The Science of Success: How High Achievers Think and Win | Dr. Ruth Gotian

 

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What top performers do differently—and how you can apply it to your own career.

Success isn’t just for the lucky—it’s a skill you can learn. This episode unpacks the habits and mindset of high achievers, revealing how persistence, mentorship, and strategic thinking drive success. From Olympic champions to astronauts, discover what separates top performers from the rest and how you can apply these principles to your own journey.

How do you turn an idea into lasting thought leadership?

Dr. Ruth Gotian has done just that—translating academic research on high achievers into actionable insights that help individuals and organizations thrive.

In this episode, we explore the power of mentorship, the resilience of high achievers, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. Ruth shares stories of Olympic champions, astronauts, and Nobel laureates who refused to settle for mediocrity. Like Dr. Peggy Whitson, who applied to NASA for a decade before becoming the agency’s chief astronaut. Or the Olympian already planning his next win on the flight home.

Ruth knows success isn’t a talent—it’s a learned skill. She shares how to identify your superpowers, leverage them, and plant ambition like a seed that grows into unstoppable drive. She also reveals her own journey of thought leadership—from struggling with the first chapter of The Success Factor to writing books, speaking globally, and democratizing knowledge in every format possible.

Her latest book, The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring: A Complete Guide to Effective Mentoring (The FT Guides), co-authored with Andy Lopata, was named Runner-Up for Leadership Book of the Year (The Leadership Awards 2024). Whether you’re looking to elevate your own success or help others rise, Ruth’s insights will change the way you think about achievement.

Three Key Takeaways

Success is a Learned Skill, Not Just Talent — High achievers aren’t born extraordinary; they develop habits, resilience, and a relentless pursuit of growth. Whether it’s Olympians, astronauts, or Nobel laureates, they all follow a process to success that anyone can adopt.

Mentorship is a Game-Changer — The right mentors can push you further than you ever imagined. Surround yourself with people who believe in you more than you believe in yourself, ask the tough questions, and challenge you to think bigger. (The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring explores this in depth.)

Persistence Separates the Good from the Great — Dr. Peggy Whitson applied to be an astronaut for 10 years before finally being accepted—then went on to become NASA’s Chief Astronaut. The difference between those who succeed and those who don’t? They refuse to give up.

Want to know if you are a High Achiever? Take this 2-minute assessment to find out.

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Transcript

Bill Sherman How do you take an idea, nurture it, and turn it into a thriving body of thought leadership? Dr. Ruth Gotian, expert in mentoring and high achievement, has done just that, translating deep academic research into practical insights that help individuals and organizations succeed. In today’s conversation, we unpack the essential role of mentorship, the power of persistence, and how embracing the habits of high achievers can transform your career. I’m Bill Sherman, and you’re listening to Leveraging Thought Leadership. Ready? Let’s begin. Welcome to the show, Ruth.

Ruth Gotian Thank you and greetings from New York City.

Bill Sherman Good to have you here. I want to start with a question based on a story that you told me a while ago that I think most people don’t get asked early on, but you did. You were asked in grad school about your thought leadership. How did that come about? What was the question that was asked.

Ruth Gotian Yeah, so I was 43 when I decided to go back to school and get my doctorate. And I was doing it while working full time and raising my family and having an insane commute of an hour and a half each way. And in between classes one day, in the hallway by one of our multi -purpose rooms and a classmate asked me, so what are you gonna do when you finish your doctorate? And I was so focused on just getting through the day that I hadn’t even thought of a few years in advance when I would finish the doctorate. And he said to me, well, what are you a thought leader in? And my response was, what’s a thought leader? And he responded with, what are you uniquely qualified to talk about? what do you have expertise in that other people come to you for? And I said, wow, this I know about. And that was the beginning of the journey.

Bill Sherman So let’s stay in that moment. How did you respond to that question after you got the definition? Did you have a moment of clarity as to what your area of expertise in thought leadership would be? Or did you have to sort of receive that question and process it?

