Using real-life examples and the latest scientific discoveries about the connections among genetics, biology, evolution, and psychology, this book demonstrates how success in career, business, and life often depends on using your instincts to evolve and adapt to changing circumstances.

Q&A With
Thomas L. Harrison

You've referred to "the Secret of Your Success."
What is it ?

I talk about 8 Success Promoters: techniques that successful people, or people who want to become more successful either personally or in their careers, can adopt instinctively to counter-balance our inherited, genetic predisposition. The secret, though, is embedded throughout Instinct. I have personally used the “Secret” over and over. It is Painting the Picture of Success—actually visualizing yourself in the picture of success to which you aspire. When you can actually see yourself in the success picture, doing what you really want to in your career, getting what you want, being where you want to be, you actually begin to set up a schedule of action to get you to that goal—into the picture. By seeing yourself in that picture every day, you will stay on forward focus until you reach your personal goal. This visualization is absolutely crucial to reaching the success you want to reach based upon who you are genetically.

Why did you write Instinct?

I wrote Instinct because I felt that I had something unique to say about success and entrepreneurialism. Coming to entrepreneurialism and starting my own business—having been a research scientist at West Virginia University—I noticed that I started doing some things instinctively. These are the 8 Success Promoter genes, or techniques, that I talk about in the book. When I started running DAS and working with over 100 entrepreneurs, I began seeing that many, if not all, of my colleagues were doing many things instinctively, as I did when I ran my business. I started formulating my theory that there really is a genetic underpinning for success, and that there are actions that one can take instinctively, or intuitively, that tend to make one more successful. So, as a scientist, there are several things that I know. The first is that everyone is born with a grouping of 5 personality traits: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. And while we are all born with these 5 personality traits, we all have our own measure of them, thus making us distinct from one another. The second thing is that too much or too little of any one of these personality traits is probably not a good thing. Being too open to new experience means that a person just darts from one activity to another and generally doesn’t get anything done. Being too conscientious means that one might not get anything done, because a vote would have to be taken before any activity. And being too neurotic would not be a formula for success either. And the third thing that I know as a scientist is that we all spend our lives trying to compensate for what we were given in the genetic lottery. So, if we all know what we were born with in terms of these 5 personality traits, we have a road map as to what it is we may need to do to make ourselves more successful.

What are Success Promoter genes?

Success Promoter "genes" are not genes at all, but are traits, activities, or habits that one learns along the way to compensate for what one was given in the genetic lottery. So, if one is very open to new experience and has a lot of new ideas and is very creative, if one bounces from one idea to another, then one needs to learn techniques to create more focus in one's professional and personal life, to help get things done that one has started.

What are punctuation points?

Punctuation points are things that happen in our personal and professional lives that make us take note of where we are in our careers. They make us consider whether we are at the right point or are doing the right things. Punctuation points can be people who make us stand back and judge our careers and really figure out if we are going in the right direction. Or they could be events that we participate in or things that we see that make us take stock of where we are. They begin to make us think, and they may in fact make us change where we are on our career paths. Certainly, I had a number of punctuation points in my career going from a cell biologist to a pharmaceutical rep to an advertising agency guy to an owner of an advertising agency and entrepreneur, and then being intrapreneurial in the group at Omnicom that I currently run.

Does anyone need all of the Success Promoter genes?

The fact is that yes, there are people who would need all of the 8 Success Promoter genes, or techniques, depending upon what their inherited personality inventory is—which one can learn by reading Chapter 1. There are entrepreneurs who have incorporated all 8 of the Success Promoter techniques into their daily lives, whereas there are very successful entrepreneurs who have needed only to incorporate 1 or 2 into their entrepreneurial lives to be successful. So, it depends upon the personality makeup of the individual as to how many of the 8 Success Promoter genes they need. The interesting thing about Instinct is that it is not
one-size-fits-all; it's not a book that provides one formula for success for everybody, but it provides a unique formula for success for each individual. I've had feedback from readers who say that they feel each page was written specifically for them, yet those they have shared it with got something totally different out of the book. And that's the uniqueness of INSTINCT—each person gets exactly what he or she needs, based on their genetic inventory. Some of the 8 Success Promoter genes that they read about may not be appropriate for them, so they move on to those that are really more appropriate for them, based on their genetic inventory, their personality inventory.

How do you learn to take risks?

It's very instinctive, or intuitive. Entrepreneurs and highly successful people look at taking risks differently than most people. Most people look at risk as something that's bad. We're taught in the third grade to think that risk is something that's not positive; it's something to stay away from. But entrepreneurs and successful people really have their own definition of risk—risk really means opportunity. They can see beyond the issues involved in risk, right through the risk, into opportunity. Sam Zell, who I interviewed in the book, says that entrepreneurs look at risk as opportunity, and entrepreneurs tend to be able to see around corners and actually believe what they see. They can actually see opportunities in markets that other people don't see, which they act on in a very positive way. So, the successful person will look at risk as opportunity and not as something negative.

Can you change your genes?

No, you can't change your genes, and why would you want to? If you change your genes, then you really change who you are at the genetic level. You're not going to change your genetic makeup. You're not going to change your genetic personality inheritance. But what you can do is change the way you deal with what you were given in the genetic lottery. You can learn from these 8 Success Promoter techniques to compensate for what you were given in the genetic lottery. You can minimize the shortcomings and maximize the good things that you were given in your genetic makeup. And that's what the Success Promoter techniques do; they actually minimize or negate what we were given too much or too little of and capitalize on the good parts of our genetic inheritance.

How do you learn what you inherited?

You need to know who you are, and you need to learn more about yourself. Chapter 1 of Instinct will give you the questions you need to ask yourself to allow you to know where you lie on the spectrum of all of the 5 personality traits that I outline. Once you have your genetic inventory, then you can begin compensating for what the genetic lottery has or hasn't given you.

If you score badly on the Success Personality Quiz, are you a failure forever?

There are no right or wrong answers as you take the Success Personality Quiz. Once you know what the inventory is—whether you score high or low on Openness, or high or low or moderate on Conscientiousness, or whatever your score on those 5 traits might be—then you can begin minimizing the negative parts and capitalizing on the good parts. It certainly does not mean you're going to be a failure forever; it doesn't mean you're a failure now. It just means that once you know who you are, and where you are on the spectrum of these 5 personality traits, you then can learn how to improve and be more successful.

Is the argument still nature or nurture?

No, it is not. The argument historically has been nature vs nurture. In my book, I talk about nature seeking out nurture. It's what we've been given, what we were born with, what we were given in the genetic lottery in terms of these 5 personality traits. Actually seeking out one or more or all 8 of the Success Promoter genes—or Success Promoter techniques or activities—will make a happier, more successful, more well-rounded person, from a personality and success standpoint. It's not nature vs nurture; it is nature seeking out nurture. It's actually who we are—once we know who we are—seeking out the techniques that can make us better. No one needs to be a failure forever; everyone can be more successful than they currently are. The other point that I'd like to make about Instinct is that it doesn't ask everybody to go out and start a new business and become an entrepreneur. What Instinct does do is ask everyone to learn more about themselves, to take the Genetic Success Personality Quiz, to learn the Success Promoter genes that are most appropriate for them, and to try to be more successful—either as an entrepreneur or by thinking more entrepreneurially in the jobs that they currently hold. In other words, making themselves more successful at what they are doing. And as I've said before, there's no one right answer, there's no one formula for everybody; this is not a book that's written for everybody. The reader gets out of the book exactly what he or she should take from it. Instinct is not one-size-fits-all, or one formula for success, but it's one formula for each reader who reads the book. That's the way the book was written.