Luck has an affinity for survivors and enmity for quitters.
After researching the stories and backgrounds of the 177 self-made millionaires in my study, I came to admire them.
I found it amazing that so many of them were a hairs breath away from financial ruin. They put every dollar they had and leveraged every asset they owned to fund their dream. Many went even further. They borrowed from friends, family and anyone else who would lend them money.
If you were to look at the balance sheet of any self-made millionaire, right before they turned the corner, you’d throw up your lunch. And these eventual self-made millionaires had to look at that balance sheet all the time while they were pursuing their dream.
Just imagine having zero assets and piles of mounting debt as your constant companions. Now imagine having to look at the balance sheet year after year, which seems to do nothing but continue to deteriorate. Perhaps worse than your bad balance sheet is the uncertainty that plagues you every day along your journey.
The pre-millionaire self-talk goes something like this:
“How will I get through next month?”
“When will I turn the corner?”
“When will I finally get lucky?”
“When will all this uncertainty end?”
“What more do I have to do?
How do they do it? How do they survive the near-financial Armageddon and the never ending uncertainty? How do they find the strength to persevere?
Balls of steel. Courage. Call it what you will but those self-made’s knew one secret to success that all hard core entrepreneurs eventually figure out – you must find a way to survive until you succeed.
As I’ve written often, the #1 factor to success is luck. You must get lucky. But luck, real life-changing luck, takes time. For some self-made’s , life-changing luck comes sooner, but for the average run of the mill self-made millionaires, luck can take years.
That luck, however, only visits survivors. This is why it is imperative that you figure out a way to survive. Survival buys you time for luck to occur.
About Thomas C. Corley
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