The Six (not four) C's of Success
Friday, September 12, 2025
Dan Kennedy wrote about the 4 C's of Success. His framework allow for people to cycle through the 4 C's forward as intended, or in reverse creating more overwhelm and burnout. I've incorporated two additional C's to prevent backsliding and increase forward momentum.
Troy Heiner
In Dan Sullivan’s book “The 4 C’s Formula”, a simple framework is described for achieving lasting success. In Sullivan’s framework, the 4 C’s are Commitment, Courage, Capability and Confidence. They form a loop, and progressing through the four C’s in this order (clockwise direction) creates positive reinforcement.
However, you can also progress through the four C’s in the opposite (counterclockwise) direction, which will negatively reinforce each other. Dwelling on your past, especially past failures, will reduce your confidence, lessen your capability, create fear instead of courage, and break your commitment, which of course shrinks your confidence even further.
To make it harder to backslide, I’ve added two additional C’s to my success framework, one to preceed Commitment, and one to follow Confidence. You can see it depicted below:
The first C is Clarity. Any successful change requires clarity. We spent a whole chapter in Basecamp talking about it. You have to know what you want, where you are going, and WHY you want to change if you are going to attain a successful outcome.
Clarity serves as the starting point, and also the bridge between your current situation and your future. When you have Clarity, you are able to make a stronger Commitment, knowing that as part of the journey, your Commitment is going to be tested.
Commitment and Courage are the part of the framework that are aligned to your future. Courage is essential for doing the uncomfortable work that needs to be performed in order to overcome resistance and implement change.
Once you have achieved some milestones along your chosen path of change, you will have gained some new Capability, which will give you the Confidence to keep going and make a larger Commitment.
The last C is Celebration. I often forgot to acknowledge my victories in my career, because I had high standards for myself. When I accomplished a goal, that was what I expected to happen, so I treated it like it was no big deal. But if I failed, I beat myself up over it, and would lose confidence, which started a backslide until I was able to snap out of it.
Celebration is also important, because success leaves clues. If you take the time to celebrate, you will be more apt to remember your accomplishments, and what strengths you employed in the process. So then the next goal you set, you can do so with more clarity, because you know what skills and abilities you can leverage when taking that next step.
You must focus on your future, where you are going and where you want to be, but taking action in the present. Be open to growth, and don’t judge your missteps harshly, as an engineer or perfectionist would. And don’t forget to CELEBRATE.
Hi, I'm Troy Heiner
Founder/CEO of TFH Transformations LLC
Leader of The Career Change Community for Technical Professionals and Knowledge Workers
Contributor to unfryd.com
Author of the soon to be published book "Victory Horizon"
This blog will highlight activities and happenings within the Career Change Community and by TFH Transformations LLC, some of which might result in becoming excerpts within the yet to be published book, Pinnacle Pivot.
Pinnacle Pivot is being written for everyone looking to make the next big step forward in their professional lives. This companion blog will be kept current as new technology and information that can be leveraged for personal success and achievement is being created everyday. The book has a target publishing date of late 2025.
