Identifying
SuperAttainers
The
SuperAttainment Research Center is funding a multi-year
study of high achieving individuals across a great variety of
fields and geographies. The purpose is to determine key attributes
indicating an propensity toward superior achievement that can be
recognized by most people with experience managing other people.
The work is ongoing and is being expanded continuously.
The
SuperAttainment Research Center is an initiative to help
people in management positions identify high potential leaders and
channel them toward meaningful contributions to their
organizations and to society at large.
The
8 attributes of SuperAttainers listed below are considered some of
the most common and easiest to identify when accompanied by other
aspects of career success.
8
Attributes of
SuperAttainers
1.
Early Success
The
Early Bird Gets the Worm…and Everything Else
SuperAttainers usually begin doing amazing things early in their
life. In fields like music and sport, it has long been understood
that for a child to have a chance at greatness, he needs to begin
around age 3 and then work at it for many years. In business and
politics, unusual ability is also recognized early in a
SuperAttainer’s career and is followed with many years of
continued achievement. In the greatness game, it is the rabbit who
wins the race -- as long as he persists like the tortoise.
2.
Contrarian
When
in Rome, Don’t Do As the Romans
SuperAttainers generally think of themselves as different and
apart from other people. They can often be described as rebellious
and disobedient by those who try to rule over them and are never
willing crowd followers. Tremendous success seems to require doing
things tremendously different. Doing things a little better will
yield results that are only a little better than others and this
is not what SuperAttainers are interested in.
3. Conceited
The
Pride Before The Rise
In order for someone to be thought of as great in the minds of
others, he must first be thought of as great in his own mind. The
tremendous achievements of SuperAttainers seem to be merely a
realization in the outer world of what is already in their inner
world. Predictably, it is uncommon for such people to be overly
shy about describing their abundant abilities. Many SuperAttainers
have come to recognize that being known as arrogant does not help
their purpose and they do a good job of appearing modest. However,
a bit of digging into their personality should uncover a deep
feeling of self-significance.
4.
Hard-Knocked
Nothing
Succeeds Like Suffering
SuperAttainers have often experienced traumatic periods when their
careers or even their lives were in great peril. It is during
these times that they gain a deep seated feeling of personal
vulnerability that can stay with them for the rest of their lives.
The advantage to the future SuperAttainer is that they become
consumed by the realization that they must accomplish all they can
while they have the chance because it can all come crashing down
at any time. It is a psychological condition that will drive
them to greatness for the rest of their lives.
5. Loner
One
is Company, Two is a Crowd
SuperAttainers are often described by others as dreamers,
outsiders, cold-hearted and similar labels often given to loners.
They are comfortable spending long periods in the company of
themselves to ponder, learn and envisage the future. Many develop
a love of solitary activities such as book-reading early in their
life. They are not usually enthusiastic participants in team
activities except when they are leading the group.
6. Mentored
& Motivated
Behind
Every Great Man are His Parents
Parents often
play the key role in the cultivation and realization of
SuperAttainers, spending immense amounts of time and money to give
their offspring the skills, experiences and relationships required
for immense amounts of success. They tutor baby SuperAttainers
from the crib, send them to the best schools and put them in touch
with the best mentors. It has been shown that mothers, in
particular, can play a strong role if they are supremely confident
in their son's innate abilities and then take devoted and
continuing action to develop them.
7.
Discontent
Patience
is No Virtue
SuperAttainers have an abnormally intense need for continuous
accomplishment. Success does not bring these people a sense of
inner peace. There is always someone else to overtake or a higher
target to aspire to. They are impatient, dissatisfied and edgy
when not engaged in activities that lead to the fulfillment of
their personal goals. They seem psychologically unstable in this
regard compared with most people.
8. Promoted
Self-Flattery Gets You Everywhere
There have been many great people who have lived and died in the
history of our species but nobody knows most of them because their
achievements were inadequately documented. In order to be thought
of as a great success by large numbers of people, someone needs to
be a great success at publicizing the SuperAttainer. In most
instances, it is the SuperAttainers themselves who are great
self-promoters. In other cases, another talented person takes on
the critically important role.
TWO
TYPES OF SUPERATTAINERS
1.
Aristocratic SuperAttainers
Pampered and pompous, these people excel despite having been given
it all. They grow up with all the best things, attend the best
schools and hobnob with the best minds. Because they are so deeply
bonded to a powerful and privileged elite, they are often
conservative and elitist. Real change seldom happens with these
people in charge. On the plus side, they are less likely to lead
themselves and their followers down paths of mutual destruction.
Examples of Aristocratic SuperAttainers include: Winston
Churchill, Peter the Great, Louis XIV and Frederick the Great.