Ruth Gotian The good thing about getting your doctorate is you have to hyper niche on a topic and a population. So I was studying success and I was studying extreme high achievers. At that point I was studying what are called physician scientists, those who have the MD and do research simultaneously. So I knew I was studying success and I knew I was studying high achievers. I wasn’t quite so sure what I would do with it yet. because again, my goal was just to finish this doctorate. But once that seed was planted in my head, it took root and it’s still there. It is stuck in there. And it’s growing and growing and growing because you know what? There’s always more to do and there are always people who I have now learned want to hear about that thought leadership about success and high achievers and how we can all become one. because I believe we can.

Bill Sherman And I think that’s a foundational question, right? It is not what is the world as it is in terms of were you born with the right set of genes, but like you said, everyone can adopt elements of these high achievers and success and that’s a message that has appealed. in different ways to different audiences. If I go back to Stephen Covey, you know, seven habits of highly effective people, it wasn’t seven habits of people who were born highly successful.

Ruth Gotian That’s right. In fact, most of them were not born with a silver spoon in their mouth. They learned through a lot of trial and error. Look, one of the people who I interviewed was Apollo Ono, the most decorated winter Olympian. He was raised by a single dad. He was actually, he started in different sports. He was athletic, but he was actually a swimmer first. But he didn’t love it. And it took him a while to figure out what it is that he loved. And ultimately, once he did it, he doubled down on it. You could be born with all the talents in the world, but if you don’t use them and use them for good, you might as well just be binging Netflix on your couch. So the question is, how do you identify what your superpowers are and then how do you leverage them for good?

Bill Sherman So let’s stay there on the silver spoon and responding to adversity, right? So you’ve shared with me a story of someone who became very successful on the astronaut core, even though at the start, you wouldn’t have predicted it.

Ruth Gotian Yeah, it was a very, very bumpy road. And you’re talking about Dr. Peggy Whitson. This is an incredible story. And I hope anyone who’s listening and multitasking will pause and focus on this story, because I think this could be a launching pad for everyone. Dr. Peggy Whitson is a biochemist. She worked in a lab. Now, not everyone who works in NASA is an astronaut. and she worked in NASA as a biochemist. And she would see the astronauts coming in and coming out. And she was actually a trained pilot. And she said, I want to be an astronaut. And once they started letting women become astronauts, she applied. And she was rejected. And she applied again. And she was rejected. And she applied again. and was rejected. Now, Bill, I don’t know about you, but I would not apply for the same job over and over again if I was rejected. The Dr. Peggy Whitson applied for this one job that she wanted to become an astronaut over and over and over again for 10 years, a full decade, a full decade. She applied for the same job. Well, ultimately she got accepted. She became an astronaut. She spent more days in space than any American astronaut of any gender. She also became the first female commander of the International Space Station, a role she held twice. And ultimately, this woman who was rejected for a decade from the role she wanted most of being an astronaut ultimately went on to become NASA’s chief astronaut. So that is, to me, one of the most incredible stories. Now, what is so fascinating was I asked her, I said, Dr. Whitson, why don’t you just give up? Because nobody would blame you. No one in their right mind applies for the same job over and over and over again, especially while they’re still working at the organization. I mean, they’re saying they don’t want you. And she said to me, the question was never if I was going to become an astronaut. The question was, how? What do I have to prove to them that I haven’t figured out yet, because I need to show them what they’re looking for and I need to figure out what that is? So she said, challenge accepted, and off she went.

Bill Sherman That’s a fantastic story, and about ambition. And I think one of the things from that story is you could say, there’s ambition there. There’s also focus and discipline. But you talk about planting ambition. What does that mean?

Ruth Gotian Look, planting ambition is when there’s a mentor there who puts an idea into your head and now you can’t get rid of it. The ambition at its core is there and they help to propel it forward. And I think that’s so critical and we all need people like that in our lives. We have it, but somebody needs to get that lighter fluid out there and really.

