If you’ve studied any philosophy in high school or college, you’ve no doubt heard of The Socratic Method. It is a form of inquiry (named after the classical Greek philosopher, Socrates) that is based upon asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been one to ask a lot of questions. I’m sure that this sometimes annoyed my parents and exasperated my teachers, but asking questions is how I learned to satisfy my curiosity about the many interesting things in the world around me. Once I was in college however; my academic advisor taught me the value of asking questions in order to gain understanding not just of the world around me, but also of the things that were going on inside of me. Not only did this help me to finally decide upon a major–it also helped me to become more connected to my inner being and more sure of the direction that I wanted my life to take.

DNA. It’s the stuff we’re made of. It holds the code that determines who we are, how we behave and what conditions we are predisposed to.

What about success though? Is success “in your genes” so to speak? Do you come from a long line of successful individuals, marriages, families, etc? Or, do you feel like you were trapped in an elevator somewhere and missed out on the success gene when it was being handed out?

Those who appear to be naturally hard-wired for success have six common traits that seem to be ingrained into their DNA. If you’re not one of these fortunate few, don’t worry–the good news about these traits is that even if you don’t feel as though you were lucky enough to have naturally inherited them, you can still learn to develop them.