Companies go through growth stages; lifecycles of peaks and valleys that cause it to ebb and flow with the current of the competitive landscape. Being a leader who keeps enthusiasm up as a company grows is important. In this installment of One-To-One with Geezeo, Amy Hibbard talked with Dr. Julie Gurner, a thought leader in personal development and company culture about how exceptional workplaces come from exceptional people.

Geezeo: Do you see a correlation between mental state and the ultra-successful?
Julie: I don’t know about mental state per se, but I do see a number of common traits and personality characteristics. The four biggest that I see are persistence, a lifestyle of continued self-directed learning in their field(s), an unwavering belief in themselves, and a tendency toward execution.

To flush this out a bit, ultra-successful are individuals are, what we call in psychology, very “gritty.” They have high internal motivation and are not deterred by obstacles. While so many individuals are content to halt their education when formal schooling stops, these are individuals who are autodidacts by nature and are always growing in their expertise outside of a formal setting. If you’re not always learning and improving, you often quickly behind…but they don’t do it for that reason, they do it for self-mastery..it’s an internal drive. When you combine these traits with a true self-belief in your vision and a proclivity toward execution, there is very little that can stop you.

continue reading »