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:
Jacques Cousteau
Father
of Underwater Exploration:
Jacques
Cousteau
Main
Life Accomplishments:
He
was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the aqua-lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française. He was commonly known as Jacques Cousteau or Captain Cousteau.
Basics:
Born: 11 June 1910,
Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France
Died:
25 June 1997, Paris, France
Nationality: French
Religion:
Fields: Science
Main Accomplishments: He designed the Aqua-Lung, an early underwater breathing device.
Chronology
of Life Events:
11 June 1910
Birth of Jacques Cousteau
1930
He entered the Ecole Navale and became an officer gunner.
1930
He entered the French Navy as the head of the underwater research group.
12 July 1937
He married Simone Melchior
1940
The family of Simone and Jacques-Yves Cousteau took refuge in Megève, where he became a friend of the Ichac family who also lived there.
1943
They made the film Epaves (= Shipwrecks)
1940s
Cousteau is credited with improving the aqualung design which gave birth to the open-circuit scuba technology that we have today.
1946
Cousteau and Tailliez showed the film "Epaves" to admiral Lemonnier
1948
Between missions of mine clearance, underwater exploration and technological and physiological tests, Cousteau undertook a first campaign in the Mediterranean on board the sloop Elie Monnier of Group of Study and Underwater Research (GERS) of the National Navy, with Philippe Tailliez, Frederic Dumas, Jean Alinat and the scenario writer Marcel Ichac.
1949
Cousteau and Elie Monnier then took part in the rescue of the bathyscaphe of Professor Jacques Piccard, the FNRS-2 expedition to Dakar.
1949
Cousteau left the French Navy.
1950
He founded the French Oceanographic Campaigns (COF), and he leased a ship called Calypso from Thomas Loel Guinness for a symbolic one franc a year and equipped her as a mobile laboratory for field research and as a support base for diving and filming.
1953
Publication of his first book, The Silent World
1957
He was elected as director of the Oceanographical Museum of Monaco.
October 1960
A
large amount of radioactive waste was going to be discarded in the Mediterranean Sea by the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA).
1973
Along with his two sons and Frederick Hyman, he created the Cousteau Society for the Protection of Ocean Life, Frederick Hyman being its first President; it now has more than 300,000 members.
1976
Cousteau uncovered the wreck of the HMHS Britannic
1977
Together with Peter Scott, he received the UN International Environment prize.
1985
He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Ronald Reagan, then president of the United States.
24 November 1988
He was elected to the French Academy, chair 17, succeeding Jean Delay.
22 June 1989
His official reception under the Cupola
June 1990
The composer Jean Michel Jarre paid homage to the commander by entitling his new album "While waiting for Cousteau".
2 December 1990
His wife Simone Cousteau died of cancer.
June 1991
Jacques-Yves Cousteau remarried, to Francine Triplet, with whom he had (before this marriage) 2 children, Diane and Pierre-Yves.
November 1991
Cousteau gave an interview to the UNESCO courier, in which he stated that he was pro human population control and population decrease.
1992
He was invited to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the United Nations' International Conference on Environment and Development, and then he became a regular consultant for the UN and the World Bank.
1996
He prosecuted his son who wished to open a holiday center named "Cousteau" in the Fiji Islands.
11 January 1996
Calypso was rammed and sunk in Singapore harbor by a barge. The Calypso was refloated and towed home to France.
25 June 1997
Death of Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Early
Life:
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was born June 11, 1910, in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France, to Daniel and Elizabeth Cousteau. After their son's birth, the Cousteaus returned to Paris, France, where Daniel worked as a lawyer. Although Cousteau was a sickly child, who the doctors told not to participate in any strenuous activity, he learned to swim and soon developed a passionate love for the sea. He combined this love with an early interest in invention and built a model of a marine crane when he was eleven years old.
In school Cousteau was bored and often misbehaved. He was even expelled at one time. In 1930 Cousteau entered France's naval academy, the Ecole Navale, in Brest. He graduated three years later and then entered the French navy. In 1936 he was given a pair of underwater goggles, the kind used by divers. Cousteau was so impressed with what he saw beneath the sea that he immediately set about designing a device that would allow humans to breath underwater.
Wife
Background:
Simone
Melchior Cousteau (1919-1990) was the wife and business partner of undersea
explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. The first woman scuba diver, Simone was at
Jacques's side during his major underwater accomplishments. She led him to
the men and money who would build his scuba invention, she helped buy their
beloved Calypso, saved the ship during a storm, and made sure each
exploration achieved its objective.
Although never visible in the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau series,
Simone played a key role in the operation at sea. Acting as mother, healer,
nurse and psychiatrist to the all-male crew for 40 years, her nickname was
"La Bergere," the Shepherdess.
Simone was born on January 19, 1919 in Toulon, France. Her father Henri
Melchior and both grandfathers Jules Melchior (paternal) and Jean Baehme
(maternal) were admirals in the French Navy. Simone's mother was Marguerite
Melchior, affectionately called Guitte. She had two brothers: Maurice, and
Simone's twin, Michel.
In 1924, Henri Melchior, as a director with Air Liquide (France's main
producer of industrial gases), moved his family to Kobe, Japan. Simone
learned Japanese at the age of five years.
Simone met her future husband, Jacques, at a cocktail party in 1937. He was
a naval officer of 25 and she was 17. They were married at Saint-Louis-des-Invalides,
in Paris, on July 12, 1937.
After a honeymoon in Switzerland and Italy the Cousteaus settled in
Mourillon, a district of Toulon. Jean-Michel was born May 6, 1938 and
Philippe Pierre December 30, 1940. Both sons were born on the family's
kitchen table.
In 1942, Simone's father provided financing and the manufacturing expertise
of Emile Gagnan at Air Liquide to build Jacques Cousteau's aqua lung. Simone
was indirectly to hold the key to this significant step in diving history.
She was present in 1943 at the testing of the prototype for the aqua lung,
in the Marne River outside Paris. The new invention was employed to locate
and remove enemy mines after World War II.
The Cousteau family's underwater investigation and exploration led to the
purchase of the minesweeper Calypso on July 19, 1950. Loel Guinness bought
the ship and leased it to Jacques. Simone sold her family jewels for the
Calypso's fuel, and her fur to buy a compass and gyroscope. (1) The Calypso
set off in 1952 on her maiden voyage, to the Red Sea. Simone was the only
woman on board.
Describing his wife, Jacques Cousteau said, "She was the happiest out
of camera range, in the crow's nest of Calypso, for example, scanning the
sea for whales. Nothing would get by her." He continued, "She
lives to spend hour after hour in the wind and the sun, watching, thinking,
trying to unravel the mystery of the sea." (2) Simone died in 1990 of
cancer. She received a full military funeral, during which her ashes were
scattered over the Sea of Monaco.
Father
Background:
His
father was Daniel Cousteau. Cousteau's father was a lawyer who worked and traveled with an American millionaire
Mother
Background:
His mother was Elizabeth Cousteau
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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