Bill Sherman So to borrow a mythological or quasi -mythological example, to be a Johnny Ample seed of ambition. And I think about your example of a grad school colleague who asked you, what are you a thought leader in? Cause that seems to me, that was an example of someone who was not in a formal mentorship role, but produced a question that planted ambition in you.

Ruth Gotian Absolutely. And that’s what peer mentors are all about. These are people who are at your level. They’re going through what you’re going through. They can understand what you’re going through. They might be a step ahead. They might be a step behind. They might be at your level, something that I call friend tours, but they can ask you questions and you don’t even need to have the answer for it yet. He certainly didn’t know what my thought leadership was. I didn’t know what it was, but it got me thinking about it. and it got me planning for the future. And that, I think when someone plants that seed, as we said, planting that ambition, now you gotta take it and run with it.

Bill Sherman So an aside question, that friend who asked you the question, are they practicing thought leadership now, or was that a well -timed question that just landed with you?

Ruth Gotian That person is off in Hollywood now.

Bill Sherman Understood. Different form and different journey. So let’s talk about your journey of thought leadership, right? So let’s talk about the process of book writing. Cause that’s how you and I started talking. Getting that first chapter written was a bit of a challenge, wasn’t it?

Ruth Gotian Yes, that was for the book, The Success Factor. That first chapter was rejected by my editor three times. Three times. That is, talk about a slop in the face. Now look, I’m an academic, I’m used to rejections, and this stung, because usually I take the rejection, I take the notes, I’m able to fix it, but getting rejected over and over again, I said, I’m never gonna get this book done if I can’t get chapter one done. What I had quickly learned was that I was writing like an academic. Nobody wants to read that. And the editor said to me, your superpower is translating academic theory into action that every person can use. Write that. And I did. And I spoke with a friend of mine. I guess you can say another friend tour, who recently published a book. And I was whining to him how chapter one was rejected three times. I’m never gonna finish the book and what do I do? And he said to me, well, what chapters are you most excited about? I said, oh, that would be chapter four through seven when I talk about the four markers of success. And he said, start there. I said, I don’t need to start with chapter one. He said, it’ll get published in order, but you don’t need to write it in order. So I started with chapters four through seven, and then I finished eight through. ten and then I went back to chapters one through three and at that point they wrote themselves because I was so ingrained and I figured out how to write in this style that I was less accustomed to at that time. By that point it flowed so easily and I said oh this really is my superpower to make this translation and I was excited about it and once I wrote it I couldn’t write it in any other way, which is why I started after that, publishing in so many lay journals, such as Harvard Business Review and Fast Company, because I realized nobody was translating this academic research into actionable tips that people can understand and use immediately.

Bill Sherman And there’s several things there. I listened to you through this conversation and your area of profession or areas of professional interest, what drives success? How does mentoring work? These are things that you have studied, that you’ve written and published on. Enter into this conversation with a level of energy and joy. They’re woven through your examples, right? And I think. There is a distinction on that academic practitioner divide where there are some of us who will start with a Google scholar search or an online search to see what can I find in terms of what’s the lit out there. But most people don’t get excited by reading methodology sections. Most people want to know I have 15, 20 minutes. What’s something that I can digest and start applying? And academic writing is not written for that audience.

Ruth Gotian Nope. You know, it’s, I don’t know how many academics are listening, but you always know an academic, when we give an academic talk, the people in the audience are quickly looking on their phone to look at the academic papers the speaker has written.

Bill Sherman Mm -hmm.

Ruth Gotian That happened, you see that on the phone, everyone’s just scrolling, right? And you need to have that in order to have that credibility. But at the end of the day, so many people who I talk to are everyday people who are not reading academic literature and they wanna understand how can I elevate my success? How can I be a better mentor? How can I be a better mentee? And being able to share that. with people so that they can improve in their own professional journey and they can create their own thought leadership is one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever been able to do. And the more people that I am able to reach that way, that’s that ripple effect we all wanna have, right?

