How important is character to success? The aspects of building yourself into a successful person really comes down to who you are and what you have created within yourself. When I talk to business students and entrepreneurs, people who want to get into business for themselves, who want to be successful, I always tell them it comes down to your work ethic and your character.
When I was younger, I always knew I’d be successful. I just knew it. I didn’t know at what, I just knew it would happen. From a very young age I would seek out successful people. I sought counsel from them and would ask, what made you successful, tell me your story.
When I was young and naïve, I really thought they were going to tell me about some secret formula for success. Maybe they would say hey I need a sharp kid like you. Maybe they would want to make me their protege and share the secrets to wealth in their business. Those thoughts were just part of being inexperienced, young, and naïve. But I continued to talk to people looking for the secrets of success. Over time I came to realize that it was the character traits of these people that started to kind of shine and manifest themselves. A pattern began to emerge that they all seemed to follow. Those were the little golden nuggets I was looking for. Amazingly, it all came down to character traits like their work ethic and their positive attitude.
One of my favorite topics on success is talking about character. My very favorite audience is young people starting out in what we sometimes call a dead-end job. There are three types of jobs. There is the dead-end job, the steppingstone job, and the dream job. Most of us start with a dead-end job flipping burgers somewhere or doing something small and relatively insignificant as a way to make money.
When I was a four-year-old kid I collected deposit bottles to earn money to buy candy. By the time I was nine I had earned money putting door bills (advertisements) on peoples’ doors, sold all occasion cards, and a paper route. I’ve always worked, and I appreciate the benefit of work. The reward of making money was really my motivation when I was younger. But what I discovered from the many successful people I tried to emulate is that they were successes in different aspects of business using specific character traits.
One of the questions I ask business students is, what is your job while you’re going to school. Answers vary – I work in a cafeteria, I work on the grounds crew etc. Each one knows it’s a small dead-end job. That it’s not their dream job and they won’t be in it forever. My next question is what type of employee are you? Now most of us when we’re in those type of jobs we don’t give a hundred percent or 110% because we really don’t have interest in that job. We may even give even less in effort than we are getting paid to do.
There’s a saying that when we work for someone else, we work just enough not to get fired and our employer pays us just enough, so we don’t quit. With that kind of attitude many of us aren’t very excited to go to work. According to a Gallup Poll 85% of full-time workers world-wide wake up Monday morning and hate going to their job. I believe it’s because they’re not in their dream job.
The next question I ask these students is what type of an employee are you? Whether you’re a grounds crew guy, you pick it up garbage, or you’re flipping burgers or any other menial task. What type of worker are you? Do you give a hundred and ten percent? Do you make that job the most important thing that you do during your shift? Or are you thinking out terrible the job is? Or how little the business pays you? Or anything else rather than the job itself?
I guarantee you that the business that you’re complaining about pays someone else more than you. You have to become the person they want to pay more. Build your character and be the best burger flipper out there. Be the best grounds crew or custodian or package guy or whatever you’re doing. It doesn’t matter what the job is, be the very best. Give that employer more than they’re paying you for. You will be surprised at the opportunity that will open up for you!
Having been an employer of many employees I know that employers are always looking for superstars – people who give a 110%. Most employers will pay handsomely to keep a great employee. It may not be your dream job, but it is preparation for your dream job. We develop our skills and attitudes towards work wherever we work. The great thing about it is you don’t have to be in this dead-end job for the rest your life. Give it your all now to develop those character traits that are going to transform into a steppingstone job and eventually your dream job.
Someone’s going to recruit you. Someone’s going to pay you a lot of money because they see the crazy work ethic you have. Or you’re going to start your own business and that work ethic, that character trait of working hard, of giving more then you’re being paid is going to translate into something very very powerful that very few people possess.
The reason why successful people are in the minority is because successful people are willing to do those things and put forth that effort that everyone else is not willing to do. Everyone else comes up with excuses for why they don’t give a hundred and ten percent. I don’t have enough education, skills, connections. It’s out of my control. It’s someone else’s fault. When we deflect all the responsibility to others we are not in control. We’re not in charge. We blame others because we don’t want to take responsibility for our choices.
You can change today. Tomorrow when you go into work you can be a totally different person. You can change the way you see your job if you have a target of where you want to go. In my coaching series I teach you exactly how you can see opportunity. I will show you how you can take the things that you currently have in your life. The relationships, experience, sphere of influence, influencers in your life that you can actually use to build a business. If you’re interested in changing your life regardless of your age, your gender, or your socio-economic situation I can show you how. It’s all within you. You just have to see it for yourself. Remember success is never an accident.
