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T his is the book I wish I had when I was younger. Like most people, I learned about success through the school of hard knocks, taking two steps forward and one step backward. I don’t come from a family that talked about success. For the first 25 years of my life, I never even thought about what success would look or feel like, never mind how to achieve it.

Born in the U.S., I am the daughter of an Italian immigrant father and a Polish American mother. Neither of my parents finished high school, and my Italian grandmother (my Nonna, the only grandparent who lived long enough for me to get to know and who helped raise me) never finished elementary school. We lived in an apartment upstairs from the family luncheonette until I was 12 years old. My two sisters and I were first generation high school students, as well as first generation college students.

I’m very proud of my family background. In our home my siblings and I learned many precious lessons about relationships, respect, and responsibility. These lessons continue to serve me well and, as you’ll read later in this book, are significant predictors of success. While we had plenty of conversations at home, we didn’t talk about our hopes and dreams for the future, and we certainly didn’t talk about meaningful jobs or career paths. We lived very much in the moment, managing to pay the bills during the week and on weekends meeting at the Italian grove where we watched the old men play bocce and the old women (some with soft white hair that was dyed pale blue, long before it became fashionable) play cards.

Fast forward to today. After making my way through community college, a part-time undergraduate program while I worked full time, an MBA program, and a Ph.D. program in Organizational Behavior at Yale University, I joined the faculty of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. For close to 30 years, I have been teaching courses about leadership and high-performing teams to MBA students and a variety of other graduate students, and to executives globally. I have coached over 500 executives to help them discover pathways to their short-term and long-term goals. Given my early background, it’s no surprise that I often wondered, “How on earth did I get here?”

Throughout my years at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, and through my own consulting work, I’ve had many conversations with graduate students and executives about their life goals and their progress toward achieving those goals. Many were heading toward the success that they desired, and some weren’t. Some came from privileged backgrounds, but many didn’t. Some already had the external markers of success—a high-status job, a big house, a new car—but they weren’t happy. Some didn’t have the external markers of success and were delighted with their lives. Some knew at a young age what they wanted to be when they grew up; others (like me) didn’t find their way until they were much older; and some were still finding their way. Through these conversations, my interest grew from “How did I get here?” to “How do people— all kinds of people —become successful?”

Fortunately, the University of Michigan is a world-renowned research university. I have access to decades of top-quality academic research about why some people achieve and exceed their dreams while others don’t come close. I learned that the secrets to success are hiding in plain sight in academic journals and books, many that can be easily found online. But few people ever read these studies because they don’t know they exist. And even if everyone knew about the existence of this abundant and valuable research, who would have time and patience to read the thousands of pages of research articles in which academics often use obscure and uninspiring language written primarily for other academics? Well, I do. That’s what I’m trained to do, what I get paid to do, and—most importantly—what I want to do because it’s my way of contributing to others.

Although this book is based on the science of success, my goal is first and foremost to help you achieve personal and professional success however you define it. I’ve written this book using practical language so that you can read it quickly and apply what you learn to your own life immediately. In addition, this book includes self assessments and planning tools that will help you begin that process of applying what you’ve learned about achieving success to your own life. I’ve also included references at the end of the book in case you want to read more about the original research that inspired this book.

Of course, reading this book won’t get you where you want to go in life unless you implement what you learn. As you turn what you learn into action, I encourage you to adopt a strategy of “small wins” because researchers have found that people make significant progress toward their goals through the accumulation of small achievements, especially when these achievements are each headed in the same direction. Even small failures have their place on your path to success because they provide rich opportunities for learning. You’ll learn more about the power of small wins in the last chapter of this book. In the meantime, each chapter of this book provides strategies you can use for accumulating the small achievements that lead to big results.

Be forewarned that this book is likely to challenge some of your beliefs about what predicts success, so you’ll want to read this book with an open mind. You’ll need to unlearn beliefs that hold you back as you learn new beliefs that will propel you forward toward your goals. Also be forewarned that, despite learning about the research on beliefs and behaviors that predict success, and despite your best efforts, you’ll face inevitable setbacks as well as progress, hurdles as well as opportunities, and failures as well as successes. That’s simply how a fully engaged life works. No book, and no research, can take away the struggles that go hand in hand with success. That said, knowing the science of success will significantly increase the possibility that you will achieve your dreams and—equally important—make the contributions you were meant to make to others in your lifetime.

In my experience working with students and executives from many different parts of the world and in many different industries and sectors, I’ve found that the lessons about success are universal. Regardless of where we come from, we’re all members of the same human species, and from Rio to Riyadh we share similar hopes and dreams. We want to believe our lives are meaningful. We want to make a difference in the lives of others. We want to love and be loved. We want to be competent at something that matters. We want a sense of control over our lives and our futures. And we want to have grace and resilience as we ride the inevitable ups and downs of everyday life.

Regardless of where you live and work, I hope you find this book to be inspiring as well as useful. Your decision to read this book demonstrates your commitment to achieving the success you want in life. By the time you finish this book, you will know more than most people know about what predicts success, you will have had the opportunity to start implementing what you learn, and you will be closer to achieving your goals than when you started reading this book. I’m grateful for having the opportunity to share the exciting findings from the science of success with you, and I wish you the very best on your journey.