Bill Sherman So I suppose there are the academics who are lit up by doing the actual research, right? Forming the hypothesis, figuring out how they’re going to test it, tease out the confounds and all of that, and come up with something that advances knowledge. Or sometimes it confirms what we know instinctively, but we didn’t have data for it. and adding to the discussion, you seem to have taken delight in the role of being that translator and impacting an audience of non -academic practitioners. What does that light up within you? Why does that, you know, get you excited to, you know, work on the book or give another talk or do a podcast interview? What fuels you?

Ruth Gotian Well, I don’t believe anybody wakes up in the morning aiming to be average. I think people want to succeed, but have never been given the tools how to do so, the process how to do so. And I’ve done this research. I have figured it out by interviewing. I do qualitative research. So by researching Nobel Prize winners and astronauts and Olympians and NBA champions, and I figured it out, which means I can now to teach it to others. Look, just this morning, on my commute, I was talking to a two -time Olympian. And he just won an individual bronze medal at the Paris Olympics in August. And this was the, while we were texting, this was our first phone conversation since the Olympics. And I said, oh, congratulations on your medal. And I said to him, what’s the next goal? To most people, that would say, wait a minute, he has just won the Olympic medal two months ago. Let it sink in, let him process it all. And I said, but I know high achievers. On his flight home, he was already thinking about his next goal. That Olympic medal was in the past. Now it’s time to think about the future. And I knew it. And of course we started discussing about his next goal, et cetera, et cetera. And that’s why, if you talk to Olympians, they don’t have their medals on display. It’s usually tucked away somewhere. Being able to share that with other people, share those stories, because so often, people see the success, those medals, but they don’t see the work that goes into it. I have a very unique opportunity to see the work that goes into getting the medal, the frustrations, the opportunities. the mindset. And if I can share that with other people who, you know, someone who got rejected by a job that they wanted, and I said, apply again. Because if Dr. Peggy Whitson can apply for the same job for 10 years, you can too. And the Olympian who I spoke to today didn’t get an individual medal at the last Olympics. He got a team medal. This time he got an individual one. There’s always more to do. There’s so many lessons from these incredible people. And it’s my privilege to be able to share it with people. And as excited as I get about it, I know their face lights up when they see anything as possible. There just needs to be a process to be able to do it. And I’m happy to share that process with people.

Bill Sherman If you’re enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you’d like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a five -star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We’re available on Apple podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcasts.

Bill Sherman That’s a beautiful answer, Ruth. And as I was thinking about that in the journey of thought leadership, there are few competitions that are as clearly defined as the Olympics or as clearly defined as a appointment to be the commander of a space station, right? We take our wins and our moments of success differently and have to carry them to sustain us. And on a note of personal experience, the one thought that came to me, it’s not related to thought leadership, but it relates to that persistence. 2014, I was diagnosed with heart failure and I couldn’t walk across a room. And fortunately through good medical treatment, as well as then a pacemaker implant and a whole lot of persistence, I was able to run my first 5k. I’m now as of November 3rd in 2024 running my first full marathon, but here’s the thing. If you asked me which of my race medals, as I’ve stepped up from first 5K all the way up, I think the one that’s going to hold place of privilege for me and the one that I am most proud of is not the couch to 5K, but the hospital bed to 5K. And so there’s value in the signifiers that we assign meaning to. And I think one of the things that I take from this conversation is not only the perseverance, but recognize what fuels you and be able to engage with that, even if it doesn’t mean anything to anyone else.

Ruth Gotian That’s right, it’s a personal journey, isn’t it? Yeah. And you need to find people who, as I said, will be that turbo booster for you and really push you forward. And not be envious of your success, but be encouraged by it. And there’s a big difference. And I think having those people around you is so critical. Like we each need to have our own goals. No one else can define our goals, but us. And we also have to decide it’s our decision when to walk away from it. That goal is no longer fitting for me. And there should be goals that are no longer fitting for you, because you’re not the same person at 40 that you were at 20. So your goals probably don’t fit when you were 40, right? I’m hearing a little.

