My story and my 4 Keys of Success

“How in the hell can I sneak into the car pool lane to cut down my commute time?”

This unlikely question was the catalyst in a long series of self examination questions that lead me to learn 4 primary keys to success.

As you read my short story on how I discovered these 4 key principles for success,

I want you to imagine what you would do if you tapped into your inner strength to conquer any challenge that you come across.

My background is in the video game industry, as a software engineer.

As a kid, I knew I wanted to make games when I grew up.

So, when I finished college with a bright and shiny computer science degree, I was ready to take my very expensive education and realize my dream.

At first, I was happy living the life of a real game developer…for about a few weeks.

That’s when I learned about “crunch time.”

Crunch time in game development is when you work 80-100 hours per week under intense pressure, scrutiny and sometimes threat of unemployment, all while trying to finish creating a game before the dead line.

Now, stay with me, things are about to get worse…

After pouring my blood sweat and tears into a game to ship it on time, but the company terminated my contract.

Of course after that getting let go, I felt like a failure, but after some time has passed, I found another game development job.

The new job itself was okay, but the thing is, you don’t have any control on any business decisions the company makes. After a year this job, the company out sourced all of our jobs overseas.

Fast forward to about a year and a half ago. I am at my 10^th different company in almost as many years.

I’ve been a part of so failed companies that I can smell bad business acumen.

I have a wife, a 2 kids, and a mortgage.

The long unemployment adds undue stress on your relationship with your spouse, while also being a great recipe for low self esteem.

Also, others start to pity you. The in-laws and extended family whisperer, gossip and maybe start rumors about you.

Its hard to see a way out.

But stay with me here, this is where the hero makes his return!

I started working at a job that paid me peanuts and was an hour drive away.

I saw my family less, I was always drained of energy because of the commute and I was feeling stuck.

I had to cut out other life pursuits like coaching and playing basketball.

It was during one of those dreadful drives home where I remembered a conversation I overheard my toddler son say to my wife.

He was showing her a picture of a drawing he made of the family. And ofcourse I had a big angry face.

“Is this how my son sees me?” I thought to myself.

That thought crushed me.

I realized that I was at a crossroad, so I asked myself:

“How in the hell can I sneak into the car pool lane to cut down time on this commute?”

I knew I needed to get home ASAP to fix things.

That’s when I noticed a few electric cars zipping by me in the car pool lane.

That’s when I said “I just need an electric car! The can use carpool lanes with only 1 driver”

I didn’t make a lot of money, and electric cars are still very expensive. And like a ton of bricks, it hit me.

The metaphorical hit was so large, I thought I was in a literal traffic accident!

“You cant get rich working for somebody else!”

From there, I also realized “I cant get job stability from somebody else!”

During those dark years, I was not changing or improving myself, I was just hopping from job to job hoping my situation would magically change.

Deep down, I felt like a failure even while employed.

Some people use failure to define who they are…and I was doing that for a while.

However, I decided to use “failure” as a stepping stone instead of an identity.

That’s how I developed the 4 keys of success

So, the first key to success is to understand “Failures are temporary, and are great learning opportunities.”

I remember hearing an old anecdote about Thomas Edison.

When he was asked about the many failed attempts to create a light bulb, Edison replied that he didn’t see them as failures, but as ways to NOT create a light bulb!

In other words, because of those past “failures” he was able to slowly hone in the correct way to make a light bulb.

I had to do the same!

To use failure as a lesson leads me to the 2nd principle of success: “Never stop learning or improving yourself.”

Expecting my situation to change is foolish if I never change myself.

That means, I cant keep doing the same things, thinking with the same mindset but expecting different results.

You want different (better) results? Be a different (better) person.

From there, I learned that to effectively change your mindset, you have to do what is my 3rd key of success: Building positive habits.

Since will power quickly runs out, the only way to make a real change is to make it a real habit!

Make your new change a part of your daily routine, and eventually, it will be hard to NOT do your change!

the 4^th key is Finding a good mentor and a good community or group of people who have the success you want.

Once I learned this, my personal development really took off.

While my friends and family are good people, they do not lead the type of lives I want to lead  or have the success I wanted, so I had to stop seeking their advice and approval.

When these things happened is the time I started side hustling and investing in my development and knowledge.

I started with land investing.