The Rags-to-Riches Formula

How do you get from a sharecroppers' shack to the boardroom of a
Fortune 500 company? By believing that you're in control of your fate,
and by accepting help from influential schoolteachers, according to a
15-year study of "pathmakers" -- people who overcame staggering
socioeconomic odds to achieve career success.

The study, described in Paths to Success (Harvard University
Press), compared 60 pathmakers to 40 similarly successful people from
privileged families. The pathmakers not only proved to be more
self-motivated and open to assistance, they were also more likely to take
advantage of any career opportunity, to leave jobs for better paying
ones, to create jobs, and to turn failures into positive outcomes.

But a meteoric rise seems to have its costs. Pathmakers were more
likely than their counterparts from wealthy families to worry about the
future and to be reformed drinkers or smokers; they were less likely to
marry and to maintain contact with their families. Despite these factors,
pathmakers tended to be more altruistic. Black female pathmakers, who
suffered the most familial and marital alienation, were most altruistic
of all.

Study co-author Charles Harrington, Ph.D., sees the findings as a
testament to the pathmakers' skill in utilizing social resources. "The
path to success works like a spiral," Harrington says. "A teacher or
mentor allows a student to get a foothold on an ascending path, and the
student begins to build momentum, spiraling up to the highest rungs of
achievement."