Editor's note: In today's Master Series essay, our friend Mark Ford – founder of The Palm Beach Letter – shares a priceless insight into success... what separates those who succeed from those who struggle.
Mark is a serially successful entrepreneur. He built his personal wealth by launching and growing businesses in fields as diverse as services (roofing, house painting, pool building), retail (restaurants, art galleries, a martial arts dojo), direct marketing, and publishing.
As he explains in the following essay, the secret to succeeding in nearly any activity is having the right mindset... It's not something you must be born with. It's something you can learn. As Mark describes, the clichéd "mindset of a champion" isn't necessary to achieve success. For Mark's unconventional take, read on...
The Mindset of a Champion
By Mark Ford
Do you have the mindset of a champion?
Are you able to look at your career challenges and feel certain you can overcome them? Do you feel, like Mohammed Ali and Michael Jordan must have felt... that you have greatness in your soul?
If your answer is "no," don't worry. I don't have that mindset either.
I never did. I never felt like a natural-born winner. I never had the confidence that the people I admired seemed to have.
I doubted I could ever fully understand anything about business when I started writing about it in 1976. Just back from a two-year stint in the Peace Corps, I got a job with a newsletter called African Business & Trade. I remember looking at that name on the door my first day and thinking, "What is the difference between business and trade?" I learned fast.
My next position was as editorial director for a newsletter publisher in Florida. I had half a dozen freelance writers reporting to me. My job was to edit and polish their work. But I could barely understand what they were talking about: robotics, practice management, and agribusiness. How could I presume to tell them what to do? Again, I learned fast.
When I set out to market my own investment newsletter, I was nearly paralyzed with fear. I was not just worried about failing. I was sure I would. But I was proven wrong once again. That publication earned millions of dollars in its first year. Today, it has mushroomed into a $70 million publishing franchise.
When I first retired at 39 and spent my days writing poetry and fiction, I didn't imagine for a moment that I'd get any of it published. But in the 12-14 months that I did that writing, about a dozen of my stories and six poems were published in literary magazines. Three of them won prizes.
In 1992, Bill Bonner asked me to help him grow his publishing business. I took the job because he made me an irresistible offer. A year later, sales had jumped to $24 million. He asked me if I thought we could eventually be a $100 million business. I remember telling him, "I'd be thrilled if we can keep sales as high as they are. My best guess is that we will get smaller next year, not bigger." But we did get bigger. And when we hit that $100 million target, I said, "Let's just be happy with this." Ten years later, our revenues topped $500 million and our profit margins had doubled too.
When I got back from the Peace Corps, I had a $400 car and about $300 in savings. Today, I live in two multimillion-dollar mansions, have tens of millions of dollars in the bank and brokerage accounts, and interests in businesses with a combined value of well more than $20 million.
So I know that you can be successful without thinking like a champion. I know it's possible to accomplish amazing things.
I'm telling you this in case you, too, are full of doubt and fear. I want you to know that you don't necessarily have to change your "attitude" to be a winner.
I tried to change. I read the books and studied the tapes. I shouted mantras while driving and repeated positive affirmations at myself in the mirror. I did it all, but it didn't change the way I felt. If I'd had to wait till my attitude changed, I'd be waiting still.
Instead, I found something different. I call it the Secret Path for the Timid. It is a low-key, back-door strategy that I believe will work for anyone.
The success I have had came from two very simple ideas:
- If I didn't have an abundance of natural talent, I could make up for it by working harder to acquire the skills I needed.
- If I didn't have the natural genius to come up with great ideas, I could find out what rich and successful people were doing and imitate what they did.
When I took that job with African Business & Trade, for example, I spent hours every evening in the library, studying the subjects I was writing about. I never told my boss I was doing that because I didn't want him to know how ignorant I was. I simply put in twice as many hours as the other writers. And slowly but surely, I began to know what I was talking about. Eventually, I was as good as any writer on the team.
When I started writing my first sales letter, I hadn't the faintest notion of how to do it. So I spent weeknights and weekends reading every successful sales letter I could get my hands on. I copied lines that caught my eye. I made notes about how the sales pitches were structured. I studied how the offers were designed – the pricing and premiums and guarantees that made those great sales letters so effective.
Gradually, I learned what I needed to know. The mysteries that had befuddled me as a beginner became clear.
With each small success, my confidence grew. But it was not confidence in myself. It was confidence in the process of working hard and emulating success.
Years later, after I had built many businesses and acquired wealth, people began treating me like a champion. They assumed I had natural-born talents they lacked.
Part of this was my fault. To motivate the people who worked for me, I put on the mask of a champion. I pretended to be undeterred by any problems.
I now believe I was wrong to do that. In an effort to motivate them, I was doing the opposite. I was unwittingly suggesting that to accomplish what I had accomplished they had to have my confidence and courage.
I should have told them the truth: that my accomplishments came slowly and painstakingly. The reality was that I was a natural-born entrepreneurial dimwit. I should have admitted that. I should have explained that my success was the result of mule-like hard work and monkey-like imitation.
The point is that I don't believe you need the mind of a champion to be successful. You need to do only two things: Work harder than all those who are competing with you. And imitate the actions of successful people you admire.
If you do that, you will have the success you yearn for. As a bonus, you will have acquired courage and confidence, too.
With each small success, your mind and heart will grow incrementally braver and more confident. Eventually, you will wear the mask of a champion. But when that happens, remember to take it off in front of those you love and care about.
Editor's note: The same principles Mark prescribes for succeeding at business also apply to investing. But there are certain insider secrets. He's found ways for the "little guy" to retire comfortably rich – even if you're over 50 years old and have less than $250,000 in personal savings to your name. Click here to learn more.