Third rung: Expect to Win. Develop a plan for your success.

 

First rung:	Decide on your dreams and goals.
Second rung:	Reinvigorate your thinking. How you think is everything.
Third rung:	Expect to Win. Develop a plan for your success.
Fourth rung:	Action. Take action. Pursue your dream plan with courage and determination.
Fifth rung:	Make it happen. Never, never, never give up.

Third rung: Expect to Win.  Develop a plan for your success.  

You can’t win at anything unless you are committed to win.  Winning requires a firm belief as well as the iron will to succeed.  Steven Covey once said,

“Private victories precede public victories”.

 

He went on to say greatest challenge is to first win within ourselves.

When I joined the Tom James Company in 1974, Mr. Jim McEachern was president.  To this day he remains one of the greatest influences in my life.  I often heard him say,

“I will build a 100 million dollar company by 1993”.

In fact, he started talking about building a 100 million dollar company in 1966 when our sales were only twenty five thousand dollars for the entire year.  These were not simply spoken words.  He was convicted to this cause.  Nothing distracted him; he pursued his commitment with utmost conviction.  I recall, at that time, the resignation of one of our top producers, and I asked Jim as to how this would affect his 100 million dollar goal.  He looked at me and said

“My goal is unconditional, unwavering.  Even if everyone in the company quits today, I will start over and still achieve 100 million dollar goal by 1993”.

Jim was so driven to achieve his goal that he had a label sewn inside all his coats which said, “I ain’t quitting.”  By Jim’s exemplary example and leadership, along with his belief and expectation to win, the Tom James Company reached 100 million in sales by 1994.

Some of our nation’s most successful people were considered failures in their early life.

• When Thomas Edison was a boy his teacher told him he was stupid.
• A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he had no good ideas.
• Issac Newton did poorly in grade school.
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
• Beethoven’s music teacher once said of him “as a composer he is hopeless”.
• Will Kellogg left school after 6^th grade because he was branded a slow learner.

Will Keith Kellogg invented corn flakes in 1898.  It became one of the most popular types of cereal which changed the way Americans ate breakfast.  He was born in Battle Creek, Michigan.  Growing up, he was a shy boy, had very few friends, and had no specific interests or hobbies.  His teachers noted that he was not academically gifted nor did he display any particular talent.  By consensus, they thought of Will as a poor student.  This led Will to drop out of school when he was 14.  He then went to work for his dad selling brooms.  After doing so for eight years, he decided to work for the nationally famous Battle Creek Sanitarium, which was run by his older brother John Harvey Kellogg.  The sanitarium advocated exercise, proper diet and a healthy life style.  They often experimented with supplements supporting a healthy diet using nuts and grains.

John Kellogg did not treat his brother with much respect requiring him to shine his shoes, shave his whiskers and address him as “Dr. Kellogg”.  Although John lived lavishly, he paid Will only $87.00/month.  However, none of this deterred his desire to achieve.  While at the sanitarium with his brother, Will started experimenting with combining and processing grains into a cereal product.  Seeing how popular the cereal was with the patients, Will approached John.  He proposed that both brothers could market the cereal nationally; and reap great financial rewards.  John, however, elected to decline.

In 1906 at the age of 46, Will broke away from his brother and launched his own company which eventually became the world famous company, “Kellogg’s”.  In an interview Will Kellogg said “I never, at any period of my life, aspired to become wealthy.  I was, however, driven by a fierce competitive spirit to win.  I wanted to prove that regardless of my education, talent and background, I could succeed”.

What is the morale behind Will Kellogg’s story?  During my last 38 year career in sales, I have seen people with education and talent succeed and many who also failed.  In turn, I have seen people with no education succeed and fail.  However, I have never seen anyone fail if they were ambitious, confident, self-disciplined and of high character.  These are traits which anyone can cultivate as personal standards.  That is if they have the desire to achieve with failure being intolerable.

Calvin Coolidge once said,

“Nothing in the world can take the place of the will to win.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; un-regarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Till next time, Have a great week