The Secret Formula To Success Is… « Stanley Tang – The Journey of A Young Tech Entrepreneur

Jan 03 2009

The Secret Formula To Success Is…

The secret to success is hard work plus passion over time. The Secret Formula To Success It’s that simple.

You Have To Work Hard

There is no “easy route” or “get-rich-quick overnight”. Yes, there are some people who get lucky and make a fortune without working at all and provide little value to their customers, but those usually end up as fly by nights. If you are really looking for long-term success, hard work is really the key. There is no shortcut. Yes, there are ways which you can accelerate your pathway to success, like getting a mentor, good courses, books, softwares, leveraging others etc, but you still have to work hard. Entrepreneurs are probably one of the most hardworking type of people on the planet. There are no magic pills.

So if you are getting into business thinking its going to be easy (which was the mindset I had when I first got started – before I realized how dead wrong I was), let me tell you its not and you’re better off doing something else. If you keep working at something for long enough, then ultimately, you will win and succeed. You’ve just got to be persistent.

The Story of Colonel Sanders

A great example of this is Colonel Sanders, founder of KFC. He was 65 years old and was dead broke at the time. His only asset – a secret Chicken recipe. He knew he wasn’t going to make it on pensions alone, so he decided to travel across the country and tried to sell his secret recipe to restaurant owners. The first owner turned him down. The second turned him down. So did the third. And the forth. But he persevered and worked hard. He was rejected over 1,009 times before one finally agreed. Over 1,009 “No”s before he finally got 1 “Yes”. That’s the sort of persistence and hard work I’m talking about. And of course the rest was history.

Passion

Obviously, success goes hand in hand with passion. It’s really difficult to work hard and achieve success on something you hate doing because even if you do ultimately achieve success, you’re still going to be miserable. And that’s not really success.

Remember: (Hard Work + Passion) / Time = Success

16 Responses to The Secret Formula To Success Is…

Yuvraj Parwal January 3, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Couldn’t agree more. It’s not only the passion but also hard work.

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Steven January 3, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Your formula is great, and it’s true also.

Not just hard work, we need passion to be successful.

Have a nice day.

Steven
http://www.RichmanWorld.com

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Stew January 3, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Yep, You can’t chicken out when the going gets rough…and it will get rough. Without passion and drive you will not succeed.

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Sherry January 3, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Great post. Anything worth having is worth hard work. Colonel Sanders is a great example of someone who is determined to achieve his dream no matter what the odds. When the passion wanes it is time to revisit ‘why’ we are working so hard and refresh that passion.

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stanleytang January 4, 2009 at 5:36 am
Yup. Thanks for the comments Steven, Yuvraj, Stew and Sherry

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Josh Lam January 4, 2009 at 5:44 am
Another great blog post Stan

The Colonel Sanders story was inspirational

-Josh

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phemey January 4, 2009 at 1:32 pm
In the formula, I think we should mention the setting of a goal that we want to achieve. Without a goal, there is no way we can measure whether we have achieved success or not. For the sailor without destination, there is no favorable wind.

Phemey

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stanleytang January 4, 2009 at 2:29 pm
@Josh Thank you. Cool to see you around here Josh

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stanleytang January 4, 2009 at 2:30 pm
@phemey Goal setting… it’s interesting because not all of us define success as reaching a particular goal. To me, success doesn’t have to mean “make $1 million per year”, like a goal. It’s more about the passion, the freedom to do what you love, and the JOURNEY to that goal. The goal is just the destination.

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Raymond January 5, 2009 at 3:11 am
That’s good! Passion come from the heart and drive everyone to work hard.

I like the formula without “money”, people around me always equalize money to success, that should be the consequence only.

Thank you all, here is a good place to refresh myself.

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DC January 5, 2009 at 7:23 am
Absolutely! Success is about how well we understand and manage failures (risks). It would be impossible for us to work toward future goal (success) without first understanding what failures could strike anytime and how to manage them along the line.

Cheers!
http://www.optionsdiscovery.com

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stanleytang January 5, 2009 at 8:31 am
@Raymond Absolutely. For some, success is money. For me, it’s more about the hard work and passion

@DC Agree

Everybody seems to be having different views on what success is. I’m writing a blog post answering that question – What IS success?

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imMole January 6, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Excellent post Stanley. I completely agree with the passion aspect.

When I first got into internet marketing, I mostly went where I ‘thought’ the money was. (I’m still guilty of this now, from time to time.)

I can’t even count the number of websites I created which simply fizzled out because I simply began to detest and loath updating them, because they held no interest for me whatsoever.

It took me a very long time to finally realize that the true key was to apply a good, solid work ethic to niches which I actually enjoyed. (I don’t know why it took so long – so don’t ask!:))

It’s all about getting on the right track. You can work hard on the right track and go far, or you can work hard on the wrong track and get nowhere.

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