Is it possible to achieve success and eminence in any career, especially one in the City, commerce or industry, without having a type A personality, the distinctive character usually associated with material success? Those who are not meeting their own aims develop a sense of failure and become anxious, stressed and depressed.

In the past some people were born to greatness or had it thrust upon them; now it has to be achieved. It is possible for someone to be so clever that they will be welcome in a company, and that their brains alone will ensure that they have a passport to comparatively high office and an excellent salary. If they are phlegmatic, laid back and sanguine it is likely that the top jobs will evade them, however clever they may be, unless they have something as well as their intellect to offer.

Success goes to those who are ambitious and prepared to take risks with their own life and prosperity and that of others. They have immense curiosity and are driven. They are people who are goal-orientated, ruthless rather than passive, dominant rather than submissive and confrontational rather than compromising. Charm and manipulative skills are usually the first weapons unsheathed in any battle for the top so that aggressive characteristics are often well hidden by a covering of charm. Any fiery, assertive side to their nature is exposed only when the going gets rough. As my grandmother used to remind me, as pesky insects whirled around us on a picnic “sugar catches more wasps than vinegar”.

An educational psychologist I worked with in Norfolk expressed much the same sentiment when he said that highly intelligent but otherwise normal children were often loners until they were 16. At about this age they learn that having a captivating manner with well developed social skills, and the friends that stem from it, ease the way to the top and help them to rise further than does sullen aggression.

People may envy those who have wealth and power. If they knew them better, however, they wouldn’t covet so much. It is satisfying to sit in the chaffeur-driven car; the sadness is that these personalities might be happier if they were humble enough, or had enough insight to know that time spent in the consulting-room chair would be more productive.

The envious second eleveners might not have flourished in the competitive atmosphere of both home and school that was the inevitable consequence of being born in an ambitious household and having brains. Had they been more intellectually endowed they might not now have a happy, domestic life with well-orientated, balanced children. So focused is the would-be achiever, however, that friendships, sexual relations, even families, are unintentionally sacrificed as they struggle to become pack leaders.

Unconscious gestures betray the true colours of a person with a type A personality. All revealing is their impatience with mundane, everyday activities, human frailty and those who are unhelpful to them as they strive to reach the chairman’s seat at the board, and have the prettiest woman beside them in bed.

Unless any emotions showing boredom are carefully controlled and gestures that display it are suppressed, the finger tapping, fast talking and dominating speech will indicate the great amount of stress and strain that burden the ambitious. Quick questioning will usually demonstrate whether someone has a type A personality. Is multitasking their way of life? Are there not enough hours in the day for their life? Do they dominate the conversation and always bring it back to what they want to talk about? Do they subconsciously select friends and sexual partners because they will be useful to them? How many near-misses do they have when they drive?

The average successful man may claim to enjoy domestic life and plan an idyllic retirement. In fact he enjoys it for a day or two because of the enforced rest and the pleasure of playing the role of father, husband or host. Often it is all more of a fantasy than reality. Soon he will need his office kingdom as surely as an addict needs his next fix. Success is an aphrodisiac that attracts partners, but having netted them the successful man may find that they are as much use as a comb is for the bald.

The stress of his life increases prolactin and reduces cortisol hormone levels; it plays havoc with testosterone and DHEA sulphates (a precursor for both testosterone and oestrogen). The successful executive may be impotent or have a low sperm count.

They may be infertile or even anorgasmic, but then you can’t have everything. The hope is that a new Bentley is some compensation.

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