The root cause of your success?

One thing I’ve noticed about successful people is that they’re very protective of their brand. 

Whether it’s their personal name or their corporate face, they’re careful not to:

• Say yes to every opportunity
• Associate with anyone without checking their creds
• Say something in public that might damage their reputation
• Do work for nothing, or on the cheap
• Display their political or religious beliefs to the world

There are exceptions, of course, but they’re usually mistakes.

Nobody’s perfect.

Now here’s my question:

Do they behave like that because they’re successful, or did behaving like that MAKE them successful?