I had a conversation with my sister-in-law about the question of ‘overachievement’. To a great extent, there are people who view the successes we have at AKLTG as a major success. For the owners, we see it as work in progress.

So, I was posed the question: are over achievers dissatisfied with life, put themselves through misery and “trying” to prove themselves even more? My answer was pretty straightforward.

Some people are born into the world like bicycles. They believe they are bicycles and can go up to a maximum of, say 50 km/h. Along comes someone who is born into the world like a Ferrari. But this Ferrari is traveling at 100km /h. All the bicycles are astounded by the speed and ask the Ferrari to slow down. However, deep down inside, the Ferrari knows it can go much faster.

Some of you were born Ferraris. Unfortunately, because of the world of self-help and how people have been victimized by scams along the way, or any other unfortunate circumstance, people have lost the belief in their own birthright.

For example, I believe that everyone can be a great leader. I believe everyone can be a great public speaker. Or a great business owner. Somehow, they stopped believing in themselves and have not yet been awakened. It is this that drives me to keep on getting people involved in their own personal development so that they can become achievers and get past their own mental blocks in life.

I do meet people who idolize such great people. But having an idol and having a role model are two very different things. Having a role model means you’re going to do something about learning from your model. Conversely idolizing means you simply just sit there.

In achieving success, I strongly believe that individuals who have the potential to succeed should push themselves through the fire. Doubt, uncertainty, being victimized by others… all these need to be pushed aside without much care. You, the incoming achiever, needs to know that every step of the way is a step of faith that you can be better. Without this, people would not have broken records, swung the odds in their favor, or made a complete turnaround of a disastrous result. Time and time again, history has proven this to be true: a person who desires to achieve will achieve, and a person who creates resources enables that achievement. Conversely, human beings make rules that prevent them from being far more successful than they should be.

“I’m not good enough” or “I hate myself” or “I’m not worth anything” are common beliefs that cap the potential beyond anything else – self-sabotage. These unconscious beliefs hover like a veil of foul air. Sure, this is my belief. But without going beyond and holding this belief to be absolutely true, I would not have achieved what I have achieved today. And personally, I believe that many of these achievements are simple to do once you know how to do it.

So, are some people really just born as bicycles or as backburner Ferraris? I strongly believe in the latter rather than the former. Sure, a small handful are not endowed with what we might call “normal” skills. Yet, in spite of these appearances, they too go out and achieve the seemingly impossible. Haven’t you seen people born without arms and legs go out and achieve amazing results? Haven’t you seen sprinters with prosthetic legs participate in the Olympics? These stories have been shared to death in the social media online. But we still look at them as “the impossible dream”.

Well, maybe you just have to dream bigger. There’s more out there to live, love and learn. To me, I can’t simply see a great car go to waste. Neither can I see a great person go to waste.

Unleash your potential.

Find a coach. Attend a training. Read a book. Whatever it takes to awaken that sleeping giant, and stir that hurricane-force motivation which is in you to get what you were born to get.

I have met lots of great leaders in business. But it really isn’t just about the skills they hunt for in their HR strategy that makes then great. As far as I can tell, they know how to maximize their profits. This isn’t so hard you might think. Of course it will be easy to look at the way they do it and assume it was an overnight thing. However, to be able to do this requires more than just common sense. It takes clarity of thought and persistence of direction.

This is simply because the road to profits can be achieved in a million and one ways. How does leadership really factor in? Personally, I see leadership as the single factor that turns the tide in your favor.  Archimedes once mentioned “Give me a lever long enough and singlehandedly I will move the world”, which basically describes the concept of leverage.

Leadership is the organizational catalyst for anything you want to do. Properly done, it serves as the single most important thing that your organization can do to improve performance and profits. Poorly done, and it works in the opposite direction. People get disgruntled, feel that things are unfair, and cease any affiliation for the organization.

I basically characterize the leadership competencies in five broad categories.: (1) Crafting, (2) Systemizing, (3) Performing, (4) Maximizing, (5) Rewarding.

So, how does this factor as a process? Basically, a leader needs the ability to Craft the business, just like an artist would. The visioning, culturing, missioning. Next the leader has to go to the science of systems. You need more than just an idea to run the business: you know you need the system so the ‘craft’ can function. Next, you go into the action or performing mode. This is where you discover what works and what doesn’t. You must definitely have a decent agenda to track your performance as well. It’s the feedback element in the business process that enables you to reflect upon what you achieved. Is it tangible and valuable? Then, you take the next step of maximizing, which is to optimize the system, weed out weaknesses in your performance and clarify the goals more effectively. Finally, once the tasks have been accomplished, you move into the rewarding part of leadership.

Although this looks like it only works as a process, there are other parts of these that will allow individual leaders to function well, and this process can be reconfigured as long as they are competencies that leaders take seriously.