Wealth and success comes to those who vigorously pursue it. To illustrate, when perusing financial titan Stephen A. Schwarzman’s career, one finds his rise to the top as a byproduct of three things: intelligence, talent and hard work.

A product of Harvard Business School, Stephen Schwarzman began his career in financial services at Lehman Brothers, where he became managing director at age 31 and later on became the head of the firm’s global mergers and acquisitions team.

Fearless and seeking opportunities to grow, he and his associate Peter Peterson co-founded Blackstone Group with a $400,000 capital that went initially to mergers and acquisitions. Described by colleagues as someone with “enormous drive, self-confidence, ambition, integrity and desire to create a lot of things,” Stephen Schwarzman has proven his impressive leadership as he led Blackstone into one of the most challenging times for the financial industry. When Blackstone suffered the brunt of the financial crisis, he managed the firm with calm and resolve and saw the firm fare the crisis better than its competitors. It is a small wonder that in 2007, he was named One of the Most Influential People in the World by Time Magazine.

Apart from life in finance,