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
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SuperAttainer:
Nicolaus
Copernicus
Father
of Modern Astronomy:
Nicolaus
Copernicus
Main
Life Accomplishments:
The
first European astronomer to formulate a modern heliocentric theory of the
solar system. His epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On
the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), is often conceived as the
starting point of modern astronomy, as well as a central and defining
epiphany in all the history of science.
Among the great polymaths of the Scientific Revolution, Copernicus was a
mathematician, astronomer, jurist, physician, classical scholar, Catholic
cleric, governor, administrator, military leader, diplomat and economist.
Amid his extensive responsibilities, astronomy figured as little more than
an avocation.
While the heliocentric theory had been formulated by Greek, Indian and
Muslim savants centuries before Copernicus, his reiteration that the sun
— rather than the Earth — is at the center of the solar system is
considered among the most important landmarks in the history of western
science.
Basics:
Born:
Born February 19, 1473 in Toruń (Thorn), Royal Prussia, Poland
Died: Died
May 24, 1543 ( years old) at Frombork (Frauenburg), Warmia (Ermeland),
Poland
Nationality: Poland
Religion:
Roman Catholic
Fields: Military, Politics
Main Accomplishments: Laid the foundation for modern
astronomy.
Chronology
of Life Events:
Feb
19, 1473
Birth
of Nicolaus Copernicus
1491
Copernicus
enrolled at the Kraków Academy (now Jagiellonian University)
1495
Copernicus
went to study law and medicine at the universities of Bologna and Padua
1497
Copernicus
made his first observation together with Novara, are recorded in
Copernicus' epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.
Copernicus
was named a canon at Frombork Cathedral
1514
Copernicus
made available to friends his Commentariolus (Little Commentary)
1519
Copernicus
formulated an early iteration of the theory, now called "Gresham's
Law"
Nov
1, 1536
Archbishop
of Capua Nikolaus Cardinal von Schönberg asked Copernicus to communicate
his ideas more widely and requested a copy for himself
May
24, 1543
Death
of Copernicus
Early
Life:
Born
on Feb. 19, 1473, in Thorn (Torun), Poland, Nicolaus Copernicus was
destined to become, through the publication of his heliocentric theory 70
years later, one of the seminal figures in the history of scientific
thought. The son of a prosperous merchant, he was raised after his
father's death by a maternal uncle, who enabled him to enter the
University of Krakow, then famous for its mathematics, philosophy, and
astronomy curriculum. This experience stimulated the young Copernicus to
study further liberal arts at Bologna (1496-1501), medicine at Padua, and
law at the University of Ferrara, from which he emerged in 1503 with the
doctorate in canon law. Shortly afterward he returned to Poland and
eventually settled permanently at the cathedral in Frauenberg (Frombork),
less than 100 miles from his birthplace. Through his uncle's influence he
had been elected a canon of the church even before his journey to Italy.
Copernicus not only faithfully performed his ecclesiastical duties, but
also practiced medicine, wrote a treatise on monetary reform, and turned
his attention to a subject in which he had long been
interested--astronomy.
By May 1514 Copernicus had written and discreetly circulated in manuscript
his Commentariolus, the first outline of those arguments eventually
substantiated in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions
of the Heavenly Spheres, 1543). This classic work challenged the
geocentric cosmology that had been dogmatically accepted since the time of
Aristotle. In direct opposition to Aristotle and to the 2d-century
astronomer Ptolemy, who enunciated the details of the geocentric system
based on the celestial phenomena, Copernicus proposed that a rotating
Earth revolving with the other planets about a stationary central Sun
could account in a simpler way for the same observed phenomena of the
daily rotation of the heavens, the annual movement of the Sun through the
ecliptic, and the periodic retrograde motion of the planets.
Anticipated in various aspects by the Pythagoreans and ARISTARCHUS OF
SAMOS (with whom he was familiar), and by the Muslim astronomer Ibn al-Shatir
and certain Christian writers (whose ideas there is no conclusive evidence
he knew), the new theory that Copernicus espoused in De revolutionibus
exhibits a peculiar mixture of both radical and conservative elements. In
the midst of his radical reordering of the structure of the universe,
Copernicus still adhered to the ancient Aristotelian doctrines of solid
celestial spheres and perfect circular motion of heavenly bodies, and he
held essentially intact the entire Aristotelian physics of motion.
Moreover, with significant innovations, he clung to the Ptolemaic
representation of planetary motion by means of complicated combinations of
circles called epicycles. Although Copernicus realized that his theory
implied an enormous increase in the size of the universe, he declined to
pronounce it infinite.
These aspects of the Copernican treatise do not mitigate the novelty or
the impact of the final theory, or the author's firm conviction that his
system was an accurate representation of physical reality. Rather, they
indicate the scope of the work that lay ahead and that was effectively
addressed in the next century when Kepler determined the ellipticity of
planetary orbits, Galileo formulated his new concept of motion, and Newton
espoused his theory of universal gravitation.
The enunciation of the heliocentric theory by Copernicus marked the
beginning of the scientific revolution, and of a new view of a greatly
enlarged universe. It was a shift away from the comfortable
anthropocentrism of the ancient and medieval world. A scientific theory
that reflected so profoundly on humanity was not welcomed by the church,
and it was only after the publication (1540) of Narratio prima (A First
Account), by an enthusiastic supporter named Rheticus, that the aged
Copernicus agreed to commit to print the theory already outlined in 1514.
An undocumented, but often repeated, story holds that Copernicus received
a printed copy of his treatise on his deathbed. He died on May 24, 1543.
Father
Background:
Nikolas
Koppernigk, a citizen of Cracow (at that time the capital of Poland),
moved there in 1460 and became a respected citizen of Toruń as well,
once the war with Teutonic Knights was over. He was ten years of age when
his father, a wealthy businessman and copper trader, died.
Mother
Background:
Barbara
Watzelrode, belonged to a family of high mercantile and civic standing.
She was born into a rich merchant family and appears to have predeceased
her husband.
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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