The surprisingly easy secret to unlimited success

Tom Douglas gave the lunch keynote at a marketing conference in Seattle this past week, and over the course of 40 minutes shared the exact blueprint to his significant success.  Douglas has several popular restaurants in Seattle, a series of cookbooks, a line of cookware and dry rubs, has been featured on Oprah, Top Chef, Iron Chef and more.  He claims his success has come from three things:

1)      Quite a bit of luck

2)      Being a very good chef

3)      Lots and lots of hard work

As he explained examples of all three, it became clear his success is mostly about #3.  He’s a tireless worker, thinks about his business seven days a week, is aggressive about trying new things, learning from his mistakes, and staying on his feet.  He’s a self-taught chef without a college degree, yet he manages one of the most diverse and successful personal chef brands in the country.

He works hard.  Every day.  That’s basically it.  And he’s not alone.

Look at most individuals at the top of their game and industry, and behind them you’ll see years of hard work.  Long days, long nights, occasionally more time away from family than they’d like.

Yes, you need luck to get to the top.  But luck accelerates when you give yourself more chances to be lucky by working hard and executing often.

Yes, you need to be very good at what you do, but that often comes with repetition, focus, discipline and more hard work as well.

There are very few overnight successes.  There are very few easy roads.

The road you’re on today may very well lead to greatness and unlimited success if you stay on it.