Mark Zuckerberg shared some simple advice for success: Don't give up

Everyone knows the story of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who co-founded Facebook, dropped out of college and by age 23, thanks to the site's success, became a self-made billionaire.

He's almost 31 now (his birthday is in May) and his wealth has grown substantially, worth about $37 billion today.

So when he hosted an impromptu Ask-Me-Anything session on Facebook last week, it's not a surprise that someone asked him "What's the most important secret of success?"

He replied simply, "Don't give up."

That advice is tried and true, though we'd argue that not giving up can be either a virtue or a curse, because, as the saying goes: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

So, if at first you don't succeed, change something and try again. But Zuck is right. If you stop trying, by definition you can't be successful.

Still, when it comes to some of the best advice we've ever heard on the secret of success, we like what Steve Jobs said back in a video interview he did in 1994: Don't be afraid to ask to help.

"I've never found anybody that didn't want to help me if I asked them for help," Jobs said. "Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask. And that's what separates the people who do things from the people that just dream about them."