South By Southwest has become something of a Mecca for super-achievers, or more accurately, would-be super-achievers hoping to change the world one idea at a time.
So it was unsurprising to find an Austin ballroom packed with more than 300 conference attendees on a humid Saturday morning to hear Camille Sweeney, a co-author of the new book The Art Of Doing share her findings on the common qualities of more than 60 of the world's highest achieving humans.'
"Super-achievers are more than just people who excel at what they do," she told the crowd. "They are the people who turn what they do into an art form." With her partner Josh Gofsfield Sweeney set out to catalogue the defining qualities and philosophies shared by a wide-ranging cast of this personality types, from tennis players to rock stars to actors to architects and tycoons.
The most common theme was a surprising one. Instead of perseverance, the refrain sung over and over again by this driven set was an unshakable sense of community.
"Despite the persistent stereotype of the lone achiever, these super-achievers all believe and thrive in a strong and far-reaching community." Guy Kawasaki, one of the luminaries interviewed for the book, calls it his ecosystem, meaning people whose success is intertwined with his own. "You can apply this theory to a rock band or a puppet shop or a billion dollar startup," Sweeney says. A community of colleagues, employees and even competitors just might be the most critical component to not just achieving—but super achieving.
The session was short Saturday morning. Sweeney read for just under 20 minutes, ultimately rattling off the other defining characteristics her super-achievers share. The book is available now on Amazon, but for anyone hungry for immediate information they are as follows:
Community
Dedication
Intelligent persistence
Listening
Testing
Managing emotions
Patience
Happiness & Highly developed questioning capabilities
