20 Traits of Remarkability

 Being remarkable is what will differentiate you in the marketplace as an individual—especially with the relentless turbulence bound to disrupt it. Not every successful person masters all of these traits, but a deliberate awareness of them accelerates their development in each of us.

Being remarkable means creating a unique selling proposition for yourself. BMW famously owns “The Ultimate Driving Machine.”

The question is: what do you own?

Define what you and your personal brand stand for, then take daily action that enhances and projects it. That’s why success is deeply personal—it doesn’t depend on what others think of you. Define what success means to you, move toward that definition every day, and you are successful—regardless of what anyone thinks or says.

Here are the 20 traits observed across sports, business, and the arts that enable leaders to become truly remarkable.

Discipline - Without self-discipline, nothing else on this list matters. Motivation gets you started; discipline keeps you going. It’s a quality developed by getting crystal clear on what you want and ensuring your desire to succeed outweighs the discomfort of the work. Want to exercise five times a week? Visualize the compounding benefits and keep the end goal front of mind. We have 100% control over this one quality—and it unlocks everything else.

“The price of discipline is always less than the pain of regret.” — Nido Qubein

Belief - Rafael Nadal won his 22nd Grand Slam at the 2022 Australian Open before retiring into the Hall of Fame as one of the all-time greats. What makes it even more extraordinary is that critics had written him off just years before after a brutal run of injuries. He fought back through sheer tenacity, broke records, and then said something quietly profound after one of his victories: “One of the most emotional nights of my tennis career.”

The lesson is mastery of self—not just physical preparation, but emotional and mental preparation. If you listen to your critics, you cannot achieve what you want. Be relentless.

“Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.” Gail Devers

Resilience - Angela Duckworth of the University of Pennsylvania found, through groundbreaking research, that grit is the single quality that best predicts success. Napoleon Hill observed that every adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit—a sickness forces you to slow down and recalibrate; a missed promotion builds patience and hunger.

Steve Jobs is the defining example: fired from Apple, he went into the wilderness, founded NeXT, acquired Pixar, and waited patiently for his second coming. The rest is history. You can be down, but never out.

“Fall down seven times, get up eight.” Japanese Proverb

Passion and Practice - Passion is the fuel behind the success engine. Consider Tiger Woods: at the peak of his career, having already won the Masters by a record 12 strokes in 1997, he overhauled his entire swing. Why? Because he asked himself honestly whether his technique would hold up under pressure over the long haul. The answer was no—so he changed it. That is what passion-driven obsession looks like.

Research has confirmed that prodigies from Mozart to Bill Gates to The Beatles all logged roughly 10,000 hours of deliberate practice before their breakthroughs. As documented in Robert Greene’s Mastery, Bill Bradley became great in basketball through sheer volume of practice—three and a half hours after school on weekdays, eight hours every Saturday, three hours daily through summer, well beyond boredom or pain. Move toward resistance. Practice your craft and mastery will follow.

“The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat.” Richard Marcinko

Curiosity - One of the best-kept secrets of the highly successful is the commitment to learning something new every single day. Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, embodied this until the very end of his life—always studying something outside his existing expertise. Curiosity keeps the mind sharp and creates a compounding advantage over time.

Jony Ive, former Chief Design Officer of Apple, is a masterclass in curiosity applied to craft. Norman Foster, whose firm built Apple’s $5 billion headquarters, described Ive this way: “Jony works tirelessly at the detail, evolving, improving, refining. For me, that makes him a poet.” That restless refinement is curiosity in action. https://www.wsj.com/articles/jony-ive-apple-design-interview-profile-lovefrom-11666733971

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” Mahatma Gandhi

Risk Taking - All successful people have taken calculated risks to reach where they are. These risks need not be physical—often the boldest move is taking on the assignment everyone else has refused, the project others consider too uncertain. That’s what separates you. Before taking any risk, ask: if this fails, am I prepared to handle the consequences? If the answer is yes, take it—provided you are not putting your family into distress.

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” T.S. Eliot

Prioritization - Everyone has more to do than time allows. The difference between those who achieve and those who merely stay busy lies in ruthless prioritization. Pick the task with the greatest impact for your key stakeholders and tackle that first. Handle the big rocks—the pebbles will find their place. Make peace with the fact that there will always be things left undone, and learn to say no to anything not aligned with your goals.

Jack Welch institutionalized this thinking at GE by deciding the company would only compete in markets where it could be number one or number two—a decision that required shutting down entire business units, but transformed GE into a powerhouse.

“One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all.” Peter Drucker.

Communication - Most of our waking hours are spent communicating—written and verbal. The quality of that communication determines the quality of our relationships and results. One of the most underrated communication skills is listening—genuinely seeking to understand before being understood, as Stephen Covey taught.

Ronald Reagan, regardless of where you stand politically, was a model of clarity in communication: simple, direct, and memorable. That clarity is the standard to aspire to. Keep reading and writing consistently—both sharpen your voice.

“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.” Peter Drucker

Personal Care - The most successful people take their health seriously. They prioritize rest, movement, and balance—because energy is the engine behind everything else. Exercise sharpens focus and lifts mood. Sleep—six to eight hours—is non-negotiable for peak performance, even if most of us struggle to protect it.

Stepping away from work is not indulgence; research confirms that people generate their most innovative ideas not at their desks but during moments of genuine relaxation. You cannot produce your best work from an empty tank.

