The 12 Noble Qualities of Online Business Builders Who Win

Success online, like footprints in the sand, leaves visible clues. This brief article explores what makes elite people; how they become elite; what happens to them as they apply the 12 Qualities; why the business of becoming elite can be so easy, or so hard, largely depending on a single unlikely factor: the choice of behavior.

The word "elite" can be applied in a variety of ways. As a noun, one description defines elite as:

"A group or class of persons enjoying superior intellectual or social or economic status".

When used as an adjective, the word elite can be defined by the description:

"Selected as the best".

Yet in practice, "elite" can also have different meanings to different people. To some, elite may share descriptions like aristocracy, upper class, upper crust, and so on.

What Really Makes a Person Elite?

In the context of this article, however, I believe that the development of elite people has little to do with background, history, race, gender, genetics, IQ, inherited wealth, or the possession of money for its own sake (although, not surprisingly, money tends to flow more easily toward elite people who apply the "12 Qualities").

Rather, I suggest that the brand of true elitism we're referring to here stems from possessing or choosing to adopt a specific attitude; a way of looking at the world around us that is different to most people. The good news is, attitude is a state of mind that can be switched almost instantly. More specifically, it's the natural result of the earnest development and application of following 12 characteristics or qualities:

• How we use our time. Hint: use it wisely, effectively, so that we can free up more time to enjoy the fruits of online success that we generate.
• Our desire and openness to learn new things. Hint: when we make learning fun, our personal investment in career education pays off.
• The measure of our focus; a desire to concentrate our thoughts, develop and practice the application of focused effort is essential.
• Our acceptance of the simple fact that each of us, as individuals, can be the personal brand that is often central to our online business, especially for authors, writers and membership subscription website providers.
• How well we use our individual brand - "The Brand of You". Hint: really get to know yourself. Be creative, inventive, unique, individual. Above all, be different, or die alongside the millions of clones already out there.
• How strong is the desire to apply what we learn. This quality is about how taking action makes the difference.
• How strong is our desire to learn constantly; to explore, test and master the art and science of effective online persuasion through reasoned argument, engagement, interaction and belief inducement, using the deceptively simple, yet awesome power of words. Hint: especially on the web, the best communicators influence outcomes more than any other single factor.
• How well we understand - really understand - what trust means, its true value, how to grow trust and why it must be earned and how we can lose it in an instant. Hint: when we master how to build trust online amid a global climate of distrust, we win - big. Trust is the true currency of the web. Not surprisingly, when trust governs how we do business online, everything gets easier.
• How earnestly we are prepared to test, test, and test some more, to find what works (for us). Accept that the path to the same destination can be different for others, though the tools and methods can be the same.
• Our capacity to still have fun within a work-obsessed world. Hint: this suggested guideline is about balance. Work is just work but "smelling the roses" is always magical. Suggestion: make more magic especially if you work more than 20 hours per week.
• Our desire to persist with our vision of what we seek to build amid the chaos that may surround us. Chaos, to a lesser or larger extent, is the default condition of life. Without remedial steps, everything slowly (sometimes quickly) moves toward chaos. Consider the analogy of a car driver driving a car. Without continual action to keep the car on course, the vehicle would soon crash. Likewise, our job is to constantly apply corrective action that moves us step by step closer to what we seek.
• Our capacity to be flexible, to change, adapt and evolve as we develop our vision online. Hint: we're all on a journey. Rarely is every journey a straight line; course corrections, even a complete change of course is sometimes required. Hint: get your compass out; check your direction regularly and take the steps you need to bring yourself back on course for what you want.