I’m a big fan of the Ted Conference and one of my first video podcast subscriptions and on the train coming back into the city from Queens this morning, I watched a great and very short speech by Richard St. John. An interesting topic for us being business owners and entrepreneurs, and a constant question for us is “why do we do this?” and “how have we been/how will we continue to be successful?”. 7 years of research, is summarised in just a few lines and 3 minutes. In short he explains that in order to succeed you need to satisfy the following 8 steps:

1. Passion: you’ve got to love what you do!
2. Work:you’ve got to put your back into it.
3. Good: you have to be damned good at what you do and continue to develop to stay ahead.
4. Focus: don’t let yourself be distracted. Set your sights on something and make it happen.
5. Push: Push yourself physically and mentally. If you’re lucky your parents pushed you! Push through shyness and self doubt.
6. Serve: offer others something of great value.
7. Ideas: keep them coming - listen, observe, be curios, question, problem solve and make connections.
8. Persist: you can’t give up at the first hurdle. Persist through failure, critism, rejection, pressure and all the assholes!

Click Here to watch the video.