“Rest and self-care are so important. When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve others from the overflow.” Eleanor Brown

Positive Mental Attitude - It is impossible to imagine a truly successful, well-rounded person who is chronically negative. Successful people don’t catastrophize setbacks—they trust that most things resolve over time. Being grateful for what you have, while still striving for more, is one of the most sustainable ways to stay positive. Positivity is not naivety; it is a performance advantage. It keeps you moving through adversity with more energy and clarity.

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Winston Churchill

Self-Esteem - Self-esteem is the foundation of a healthy personality—your reputation with yourself. You are unique, and your particular combination of talents and experiences is irreplaceable. To build self-esteem, write down the qualities you genuinely admire in yourself. Acknowledge your positive traits—discipline, passion, consistency—and track your wins. When setbacks happen, they do not define your worth.

The single greatest enemy of self-esteem is comparison: there are no two people alike, so the comparison is always false. Be entirely comfortable with who you are.

“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” Norman Vincent Peale

Silence and Stillness - Ryan Holiday’s Stillness Is the Key draws on history to show that solitude produces clarity—and clarity produces exceptional decisions. Every extreme achiever has found a way to be alone with themselves. Bob Iger wakes at 4:15 AM and exercises for an hour every day despite a relentlessly packed schedule. He has said that hour is the only time he has completely to himself, away from the noise.

Journaling is another powerful tool here—it forces clarity and creates a record of your thinking over time. Claiming quiet time is not a luxury; it is a strategic requirement.

“Solitude is the place where silence allows us to listen.” Henri Nouwen

Courage - Courage is not the absence of fear—it is taking action despite it. Nelson Mandela faced decades of adversity yet remained unshakeable in his pursuit of justice and equality. In sports, Simone Biles made headlines at the Tokyo Olympics not for winning but for withdrawing—demonstrating the rare courage to prioritize mental health over public expectation. She went on to perform outstandingly at subsequent Olympic Games, proving the decision right.

Courage shows up in business too: in making the hard call, entering the unknown market, having the difficult conversation. It is the quality that turns intention into action.

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.” Mark Twain

Consistency - Success is not built on single great moments—it is built on small, repeated actions compounded over time. Serena Williams winning 23 Grand Slam titles was not the product of occasional brilliance; it was two decades of showing up, putting in the work, and refusing to coast.

In business, the brands and companies that endure are the ones that consistently deliver quality—not just once, but every time. Consistency means committing to the process even when results are slow and the work feels ordinary. That ordinariness, sustained long enough, becomes extraordinary.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Will Durant

Empathy - Great leaders connect with their teams by genuinely understanding their perspectives—and that connection builds the trust and collaboration that drives performance. Empathy is not soft; it is strategic.

With AI rapidly automating technical and analytical work, the qualities that are distinctly human—emotional intelligence, genuine connection, the ability to make people feel understood—become the competitive differentiators that sustain careers. Empathy may well be the winning ticket for the decades ahead.

“Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.” Oprah Winfrey

Accountability - True leaders take responsibility. They hold themselves accountable first and build cultures where integrity and high performance are the standard. That posture is not just ethical—it is empowering. When you accept that you are behind the steering wheel of your own life, you gain the agency to change direction. Accountability turns blame into learning, and learned lessons into forward momentum.

“The buck stops here.” Harry S. Truman

Recognition and Collaboration - No one succeeds alone. Celebrating team wins and acknowledging individual contributions builds morale, retention, and a culture where people want to give their best. But recognition starts with yourself: keep a victory log and record your wins weekly. Revisiting those entries is a powerful source of renewed energy and perspective.

Equally important is collaboration. Championships are won by teams. Transformations happen through collective effort. Satya Nadella’s collaborative leadership philosophy is widely credited with Microsoft’s extraordinary resurgence. Remarkable individuals understand that leveraging diverse skills produces outcomes far greater than any individual could achieve alone.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” African Proverb

Agility and Adaptability - The rate of market disruption means that rigid strategies are liabilities. Truly remarkable leaders possess the intellectual humility to unlearn outdated playbooks and pivot when the data shifts. Jeff Bezos famously codified this at Amazon by distinguishing between Type 1 decisions (irreversible) and Type 2 decisions (reversible). Remarkable execution requires moving fast on Type 2 decisions, maintaining high operational agility, and viewing change not as an interruption, but as the playing field itself.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Charles Darwin

Mentorship and Legacy Focus - Remarkable success isn’t just about what you build; it’s about who you build up. The highest-impact executives shift their focus from absolute personal output to multiplying the capabilities of those around them. They invest deeply in mentoring the next generation of leadership, intentional about creating an ecosystem that thrives long after they move on. They realize that a leader’s ultimate legacy is measured by how many leaders they create, not how many followers they command.

“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” Jack Welch

Execution Focus - Ideas are a commodity; flawless execution is a scarcity. The most brilliant strategic vision means nothing without the operational discipline to cross the finish line. Remarkable leaders bridge the gap between strategy and reality by setting radical clarity around ownership, driving radical alignment across silos, and relentlessly monitoring progress. They don’t just celebrate the launch; they obsess over the finish.

“Vision without execution is hallucination.” Thomas Edison

There you have it—20 traits of truly remarkable people. No one embodies all of them perfectly, but awareness is the starting point.

Choose one trait to deepen this week. Then another. Compounded over time, that deliberate focus is itself what makes someone remarkable.

The views expressed here are my own and do not represent my organization.