Throughout the years, people have tried finding commonalities between successful people to discover what made them successful in the first place.

They also look at people who have failed, then succeeded, failed again, and succeeded yet again.

I’ve done the same. Throughout my life I’ve made a study of the most important characteristics I saw within my role models.

And in that time I’ve discovered that every single successful person I have ever known has one thing in common.

Many people call it a flaw, due to the fact that it often creates controversy… jealousy… sometimes even anger and confusion.

I call it a strength because I’ve found it to be the single driving force to achieving long-term success.

Whatever you call it, it’s that these people simply REFUSE to give up, no matter what the cost.

They have a ferocious drive and hunger that makes them dig down into the depths of their beings and pull out tenacity and vigor very few of us have seen.

Think of Trump in the 90’s.

At that point he was a huge success. Yet the 90’s nearly bankrupted him. Most “normal” people would have sat home crying at night, praying for some miracle to come along to pull them out of the dumps of despair.

Not Trump.

He got MORE aggressive… MORE assertive… MORE fanatical in all his dealings. He simply refused to take no for an answer.

I don’t know this personally, but I can almost guarantee he lost a lost of friends in the process. One of the things that happens as you make your way up the ladder is that certain friends “fall out of favor” and new ones appear.

Better ones.

What you’ll find is that some of your current friends will not have the capacity to grow as fast as you are. They’ll become resistant and possibly even try to stop you.

When you fail, they’ll tell you to stop trying. They’ll remind you of what happened last time. And they’ll encourage you to “play it safe”.

DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM.

Remember, successful people have a driving force so strong inside them, nobody can stop them. I know people who went bankrupt 2… 5…. even 7 times before becoming successful.

And then they became millionaires, multimillionaires, and even billionaires.

I’ve discovered throughout my life that the more resistance I come across when starting a new venture, the higher the reward was if I pushed through that resistance and kept pushing towards the end goal.

Why does this happen?

I don’t know.

Maybe it’s the universe’s way of rewarding those who take action and determine they will not fail, no matter what.

Maybe it’s that most people fail when trying to accomplish the same goal, which leaves more rewards for those who succeed.

Whatever the case may be, the rewards come fastest and in the biggest abundance to those who REFUSE to give up and quit.

If you don’t believe me, I want you to do me a favor. Set a goal over the next few months to read a few autobiographies.

Some of the best ones I’ve read include autobiographies of…

1. Henry Ford
2. Walt Disney
3. Richard Branson
4. Oprah Winfrey
5. J.K. Rowling
6. Bill Gates
7. Steve Jobs
8. Milton Hershey
9. H.J. Heinz
10. Sam Walton

At many of my events, I notice the same faces over and over again. Some of them come up to me telling me what’s happened since the last time we talked.

Some of them tell me about overcoming enormous obstacles that, once accomplished, paved the way for success most people could only dream of. Their stories are truly inspiring.

But more importantly, their stories are TYPICAL for people who muster up the courage to continue fighting until they eventually win.

Success does not come to those who mope and cry about their failures. It comes to those who fail, take lessons from that failure, and then jump right back in and either try again, or try something new.

So take a survey of where you’re currently at in your life. If you aren’t as successful as you want to be, I want you to one thing.

Figure out how to FAIL MORE.

Then, figure out how to learn from your failures.

Because each failure takes you one step closer to hitting the jackpot.

– JT Foxx