Because there's a bit of a feedback loop with success. If others see you as being successful or impressive (on whatever axis they care about), this attracts them to you, and having a more admirers increases your social power and influence, which gives you more opportunities and better chances of success in your future efforts.
This also explains patio11's formula for career success, which is basically:
Dude, this doesn't sound like fun at all. "Social power and influence" to what end? With whom are you getting this power and influence? Are these relationships even genuine?
> "this attracts them to you, and having a more admirers increases your social power and influence, which gives you more opportunities and better chances of success in your future efforts."
Reminds me of those "social climber" jokes about kids in high school. I guess if you've taken measure of yourself and found it matches up with the company you keep, there's nothing for anyone else to say.
Perhaps my explanation didn't adequately convey the subtlety of this phenomenon.
I am not saying that successful people are all social climbers. I am just saying that successful people naturally attract the support of people who want to learn from and take part in their success, and this greater popularity in turn increases their chances for future success. It's what you might call a virtuous cycle, or a snowball effect.
If you are successful at something, it is perfectly rational to want others to know it.
This isn't a secret, most people are aware of people whose "friends" are simply those who have skills or knowledge they want. In the context of what's important in life though, this drive for status and financial success might require examination. Especially when the people around you will disappear when there is nothing left to gain. If those are the majority of relationships in your life, it would be easy to lose sight of all the other awesome things in life aside from status and money. More importantly, you might realize the age-old problems with solely pursuing those things.
"You can't get everyone to genuinely like you, unless you're a snake, but then it's just an illusion. If you're lucky, (in this day and age) those you don't get along with will be polite.
Having all the money in the world is pointless if no one else has anything left to trade.
That's true but only matters if you have a value system that includes social power and influence among its values.
Someone whose core values are "I was there for my family whenever they needed me" is not going to care how many admirers they have. Someone whose core values are "I will respect and learn from other peoples' differences and not try to convert them to my way of thinking" is actively failing if they end up recruiting disciples.
This also explains patio11's formula for career success, which is basically:
10 Make something awesome
20 Tell people about it
30 GOTO 10