1. The Faith Test. Faith comes from your confidence in your abilities, in your outcomes and in your performance. In fact, confidence comes from the Latin con-fidence meaning ‘with faith’. While there will be people out there who believe in you more than you believe in yourself, your ultimate success is bound by the extent to which you believe you can do and deliver what you are called to.

2. The Persistence Test. Why is it that 20% of the population own 80% of the wealth? Why is it that 20% of professionals in your industry do 80% of the business? It’s because they do the things that the rest don’t like to do. They endure. The word ‘persistence’ also comes from the Latin persiste, to stand firm. You might also say tenacity, resolution, determination, diligence, perseverance, steadfastness, endurance, stamina, pluck, grit. All of these words describe your appetite for the fight. For every reason you can think of for failing, there is someone who had ten times worse a situation and made it ten times better than you’re currently doing. If you cannot ‘press on’, you will never be truly successful.

3. The Progress Test. This reflects your improvement over time. You are not called to be as good this year as last year. You are called to be one year better. One year more mature. One year more skilful. One year more successful. Whatever that means to you, you are tested by how you utilise and enhance both your talents (what God gave you) and your skills (what you give yourself). Successful people pass this test because they improve year on year, experience on experience. They look to ‘up their game’ at every opportunity. Do you do the same? When Edison designed the light-bulb it took over one thousand attempts before it worked. Did he see 999 of them as failures? Of course not! Every failure took him one step closer to success.

4. The Tolerance Test. This test reflects the way you relate to others. Your resources are in your relationships, and everything you need in life, you’ll need to go through others to get it. People will offend you, insult you, badmouth you, ignore you, undermine you and overlook you. That’s life. It’s not what happens to you – it’s how you deal with it that counts. The measure of your success will lie in how you treat people and react to the way they treat you back.

5. The Resilience Test. Resilient people bounce back! It’s not that you fall, it’s that you get back up. If you can show qualities of flexibility, ‘give’, pliability, hardiness, strength and buoyancy, you will be in the best possible position to balance the ups and downs of life to create a meaningful, successful career.

6. The Management Test. As much as you want to get on and get ahead, you must be able to submit to authority. This is a hard test. Very often we feel that we know better than our bosses, that we know the answers to get ahead and that we should be where they are. In some instances, we are actually better qualified, better equipped and better able to lead than those above us; but the bottom line is this – those people are still above us. As a good friend of mine once said to me, ‘Just suck it up!’ In other words – just get on with doing what you’re good at and when the time is right you’ll be noticed. Remember too that you can learn just as much from the mistakes of a leader who fails as you can from those leaders who achieve success. The best quality you can possibly possess as a leader is being able to serve. You will earn far more respect by mucking in, helping out and being human than by sitting behind a desk and shouting orders. You are no better than those underneath you. You just hold a different position and title to them.

7. The Excellence Test. Find out what you like doing and what you’re really good at and work at it with all your might. Whatever you do, do it excellently. Striving for excellence is motivating (whereas striving for perfection is demoralising).


8. The Influence Test. What do people say about you when you're not there? What kind of a difference are you making to the world and to those people around you? It's hard to argue that you've been a success in life if you have not changed anything, touched any hearts, influenced anyone and created any legacy. Work hard on your reputation and you will find you become more influential in deeper ways to more and more people. That's success.

9. The Motive Test. Why do you do what you do? You could be doing all the right things in your business but for all the wrong reasons. Why? Well perhaps it’s to make you feel good and/or look good, or to make sure you get ahead? Once in a while it’s a good thing to ask, ‘Am I doing this for me?’ (In other words, are you always looking out for No 1?). It’s also a good idea to ask other people’s opinions of you – it takes your head out of the clouds and keeps your feet firmly planted! Most of the time when you do things out of selfish ambition, you get found out. Your character is exposed and your reputation is ruined! Keep good motives and do the right things for the right reasons for lifelong success.

10. The Responsibility Test. When all is said and done, only you are responsible for how well you do in life. If you can’t take responsibility you will probably never be taken seriously. Nobody ever achieved anything or got anywhere by simply dreaming. We need to put feet on our dreams and that means taking responsibility for the decisions we make. Sometimes the decisions we make are costly, sometimes unpopular, sometimes wrong and sometimes very hard, but without making them we go without. Learn to accept responsibility – whatever the cost.