The irony of success is the successful people in the world spend their entire lives focusing on their own success not making excuses while the people that are not successful spend their time envying the ones that have success and make up excuses why they are not.

Being wildly successful in business comes at a cost.  If anybody tells you its easy they either inherited their success from their family or were handed a business on a silver platter.  If you are building a business from the ground up or climbing the ladder in your company you have to put in the work to get there.  There is no way around it.

The other day I was at a work event with a friend of mine.  He was telling me how he had just turned 30 and should be making $100,000 a year by now but he was only making half of that and he’s still pinching pennies.   Instead of diving into a conversation right there I just let it pass.   I ran into him again a few weeks later and asked him how work was going.   He said it was just work and nothing had changed.  I then told him a I had a few ideas on how he could make more money.  I started asking questions.

• Are you able to move up the ladder and take your boss’s job when he leaves, retires or gets promoted?
• Have you offered to take on more responsibility to lessen your boss’s work load?
• What if you put in 5 to 10 hours more a week to get a little bit more done?
• How can you sell more and generate more income within your company?
• Have you looked at working part time on the weekends?

His response blew my mind.  He said he has it pretty easy. He doesn’t manage anybody.  He only works 8 to 4 everyday.  Doesn’t work work weekends.  Doesn’t really want to have to work more hours, take on more responsibility or manage anybody.  I thought to myself “DID HE JUST SAY THAT?”  How in the world does somebody complain about money but then turns around and says that.

Unfortunately for him he will never make any more money and will always be stuck in a job paying him $50,000 a year because he’s not willing to work for it.  Success takes SACRIFICE, STRUGGLE, and PATIENCE.

He’s not willing to sacrifice anything to make more money.  Doesn’t want to work on the weekends.  Doesn’t want to manage people.  Doesn’t want to take on more responsibility.  With zero sacrifice he will never climb.

He’s not willing to STRUGGLE.  Let’s face it you must crawl before you walk.  Successful people struggle like everybody else.  They just pull through their struggles and keep going.  They aren’t waiting around for other people to pick them up off the ground when they get knocked down.

He has zero PATIENCE.  He wants everything now. Just because he’s 30 he expects to be making $100,000.  This might happen on Mars but not on planet Earth!

The moral of the story.  You must be willing to make sacrifices to be successful and endure through many struggles and then be patient to see the results.

Life isn’t easy.  Business isn’t easy!  Success will come to those willing to work at it.