UlTImATE SUccESS GUIdEThe most important quality you need in starting and building your own
successful business is courage. Like the Starship Enterprise, you have
to have the courage “to go where no one has ever gone before.” You
must have the courage to step out in faith, and take risks with no guar-
antees of success. When you embark on your first business venture, you
will feel like you are the first person who has ever done it. And in a
certain sense, you are.
sUCCess In AMeRICAIvan Sergevitch emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States
about five years ago. He did not speak a word of English when he ar-
rived. He had everything he owned in a cardboard box tied up with
string. For his first year in America, he lived in the “Little Russia” dis-
trict of New York. He made his living delivering pizzas out of a Russian
pizza parlor to Russians in the neighborhood who spoke his language.
But he was determined to get a piece of the American dream. Through-
out his first year, he studied English as well as American business and
success ideas. After one year of delivering pizzas, his English was good
enough for him to get a job selling printing services to businesses. In
his third year, he started his own business as a printing broker and sold
one million dollars worth of printing, earning a 20% commission on
sales. The next year, he sold two million dollars worth of printing and
earned $400,000 dollars. In his fifth year in America, he sold three mil-
lion dollars worth of printing and earned more than $600,000 dollars for
himself. He now lives in a beautiful house and drives a Mercedes-Benz,
his long-term goal.
no lIMIt thInkIngA Vietnamese couple, who had escaped from Vietnam by boat to Thai-
land, arrived in the United States a few years ago, penniless. The only
person they knew was a cousin who had a small bakery in Houston. He
took them in and gave them minimum wage jobs working in the bakery.
But he was getting older, and he told them that if they could come up
with $30,000, he would sell them the bakery. That became their goal.
They lived in the back of the bakery, sleeping on flour sacks. They sent
their two children to the local schools. They got up at 3 o’clock in the
morning and worked 14 and 15-hour days. Between them, they earned