1. Successful people have a clear definition of success itself. — this defines a baseline in the feedback loop.

2. Successful people regularly revise their goals upward. — this is feedback in the very sense of the word.

3. Successful people are usually smart. — an important device in processing feedback information and make adjustments accordingly.

4. Successful people aren’t afraid to fail. — failure provides vital info in the feedback loop and improves the “exception handling” capability of a system.

5. Successful people invest in themselves. — provides more intelligence and tools to the feedback loop so it can adapt and adjust to changes better.

One of my most favorite subjects in college is Control System Engineering. Here is an article on open-loop controller, which is basically a system that doesn’t employ feedback to determine its input.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_loop_control

Notice how a lot of the things mentioned in the short article applies to real life. It’s one and the same after all. :)

Nice post. The only thing I’d add is a successful person knows how to surround themselves with people who are more successful than themselves in a particular category. This allows us to always be in a position to learn and teach simultaneously; and secondly, allows us the opportunity to use our network to gain strength where our focus is not as intense.