Secret to Success

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Updated 9 years ago

Started Young and...

I started my career straight out of college working as a Systems Administrator for a local public library. While I enjoyed everyone and gained tons of work experience, I just didnt see the growth potential of my expectations (wealth + happiness) so I decided to go the entrepreneurial route. I met with two business associates and we worked for weeks putting together a business plan, strategy for obtaining customers, business name etc... and to make a long story short one of the business partners took all of our hard work and skipped town.

After going through that experience I made the worst mistake ever, I gave up on running a business full-time and decided to go work my way up the corporate ladder while still having a hustling spirit on the side. And to make things clear, working for Corporate America was not the mistake versus giving up on a personal legend (which I have continued but that's a story for another day). If you can only take away one thing from reading this remember - never give up after a failure as it’s nothing more than a pathway to something greater.

Within weeks I obtained a job within Corporate America and started getting promoted up the chain within 8 months (only by listening and learning from others who were promoted within 2-3 months after being hired). While giving up on my personal legend full time was a mistake working within Corporate America for the next 13 years (and counting) taught me some valuable lessons in servicing customers, working with and managing employees, financial decisions, making hard decisions for the overall good of the business and last but not least the lesson that making it in business is made up of 85-90% communication (written oral etc…) and 10-15% technical skill or job function.

Since reports, quarterly reviews, mid-year reviews, annual reviews, coaching reviews (ok you get the point) could get monotonous I decided to make up for it by studying people who were deemed "successful" or moving up the corporate ladder. These were anyone from VP’s who were laid off and found another job making six figures plus all the way to front line employees who started at the bottom and worked their way up multiple levels within the corporate ladder against all odds……

What I Found….

Each of the “successful” people I studied (no matter their level on the corporate ladder) all had one common trait, they believed in whatever the hell they wanted to do. You could tell them no, you could tell them they were not good enough (yes it happened), they were passed over due to politics and no matter what you did to them their belief in being successful was so strong that in the end nothing was left but for them to move forward towards whatever they wanted (inside or outside the company). After seeing this I then decided to study people who were “quote unquote” unsuccessful if that is even the right way to describe it and the results blew me away.

The same thing that made employees successful was the same exact thing which held certain employees back… it was all just a mindset. These employees had the skills, the education, the experience (sometimes even more than those who were moving past them) but when you spoke with them you could hear the self-doubt and negativity. When you would ask the “successful” employees why they didn't have something they would always look inwardly and talk about what they're working on to better themselves versus the unsuccessful employees who blamed everyone but their mindset and actions.

Long story short the key to all success starts with belief, you have to believe in yourself even if no one else in the world does. This is so important because your beliefs dictate your actions and any results you receive (personal or professional) is nothing more than a byproduct of your actions. There are things in this world we can’t control (I so wish I could stay awake for 72 hours at a clip) but the one thing we all have total control of is our thoughts and actions which will lead to results. If you are not receiving the results you're looking for don't focus on your actions but rather what you actually believe in since no action can take place without first being driven by a belief system.

Process for Success - Your BELIEFS drive your ACTIONS which in turn will give you RESULTS.

Hidden Secret: No matter how much success you achieve you'll never know it all so never stop learning, the day you stop learning is the day your downward progression begins. Of course WA is helping us all to avoid that ;)

I wish you all the best in all your endeavours!!!!

-- Troy N.