Bill Sherman I’m hearing a little bit of Marie Kondo, this goal no longer brings me joy. But it’s true though, right? Right, right. So, and I love the example of especially like the early question that you were asked of, where is your area of thought leadership that has fueled you? One of the things that I think also thought leaders don’t have support on, or people who practice thought leadership are people who understand what the journey is and you wind up doing a lot of hand waving towards friends and family and they’re like, oh, you write books. I guess I’m going to support you on your next book. And it’s like, that’s part of what I do, but that’s not all of what I do. That’s right.

Ruth Gotian That’s right. That book is really a big business card because part of the thought leadership is creating content that’s digestible, that people can understand. And I believe that sharing content and education should be democratized, which is why I really push to share it in different formats. So I don’t just mean the book should be in print and an e -reader and audible. Absolutely it should. But for those who don’t know what it means to be deaf and hard of hearing, don’t want to, or can’t, or don’t have the time to read a full book, there are articles, there are podcast interviews, I’ve done LinkedIn learning courses, I’ve done webinars. There’s so many things if you want to learn. thousands of books, articles, webinars, and podcasts that I have done since my friend asked me, what is your thought leadership? So it is out there for those that want to take it in. I’ve put it all out there for you. Now the question is, what are you going to do with it? Absolutely nothing. See you.

Bill Sherman One of the ways that I identify someone who is actively practicing thought leadership is they are constantly sharing their insights with others from a place of persistence, passion, and generosity, right? Yes. That it is in many ways getting the ideas into the hands who need them. Because if you truly believe you have an idea. that can make lives better for individuals or organizations and teams or patients or wherever you’re defining your audience, it’s hard to stay silent.

Ruth Gotian and people want to learn, which is why I’m excited that I can put this all out in print form and LinkedIn learning courses and whatever, but I can also go into organizations and give keynotes and the workshops and teach people and have them ask me questions live because that is fun. And sometimes I know the answer and sometimes we need to work it out together.

Bill Sherman That’s really cool. So I want to ask you a couple of questions here. When we started this conversation today, you told me about a bit of recognition that you had heard about today. Okay. And I know this is sort of like asking, you know, the Olympian about their metal, but I’m going to do that as set up for the following questions. So what recognition did you receive today? What did you hear about?

Ruth Gotian I just found out that my latest book, Financial Times Guide to Mentoring, which I wrote with Andy Lopata, that it was shortlisted for one of the top 10 leadership books in the world. So as someone who got her doctorate in adult learning and leadership and wanted to make her mark and get that thought leadership out there. to have the book that Andy and I put our heart and soul into and worked so hard. And by the way, we live in two different continents. Being able to get that out there and have it recognized with being a shortlisted as one of the top leadership books in the world, I’m still blowing my mind. I’m not ready to say what my next goal is. I’ll come to it. We were right.

Bill Sherman It’s the moment on the podium, like you said for the Olympian, they’re thinking about it on the flight home, but there’s a moment to celebrate, right?

Ruth Gotian I am still in that celebratory mood and we still have, you know, the finals.

Bill Sherman Exactly. So what I would say is if I were to come back to you a few weeks or a month later, and I were to ask you what challenges do you want to tackle next with your thought leadership? And I’m not asking that question now, but I think based on the themes of today’s conversation, you would have an answer that would be clear. on that you’ve been moving on to the oh you do i have an answer

Ruth Gotian Are you comfortable, Sharon? Sure, so two things. One, I don’t know if there’s gonna be video here, but for those who are watching, you see all those post -it notes behind me. Those are all articles that are in progress. So definitely doing more of those. And I think I have been getting many requests, not only for more books, but also horses around. the ideas in the book, so I’m beginning to think about how to develop that.

