The Myth of the Overnight Success

"Oh, yeah! Success!"

We’ve all had those thoughts, those “Why not me” thoughts, those, “If only I had come up with that idea instead of him” thoughts.

They start innocently enough, we see an interview with Mark Zuckerberg talking about how many users Facebook has or hear about Richard Branson taking Virgin across the UK in a matter of months…both before their 30th birthdays.  You feel like you missed the boat, you [Read More…]

The Road to Success Step Three: Become Your Own Expert

It’s happened to all of us, we get so enamored with our idea for a great new product or goal or service, that we just go for it without a second thought.

We tell our friends, “I’m going to make a million dollars, because if I just sell to one out of every thousand people in China with a one dollar markup…” but we never stop to actually step back and see if our idea is supported by reality – will [Read More…]

The Tao of Shake Shack

Check out the following video featuring a speech by Randy Garutti, the COO of the cult-like burger joint Shake Shack, talking about his business, and more importantly his passion.  Listen closely and you’ll hear many of the lessons I preach here: focus on goals rather than abject success, do what you do best, simplicity, and making goals that matter to you in order to make yourself more accountable to achieving success.

It’s a really interesting speech with a lot in it [Read More…]

Success Isn’t Sexy (Or the “Restaurant Myth”)

If I asked you why you wanted to succeed, what would you say? Would it be because of some innate desire to prove yourself? Or possibly because you want to achieve a childhood dream?

What about because you think it will be sexy?

Before you jump all over my wording, imagine your ideal world AFTER you succeed.  Is it a world surrounded by dinners with well connected people, a $500k sports car in the driveway, and a former supermodel wife?

Now, obviously these [Read More…]

Turning your Failure into Success

That's not how you make a grilled cheese.

Failure…it happens to the best of us.

While talking with a friend today about a goal of his, I was reminded that if we’re going to talk about success, we inevitably have to talk about failure too.

…I know, it’s not a pretty subject, and it’s never fun to dwell on our failures, but maybe we should.

With the popularity of sites such as Failblog and [Read More…]

Defining Success (or Why not to Drink Lite Beer)

Lite Beer Neon Sign

These days it’s all too common to see supposed motivational gurus stress the individuality of personal successes.  They like to wax poetic on how “only you can say whether you have truly succeeded or failed.”  I’d just like to say that is complete bull.

Of course they’re not going to tell you whether you succeeded or failed – if they did, it would force them to be accountable [Read More…]