8 Success Factors Even More Important Than IQ

Cracking the question of what factors will best lead you to success can help you focus on the right areas of your personal development and make you more successful in your career, business, and life in general. After all, you don't have a lot of time. You want to focus your efforts where you can have the most impact.

We've been conditioned to believe that smart people who work hard are bound to succeed. In fact, if you're super smart, you should be able to write your own ticket, so to speak.

But is intelligence really the most critical success factor?

Not necessarily.

In fact, research suggests that intellect may not define success nearly as much as we've thought. Being smart can take you far, but emotional intelligence may be even more important than an exceptional intellect.

Dr. Arthur Poropat, senior lecturer at Griffith University, conducted reviews on the "Big 5" personality factors: conscientiousness, openness, emotional stability, extraversion, and agreeableness. People with high levels of these traits were more likely to achieve high grades than people with high IQs.

Other research from the Carnegie Institute of Technology found that emotional intelligence is a far more important success factor than standard intelligence when it comes to your financial success. In fact, 85 percent of financial success comes from people skills and just 15 percent comes from technical knowledge.

10 Must-Read Startup Blogs to Feed the Entrepreneur in You

For an entrepreneur, reliable information is the biggest strength. Over the course of running a startup, everyone is guaranteed to go through thousands of websites, books, blogs and podcasts to get answers to umpteen questions. But the fact remains that most of the readily available sources just offer reworked information without any practical advice.

Certain big names like INC and Entrepreneur are common among budding and experienced business owners for giving vital information while few try to hog attention by tagging each of their posts as a billion-dollar idea. This post however sheds light on certain blogs that are ‘different’. Following are ten blogs that develop highly useful content for startups, particularly the tech based.

1. Foundora.com

New leaders and visionaries are often born after garnering inspiration from established ones. For any entrepreneur, it is crucial to remain motivated, educated and empowered. Foundora is one such blog, which offers its readers interviews, views and opinions of startup founders and helps you develop significant viewpoint on the latest trends. This immaculately conceived website covers success stories of VCs, Founders, and CEOs of several startups.

What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team

Like most 25-year-olds, Julia Rozovsky wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life. She had worked at a consulting firm, but it wasn’t a good match. Then she became a researcher for two professors at Harvard, which was interesting but lonely. Maybe a big corporation would be a better fit. Or perhaps a fast-growing start-up. All she knew for certain was that she wanted to find a job that was more social. ‘‘I wanted to be part of a community, part of something people were building together,’’ she told me. She thought about various opportunities — Internet companies, a Ph.D. program — but nothing seemed exactly right. So in 2009, she chose the path that allowed her to put off making a decision: She applied to business schools and was accepted by the Yale School of Management.

When Rozovsky arrived on campus, she was assigned to a study group carefully engineered by the school to foster tight bonds. Study groups have become a rite of passage at M.B.A. programs, a way for students to practice working in teams and a reflection of the increasing demand for employees who can adroitly navigate group dynamics. A worker today might start the morning by collaborating with a team of engineers, then send emails to colleagues marketing a new brand, then jump on a conference call planning an entirely different product line, while also juggling team meetings with accounting and the party-planning committee. To prepare students for that complex world, business schools around the country have revised their curriculums to emphasize team-focused learning.

Think You Know What It Means to Be an Entrepreneur? Think Again.

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While coming up with the next billion-dollar entrepreneurial blockbuster is at the top of everybody’s to-do list in hopes of becoming filthy rich, the chances of actually doing so are slim. Really slim.

Not to burst anybody’s bubble here -- I’m all for hopes and dreams -- but when those hopes and dreams aren't grounded in reality, then winning the entrepreneurial lottery becomes a long shot.


The good news is that being an entrepreneur doesn’t have to necessarily mean starting a company with dollar signs as the target. Yes, it would be nice, but you can be rich without being wealthy. At its core, what being an entrepreneur really means is pursuing a purpose that delivers value -- with a little bit of risk, of course. That’s it.

Now, most entrepreneurs display their entrepreneurial spirit through innovation, which puts them at the top of the organizational -- and financial -- hierarchy if their company comes to fruition. However, this isn’t the only way to becoming personally rich.

How the Internet of Things is becoming the 'Internet of Commerce’

The 29th Mobile World Congress is in full swing, and amid the flurry of new device announcements, the main conversation piece in Barcelona has been the evolution of the Internet of Things.

Of course, the topic as a whole is nothing new — in fact, it's been the most important phrase in technology for the better part of the decade — but this year's IoT discussions have a new focus: Commerce.

The maturation of mobile payment services combined with the proliferation of IoT-capable devices has created a perfect storm of innovation that's seeing our money going places it never could, both securely and conveniently. And thanks to innovators like MasterCard, the Internet of Things is moving from pure connectivity, to all-out functionality.

Consider this: When the world was first introduced to IoT, it was "enough" to fantasize about controlling objects around you, like programming your home's thermostat from your phone. But control only scratches the surface.

Two Digital Myths That Trip Up the C-Suite

Most executives I talk to understand very well that digital technologies are permeating nearly every function of nearly every business. And yet many fall prey to two harmful myths.

Myth #1: You will die without a digital strategy. This myth is generally accompanied by scary stories, such as how Amazon devoured Sears. But digital technologies are no more strategies than electric power, telephone communications, or any other advanced technology. They are powerful tools that deserve prominent placement in the toolbox. But they should not replace all the other tools — or the skilled strategists who know where and how to use them.

Richard Branson: How to talk to investors about social impact

When starting a business, many entrepreneurs want to have a positive social impact. But how do you deal with investors who are only interested in making a profit? Richard Branson has some advice…

“The best way to address people’s biases and preconceived notions is head-on, reframing the debate,” the Virgin Founder says in a recent blog. “In this day and age, if some entrepreneurs and business leaders still consider the benefits of making a positive social impact to be difficult to qualify or impossible to quantify, or see that goal as an unwanted distraction from turning a profit, I beg to differ!”

He says that it’s important that you are confident when talking about your concept. “You have an advantage over many of your competitors: the excitement and goodwill of customers who will support your ideas.”

Here are three points Richard says it’s important to emphasise when approaching investors: