More Than Meets the Eye

If you want to be truly successful, invest in yourself to get the knowledge you need to find your unique factor. When you find it and focus on it and persevere your success will blossom.

— Sydney Madwed

"IT'S BEEN EIGHTY-FOUR YEARS," RESCUED PASSENGER Rose DeWitt Bukater reminisced in the movie Titanic, "and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in. Titanic was called the 'Ship of Dreams.' And it was. It really was."

I'm sure you have heard about the majestic passenger ship, Titanic. It was the finest vessel of its day — larger, faster, and better equipped than any other. It boasted all the engineering and shipbuilding expertise of the times and every luxury its wealthy travelers were accustomed to. The ship had been called unsinkable, and no doubt those aboard felt safe, pampered, and privileged.

If ever a ship seemed destined for success, it was the Titanic. No one could have possibly imagined that this ship would go down. It would go down in history, for sure, they must have thought, because it was such an excellent vessel, but they were also convinced it could withstand any challenge it met at sea. An employee of the Titanic's parent company, the White Star Line, said, "Not even God himself could sink this ship."

But at 11:40 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, 1912, only five days into its voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, the Titanic's lookout sent an urgent message to the bridge: "Iceberg, right ahead." Less than forty seconds later, the ship hit the iceberg. Within three hours, the celebrated vessel rested at the bottom of the frigid Atlantic Ocean, and more than fifteen hundred lives were lost.

The lookouts in the crow's nest did not have binoculars. Had a simple pair of binoculars been available, someone could have seen the iceberg ahead, and one of the greatest tragedies in maritime history might have been avoided. As it happened that day, the time elapsed between the first sighting of the iceberg and the ship's impact was a little more than thirty seconds. Here's my point: the Titanic sank not because the iceberg was in the ocean, but because no one saw it in time to steer clear of it.

As I researched the iceberg the Titanic hit, I saw varying statistics about its size. One source said the iceberg was estimated to have been about six hundred feet long, with five hundred feet of it below the ocean's surface and one hundred feet visible above the water. I also learned that typically, seven-eighths of an iceberg is underwater, which means slightly more than 10 percent of an enormous mass of ice would be visible to a captain or a ship's crew. Where icebergs are concerned, what's under the surface, invisible to the naked eye, does much more damage than the part of the iceberg people can easily see. This was certainly true for the Titanic.

Believe it or not, the story of the Titanic and the theme of this book, the I-factor, have a lot in common. Let me explain. Many people in the world have all the trappings of success. Like the Titanic, they are decked out with everything the world finds impressive. They not only have good looks, designer clothes, the best car, and the right address, they also have a sterling educational pedigree, a broad social and professional network, strong skills, and a bright mind. Everything about them seems destined to succeed — just like the Titanic. If there were ever any sure bets for success, they would be on these people.

But sometimes these people crash and burn — and no one understands why. The reason is that the world places such high value on who we are on the outside and pays little attention to who we are on the inside. To use the metaphor of an iceberg, it's what's under the surface that can sink a person's whole life, not what's visible to others. The totality of the difference between success and failure is not in any degree we obtain, position we hold, label we wear, car we drive, or amount of money we have. The difference is what's on the inside of a person, who he or she really is at the core, underneath all the trappings and accessories of success. It's those internal dynamics that will cause us to sail or to sink as we go through life. While relationships with other people are vitally important, your relationship with yourself, which is part of what the I-factor is all about, is even more important.

The I in Lie

How does the I-factor precipitate a person's downfall? One of the stories that best illustrates my point happened to a man you probably have heard of. In 2007, he was named one of Time magazine's most influential people in the world. He was the National Father of the Year in 1996. He's appeared on Sesame Street, Saturday Night Live, the Olympics, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, just to cite a fraction of his television experience. This man has won twelve Emmy awards, and as of December 2014, his salary was ten million dollars per year. His personal brand seemed untouchable and his celebrity credentials were strong. Just three months later, in February 2015, he was suspended from his job without pay and had lost not only his influence, but his credibility too. I'm sure you know who I'm describing, former NBC news anchor Brian Williams.

Williams was part of a fairly exclusive lineage. At one time in the United States, before the days of cable news, the most powerful voices in media belonged to the men who occupied the anchor chairs at the big three networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC. With recognizable voices and just the right amount of gravitas, they were media kings. When they reported the news of the day, people believed them. People had no reason not to believe them. Viewed as trustworthy American icons, they held the public trust for decades.

When Brian Williams ascended to the helm of NBC Nightly News in December 2004, the evening news anchor job was still admirable and considered quite an accomplishment, even though by then a host of other news broadcasts had joined the big three. Williams quickly became one of America's favorite news anchors, a popular and reliable source for the important information and stories of each day, and he typically outscored his competitors in the rankings of evening news broadcasts. By all appearances, he had reached the pinnacle of success. Had he chosen to do so, he should have been able to cruise his way into retirement from his seat behind the evening news desk. The respect...