Being successful is hard. It sounds bizarre until you actually become successful, at which point you'll experience unwanted attention 24/7 and won't be able to tell if people are spending time with you because they truly want to or they're just leeching you for money and favors. Worst of all, successful people lose their social skills to the point they become truly isolated, incapable of having just a regular conversation. Let's update that first sentence: being successful is hard mentally.
Isolation does have its advantages, especially in cases where the social circle constantly brings down the person. Working on any project or just having some peace and quiet becomes impossible when there's constantly someone shooting down your every move, thought and word. Note that monks have the system of withdrawing to solitary places to hear the word of God. Well, I'll just be blunt about it – social isolation warps the mind and can lead to hallucinations. I'm not saying God doesn't exist but simply that we know isolation reliably warps the mind. If you're all alone and ache for success, work on both your social and entrepreneurial skills or you'll regret it later on.
Successful people I had the chance to talk with all displayed the same signs of social rigidity, whereby they wouldn't care or even notice what the other person in the conversation was thinking or saying, they simply plowed on. Now, that's a great skill when applied to a business environment that's highly competitive and lacks empathy but if a successful person spends most of his time doing that, he'll be unable to relate to just ordinary people, getting trapped in his success bubble. So, becoming successful requires the ability to ignore what the social circle is saying and yet have a reliable person who is intimately acquainted with what's going on to give us advice. In other words, successful people have to have a mentor.
It's the most highly kept secret of success – having personalized guidance and a confidant in the form of a mentor helps the person achieve success without losing its mind. You'll only be able to dabble in success without a mentor, someone to correct you and pull you back to the right path. The trick is that the mentor and the pupil have to grow together or their relationship will become one-sided.