Bill Sherman So one of the challenges with the practice of thought leadership is you reach a point where you get more inbound requests for your insight and time than there is a view, right? In some ways it’s sort of like grad school. How do you sort and prioritize? How are you determining how you can make the most impact? and where you put your time, energy and passion.

Ruth Gotian Look, my mentor told me six words that changed my life. He said, do something important, not just interesting. Because when you do something important, you’re looking at it in a new way, in a way that other people have not looked at. And when I interviewed Dr. Tony Fauci, who led the COVID response here in the United States, I asked him, I said, how do you pick which infectious disease to… pursue. I mean, there’s so many. And he said, I do what’s important, not just interesting. Because when it’s important, you can positively impact millions of people you will never have the opportunity to meet. And that has sort of been my guiding light, do something important, not just interesting. One of the reasons that I’m able to put out all this content is when somebody asks me for something, I can’t have a half hour conversation with every person. who requests it, but if they have a question about something, I can send them the article. And that really helps. And I think for speaking opportunities, it’s good that I have an agent. So that helps with that.

Bill Sherman couple of questions as we begin to wrap up here. The first thing I want to do is offer you an opportunity based on your work, your research, knowing that many people who are in our audience are practitioners of thought leadership. What advice would you share either around success or mentoring. Which, and think of this as sort of a meta important, because the way I look at it is, and this is pretty much aligned with my career and work, the more I help people who have good ideas get them out into the world effectively, the more impact I’m able to make, even if it’s not my idea. So what advice would you give to those practitioners to do the important things and create impact? based on your research.

Ruth Gotian So I think you need to surround yourself with a team of mentors who believe in you more than you believe in yourself. And by reaching out to those people when you have an idea, so as a litmus test, will this work, will this not work, what are the challenges, what are the opportunities, what am I not thinking of? Present opportunities to you and open doors that you hadn’t even considered Because now your mentor knows that you’re interested in something and they say oh, I think you should speak with Jane Let me make that introduction. You didn’t even know Jane existed before So this creates opportunity this creates this Movement for you, and I think that’ll be incredibly helpful and you know what? Astronauts, Nobel Prize winners, Olympians, NBA champions, they all surround themselves with a team of mentors. And if it’s good enough for them, it should be critical for us as we are trying to advance and move forward as well.

Bill Sherman That’s a beautiful answer. My last question for you is one that I want to ask around whose work do you follow in thought leadership that you think more people should be aware of. So this is a chance to give a shout out to someone’s insights and search that light you up, but maybe not have. reach the spotlight.

Ruth Gotian Well, I think there’s so many. With the adult learning, I think you should look up Stephen with a PhD, Stephen Brookfield, who is my academic idol. I think when it comes to looking at failure as part of success, obviously, look at Amy Edmondson. And if you want an incredible story, how you take advantage of every opportunity and learn what you can from it and push it forward and move forward. Read the autobiography of Dr. Robert Lefkowitz. He won the Nobel Prize in 2012 in chemistry. And fun fact, he shared that Nobel Prize with one of his mentees. And he told me that when I asked him if he was… envious to share that Nobel Prize with his mentee. He said, Are you kidding me, Ruth? He said, That is the biggest honor of my life. That’s how I measure my success.

Bill Sherman And we’ll leave it there that I want to thank you, Dr. Ruth Gotin for joining us today. It has been a wonderful and enlightening conversation. Thank you so much.

Bill Sherman Okay. You’ve made it to the end of the episode, and that means you’re probably someone deeply interested in thought leadership. Want to learn even more? Here are three recommendations. First, check out the back catalog of our podcast episodes. There are a lot of great conversations with people at the top of their game, and thought leadership, as well as just starting out. Second, subscribe to our newsletter that talks about the business of thought leadership. And finally, feel free to reach out to me. My day job is helping people with big insights. Take them to scale through the practice of thought leadership. Maybe you’re looking for strategy, or maybe you want to polish up your ideas or even create new products and offerings. I’d love to chat with you. Thanks for listening.