This week's Business Booster is a bit more philosophical than most previous issues, nonetheless I view its content as being of critical importance to your ultimate success.

This one is about:

• The single most important difference between people who are stunningly successful and those who are abject failures
• What you can do to put yourself in the former category
• How you have to be kind to yourself

Let's start by talking briefly about two amazing men:

• Albert E N Gray
• Andrew Carnegie

The former was an officer of the Prudential Insurance Company of America, chiefly remembered for his outstanding address in 1940 to the National Association of Life Underwriters, "The common denominator of success", the full text of which can easily be found on the internet, (and is a very worthwhile read).

The latter, Andrew Carnegie, was born in Scotland in 1837 and died in the United States in 1919, having amassed a fortune worth roughly speaking $300 Billion, in today's terms. His success in industry is well documented elsewhere. Here, I'd simply like to note how in 1908 he had a young journalist called Napoleon Hill interview 500 successful people in an attempt to discover their common denominators of success, (in Albert Gray's terms). The results were finally published in "The laws of success" and "Think and grow rich".

So what did these two have to say that I find so incredibly impressive and inspiring?

Working chronologically, let's take an excerpt from Hill's interview with Carnegie, in which Carnegie is responding to Hill's observation that most people who work for a salary claim to be doing more work than that for which they are paid, so why aren't they as rich as Carnegie?

"The major difference between those who accept limitation of daily wages sufficient only for a bare living, and myself, is this: I demand riches in definite terms; I have a definite plan for acquiring riches; I am engaged in carrying out my plan, and I am giving an equivalent, in useful service, of the value of those riches I demand, while the others have no such plan or purpose."

Stirring stuff isn't it? So where's your plan - and more specifically, where are your definite goals and your definite plan for achieving them. If your success in achieving your goals cannot be finitely measured, then your plan isn't worth writing down, never mind executing.

It's important to note that Carnegie didn't say any of this was easy, or that he found it particularly enjoyable - he was simply stating what he saw as the difference.

Fast forward to 1940 and Albert Gray's speech to the annual convention of the National Association of Life Underwriters. Here's an excerpt:

"This common denominator of success is so big, so powerful, and so vitally important to your future and mine that I'm not going to make a speech about it. I'm just going to 'lay it on the line' in words of one syllable, so simple that everyone can understand them.

The common denominator of success - the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful - lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do.

It's just as true as it sounds and it's just as simple as it seems. You can hold it up to the light, you can put it to the acid test, and you can kick it around until it's worn out, but when you are all through with it, it will still be the common denominator of success, whether you like it or not."

How powerful is that?

Pause in your reading a moment - I have an exercise for you. Seek out pen and paper and write down all those things you have a habit of doing that you honestly feel distinguish you from all the others. Be honest now - not the things you have done in the past and no longer do; not the things you do once in a while when you have some free time; not the things you tried once and got bored with. No, none of those - just the things you do by habit.

Sobering exercise, isn't it?

So, what to do about it?

Well, it's time to form some new habits and the simple reality is that you already know what those habits ought to be, it's just that you're not doing them. This brings us to the bit where you need to be kind to yourself. Creating habits takes time and you need to be patient and patience is one thing we don't have a lot of in modern society. One of my professional friends (and fellow Twitter follower) Dean Hunt posted a really cool video on his website recently about this issue. It's a simple, informal plea to all those people out there rushing around, franticly looking for 'success' - here's the link, (it's only 2½ minutes long and worth a look):

http://deanhunt.com/my-video-debut/

In summary then:

• Write down your plan, along with specific, measureable goals
• Write down the stuff you know you ought to be doing to reach those goals
• Get on with it - be kind to yourself along the way, forming new habits takes time