How to Win

There are 4 things that make successful people:

1. Hard work. They are the ones that show up before everyone gets to the office and are the last ones to leave. They are the ones not goofing off and are constantly working on their A-game.

2. Best practices. Successful folks do what is tried and true. Sure, every now and then you need to try new things--but in the business of providing a service to customers, there are some basic principles that make successful organizations. You need to document what those principles are for your business, and then be better than your competition at implementing them.

3. Honesty. At the end of the day, you have to fall asleep on the pillow and know you did the right thing. There will be customers, employees, government officials that try and bring you down, but as long as you are honest, don't break the law, and don't fudge your numbers, you will succeed. Karma is a bitch.

4. Do what's necessary. This last one is hard. Your business will go through different stages of growth and decline. There will be times where you just want to give up, or things get hard and you find it easy to justify not doing what it takes to get the ball over the goal line. 2nd place is the first loser. It's easy to cut out for the day at 5 pm or 7 pm and say you'll get to it tomorrow. I can tell you that tomorrow sometimes never comes. Vince Lombardi said it better than anyone. Check out his speech below. Live by it and you will succeed.

What It Takes to be Number One | Vince Lombardi

Vince Lombardi's epically inspiring speech.