How to Achieve Ultimate Success in Your Life and Career

You've worked hard to get where you are in life. You've studied, labored, gone the extra mile, taken on additional responsibility, continued your education, honed your instincts, developed sound judgment, retained your integrity, generated positive energy and assembled a top-notch staff. You have learned to sense and set direction, plan, budget, master problem-solving (both yours and everyone else's), dress for success, achieve brilliance and multitask out the kazoo.

Yet, despite all of that effort, is something still missing? Maybe you still haven't received the significant success, the level of accountability, impact, or influence that you want. The line on the wall where you will "leave your mark" isn't high enough. Of as one person put it, "My name is not on the right door."

You're puzzled. What more can you do when you've done all you can? What you need to do is find the missing piece of the puzzle - the piece that turns you from a good success to a great one.

My company's research has proven that when people are experiencing this frustration, the missing piece is "Executive Charisma." We define Executive Charisma as, "The ability to gain effective responses from others by using aware actions and considerate civility in order to get useful things done."

You know Executive Charisma it when you see it. I am sure you can remember times when you have had this intangible thing yourself.

In my years as a top executive coach, I have found that few people - even America's most powerful corporate leaders - are born with Executive Charisma. They need to cultivate it by strengthening weaknesses in specific, vital areas.

How can you get it? You can read my advice in greater depth on my Website, but let me summarize the process here for my friends at Trump University:

• Be the first to initiate. You must learn, as top executives have, the art of making the first move. That can mean making a decision before other people do, or being the first to greet people you don't know. Leaders go first.
• Expect and give acceptance. In spite of work pressures and hectic schedules, never treat others in a way that you would not want to be treated.
• Ask questions. Don't do it to impress, interrogate, intimidate, dominate, embarrass or put people in a corner. Instead, ask questions to improve knowledge and foster a learning spirit.
• Ask and give favors. It's one of your best tools to bond with others.
• Stand tall, straight and smile. You can never, for a second, be caught off guard. You need to convey an air of confidence.
• Be human, humorous and hands-on. Humor is an essential ingredient of your success. Above all, it means being able to laugh at yourself.
• Slow down, shut up and listen. Your own words are much less important than what other people have to tell you.

Those are some broad steps to develop executive charisma. As you have noticed, they all come down to strong people skills. But that makes sense. According to a study done by Carnegie Foundation, Harvard University, and the Stanford Research Institute, "people skills" explain 85% of why we get, keep, and move ahead in our careers. Our "technical competence" accounts for only 15%.

Executive charisma is the last piece of the puzzle that you must apply to your life. It's the best-kept secret in business. And there is no walk of life where it doesn't apply. If it isn't "you" to enhance your charisma, maybe you should try being someone else. Regardless of where you are in your career, you can't waste any more time without it.

Debra Benton, consultant to leading executives in 18 countries, heads Benton Management Resources in Fort Collins, Colorado. She is the author of many books, including Lions Don't Need to Roar, How to Think Like a CEO, Secrets of a CEO Coach, How to Act Like a CEO and Executive Charisma.

Editor's note: We are pleased to present the views of Debra Benton, one of America's most sought-after executive coaches. After you have visited her Website, be sure to check out all the great career resources at Trump University too, including Play to Win in Business and Life from Les Hewitt.