, and in the Resource Equity Markets specifically, I suggest you read this very short article and Slide Presentation, and objectively score yourself against the 15 ‘successful people traits’ set out in the slides.

I have said in a number of these commentaries that I consider objective and independent thinking to be increasingly important to investing and trading success, particularly in the current and prospective economic and financial market times as I currently see those things.  It is of little surprise to me that these themes underlie a good number of the ideas set out in the Slide Presentation.

Of what I think to be particular note, the article begins by saying “The world’s most successful people have one thing in common:  they think differently from everyone else”.  I suggest you test this thesis by considering whether the most successful people you know – where success is measured by ‘personal ego satisfaction’, which as one factor may include financial success – indeed do in your view ‘think differently from everyone else’.  The article and Slide Presentation stress the importance of:

• the exercise of the 80/20 Rule;

• spending time with people who challenge you;

• brainstorming sessions with others;

• be able to reject popular thinking, and be able to ‘think for yourself’.  If I have a #1 mantra, this is it.  Said differently, don’t ‘follow the herd’ blindly without independently concluding for whatever your reasons that it makes sense to do that;

• thinking strategically;

• listening to people, in circumstances where you maintain ‘conclusion flexibility’ (my words); and,

• spend time examining where you have been, where you are, and where you are going (Slide #12 summarizes this in the words ‘reflective thinking’).

Based on my own self-assessment, I am satisfied that I ‘pass muster’ on 8 of the 15 criteria all of the time, and pass on another 3 part of the time.  I can only hope those eight are among the most important of the fifteen.  I have a friend in Vancouver who reads these commentaries most days, and often sends me an e-mail giving me his thoughts on my commentaries.  I have another friend who is a Senior Judge in a Canadian Provincial Court.  He reads these commentaries most days, and sends me an e-mail every time he finds a spelling or grammar error.  Both of my friends clearly are very competitive.  I can’t wait to see if either, or both, send me their ‘self-assessment’ scores by e-mail today.

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