2.
Come-From-
Nothing
SuperAttainers
Rags to riches, these people pull themselves up to greatness
through tremendous obstacles. Luck plays a role but most of their
success is due to relentless force of character. Since they come
from outside the establishment, they can be great agents of
change. Unfortunately, they are prone to crash and burning when
they inevitably overstretch themselves and their supporters.
Examples of Come-From-Nothing SuperAttainers include: Joseph
Stalin, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Mao
Zedong.
Rules
for Managers
Rules
for Self-Help
Rules
for Parents
Men
Vs. Women
The
SuperAttainment Research Center is operated as a CSR
(Corporate Social Responsibility) activity of Chalre
Associates Executive Search to help business people identify
and develop future leaders for their organizations and society at
large.
Chalre
Associates is a regional provider of Executive Search services
in the emerging countries of the Asia Pacific region.
Multinational companies use them to bridge the gap between the
local environment and their world-class requirements in countries
like Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
 +632
892 6703
 +63
908 880 4178
 leaders@chalre.com
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SuperAttainer:
Alvar Cabeza
de Vaca
Spanish
Explorer:
Alvar
Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
Main
Life Accomplishments:
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (Jerez de la Frontera, ca. 1488/1490 – Valladolid, ca. 1557/1559) was a Spanish explorer of the New World, one of four survivors of the Narváez expedition. He is remembered as a proto-anthropologist for his detailed accounts of the many tribes of Native Americans, first published in 1542 as La Relación (The Report), and later known as Naufragios (Shipwrecks).
Basics:
Born:
ca. 1488 / 1490
Died: ca. 1557 / 1558
Nationality: Spanish
Religion: Catholic
Fields: Exploration
Main Accomplishments: one of four survivors of the Narváez expedition. He is remembered as a proto-anthropologist for his detailed accounts of the many tribes of Native Americans
Life
Story:
Cabeza de Vaca was born around 1490 into a hidalgo family, and as such was a member of the Spanish nobility without economic resources. Cabeza de Vaca was the son of Teresa Cabeza de Vaca y de Zurita. In 16th-century documents, his name appeared as "Alvar nuñez cabeza de vaca". Cabeza de Vaca means "head of cow". This surname was granted to his mother's family in the 13th century, when his ancestor Martín Alhaja aided a Christian army attacking Moors by leaving a cow's head to point out a small secret mountain pass for their use. (In the prologue to La Relación, his account of his shipwreck and travels in North America, Cabeza de Vaca refers to his forefather's service to the King, and regrets that his own deeds could not be as great.
In early 1527, Cabeza de Vaca departed Spain as a part of a royal expedition to occupy the mainland of North America. As treasurer, he was one of the chief officers on the Narváez expedition. Within several months of their landing near Tampa Bay, Florida on April 15, 1528, he and three other men would be the only survivors of the expedition party of 600 men.
As the navigators were unsure of their location, Cabeza de Vaca thought it prudent to keep the land and sea forces together. Narváez and the other officers, excited by rumors of gold, overruled him and started off on a march through Florida, promptly getting lost. After several months of fighting native inhabitants through wilderness and swamp, the party reached Apalachee Bay with 242 men. They believed they were near other Spaniards in Mexico, but there were in fact 1500 miles of coast between them. The men were starving, wounded, sick, and lost in swampy terrain, but came up with a plan for escape.
Slaughtering and eating their horses, they melted down stirrups, spurs, horseshoes and other metal items, and fashioned a bellows from deerhide to make a fire hot enough to forge tools and nails. They constructed five primitive boats to use in search of Mexico. Cabeza de Vaca commanded one of these vessels, each of which had room for only 50 men. Depleted of food and water, they followed the coast westward, until they reached the mouth of the Mississippi River. The current swept them into the Gulf and the five rafts were separated by a hurricane, some lost forever, including that of Narváez.
Two craft with about 40 survivors, including Cabeza de Vaca, wrecked on or near Galveston Island. The explorers called it Malhado ("Misfortune"), or the Island of Doom. They made an attempt to repair the rafts, using what remained of their own clothes as oakum to plug holes, but they lost the rafts to a large wave. As the number of survivors dwindled rapidly, they were enslaved for a few years by various Native American tribes of the upper Gulf Coast. These included the Hans and the Capoques. Only four men, Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, and an enslaved Moroccan Berber named Esteban (later called Estevanico), survived and escaped to reach Mexico City.
