Great achievers are often loners who find sustenance in the pursuit of something they feel strongly about – caring, of course, what others think but not needing interaction or confirmation to continue their quest.

I have a friendship with a four-time Olympian who has held 10 world records in track and field. He built his success over hundreds of hours training by himself. As a high jumper, he found happiness in ¼” increments – the kind of happiness that others find in human contact. His life entailed thousands of hours of aloneness (distinguish loneliness) interrupted by brief periods of adulation (track meets).

I believe that any great achiever has to be so comfortable in his or her own skin that he/she does not rely on others for energy or happiness. Since I am not aware of any shortcuts to success, these achievers often labor for long periods of time – finding solace in small incremental movements toward their goal.

This weekend I reread Steve Martin’s great book, Born Standing Up (Scribner, 2007). For those of you who have not followed Steve Martin, he is an amazingly versatile performer and probably the most popular stand-up comic ever – performing in the seventies and eighties to standing room only crowds wherever he went.

Like many success stories, Martin’s is the opposite of “overnight.” He began his career working at a magic store in Disneyland when he was ten years old. He would perform tricks for the customers and occasionally try to bring some levity to his act. Eighteen years later, he had still not made it as a stand-up comic and so he gave himself an outside date for success. He decided that if he had not made it by age 30, he would leave the business and try to find something else to do.

To give you the flavor of Martin’s particular aloneness, here is his recounting of his act at or about age 28:

“I would bomb regularly at the Ice House, but the audiences were so sparse that the proprietor, Bob Stane, couldn’t tell if I was flopping or the house was too empty. One night I realized that I had been on for twenty minutes and had not gotten a single laugh from the dead Tuesday-night crowd. I thought ‘Why not go for the record?’ I set my mind to it and finished the show without having roused one snicker.”

Martin barely made it by age 30 (he actually extended his time limit). In a reflective passage toward the end of the book, Martin looks back on his career as a stand-up comic… “I was fundamentally a loner, withdrawn and solitary.”

The message? The strength to find greatness comes from within … not from others. Find something you love doing, do it for the sake of doing it, set goals for yourself and then when you achieve those goals, set new ones. The quest can be lonely but also tremendously fulfilling.

Jim Randel is the author of The Skinny On books, a series about financial literacy and personal achievement. Take our “Financial Smarts Challenge,”  … anyone who gets 90% should be very pleased with himself or herself. Also for a shorter quiz on your Credit Card knowledge try our “Are you Credit Card Savvy?” quiz on Facebook.