Traveling mostly in this small group, Cabeza de Vaca explored what is now the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the northeastern Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and Coahuila, and possibly smaller portions of New Mexico and Arizona. He traveled on foot along the then-Spanish territories of Texas and the coast. He continued through Coahuila and Nueva Vizcaya; then down the Gulf of California coast to what is now Sinaloa, Mexico, over a period of roughly eight years. He lived in conditions of abject poverty and, occasionally, in slavery.
During his wanderings, passing from tribe to tribe, Cabeza de Vaca developed sympathies for the indigenous population. He became a trader, which allowed him freedom to travel among the tribes. Cabeza de Vaca comprehended his survival and journey in religious terms, in that he claimed to have been guided by God to learn to heal the sick. He gained such notoriety as a faith healer that he and his companions gathered a large following of natives who regarded them as "children of the sun", endowed with the power to both heal and destroy. Many natives accompanied the men across what is now the American Southwest and Northern Mexico.
After finally reaching the colonized lands of New Spain where he encountered fellow Spaniards near modern-day Culiacán, Cabeza de Vaca went on to Mexico City. From there he sailed back to Europe in 1537.
Numerous researchers have struggled to trace the exact route travelled by Cabeza de Vaca. As he did not begin writing his chronicle until back in Spain, he had to rely on memory. Cabeza de Vaca was uncertain of the route he traversed. Historians realize that his account has numerous errors in chronology and geography, but many have tried to put together pieces of the puzzle to discern his paths.
After his return to Spain, Cabeza de Vaca wrote about his experiences in a report for King Carlos I of Spain. It was published in 1542, under the title La Relación (The Report). Later called Naufragios (Shipwrecks), it is considered a classic of colonial literature. Cabeza de Vaca wanted to return to Florida and succeed Pánfilo de Narváez as governor, but King Charles had already appointed Hernando De Soto to lead the next expedition. Cabeza de Vaca declined to travel with the expedition as second in lead.
In 1540, Cabeza de Vaca was appointed adelantado of the Río de la Plata in South America. His mission was to re-establish the settlement of Buenos Aires in present-day Argentina.
En route, he disembarked from his fleet at Santa Catarina Island in modern Brazil. With an indigenous force, 250 musketeers and 26 horses, he followed native trails discovered by Aleixo Garcia overland to the district's Spanish capital, Asunción, far inland on the great Paraguay River. Cabeza de Vaca is thought to have been the first European to see the Iguaçu Falls. The honor probably belongs to his scouts.
Cabeza de Vaca had an unusually benevolent attitude for his time toward the American Indians. The elite settlers, known as encomenderos, generally did not share this attitude and simply wanted to use the natives for labor. His loss of the elite support, together with the failure of Buenos Aires as a settlement, prompted the former governor Domingo Martínez de Irala to arrest Cabeza de Vaca for poor administration in 1544 and return him to Spain for trial in 1545.
Although eventually exonerated, Cabeza de Vaca never returned to the colony. He wrote an extensive report on South America, which was highly critical of de Irala. The report was bound with his earlier La Relación and published under the title Comentarios (Commentary). He died poor in Valladolid around the year 1558.
SuperAttainer
ANALYSIS
SECTION:
1. Early Success
When
did the SuperAttainer first display ability that was greatly above average
and what were his accomplishments?
REFERENCES:
1.
2. Contrarian
What actions did the SuperAttainer take that demonstrated a mindset that was
very different from those around him?
REFERENCES:
1.
3. Conceited
What are the actions and documented statements that exhibit an elevated
sense of self importance of the SuperAttainer?
REFERENCES:
1.
4. Hard-Knocked
During what events did the SuperAttainer experience personal misery and
severe anxiety?
REFERENCES:
1.
5. Loner
Is there evidence of the SuperAttainer being comfortable spending time apart
from others?
REFERENCES:
1.
6. Mentored &
Motivated
Who was vital to developing the SuperAttainer and guiding his career and
what significant actions were taken?
REFERENCES:
1.
7. Discontent
What evidence is there that the SuperAttainer was unsatisfied with even
great personal accomplishment?
REFERENCES:
1.
8. Promoted
What actions or events were responsible for publicizing the tremendous
achievements and abilities of the SuperAttainer?
REFERENCES:
1.
Overall
Score:
x
out of 8 = xx%
PASS
SuperAttainer
Type:
Describe
the factors in the SuperAttainer’s background to indicate whether he is a
Come-From-Nothing or Aristocratic type..
Conclusion:
Executive Search
& Management Consulting:
Chalre
Associates provides its Executive Search & Management
Consulting services throughout the emerging countries of the Asia
Pacific region with specific focus on Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand,
Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore. Regional Managers use us to help
bridge the gap between local environments and the world-class
requirements of multinational corporations.
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