Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

I Have Cracked The Code

November 19, 2015

I finally figured it out. I cracked the code. I discovered – at long last – the secret to success.

God knows that I searched high and low. For years; decades even.

There was a time when I thought that it was a matter of luck; that success was reserved for those for whom the stars aligned; kinda like winning the lottery. I was pretty certain that birthright was important; that having a lineage of successful forebears really mattered.

I’m a big fan of higher education. Education had to matter, I thought. The right courses and seminars and workshops and trainings and certifications. Degrees; a lot of letters after your name. Those people with a lot of letters had a much higher probability of success… I was sure.

A good suit. A great logo. A flashy business card. A nice car. A jazzy website.

The right CRM and lead capture. Expensive hardware; cutting edge software. A really good VA.

Downloading the next free report; attending the next webinar; buying the next B school; discovering the right product; nailing the launch sequence; going to the next live event. The answer certainly had to be at the next live event… at that expensive, exotic destination with a lot of up-sell to that maxi-emerald-diamond-sassy-platimum-mastermind-secret handshake society. No doubt if I knew the secret handshake after having spent a lot of money at an expensive destination, I most certainly would find success.

Then… one morning I woke up; and even though I was tired and exhausted and depleted, I opened up my laptop to begin my day. My calendar was full of great clients; and my bank account was solidly in the black; and suddenly…in that moment… I realized that my business was… successful; that I had had the best month ever…. that I had found… at long last… success… .

I became curious. I looked back over the preceding years…. looking for the clues… and I found the one thing.

The code. The secret. That one ingredient that had eluded me.

Day after day over the preceding years, even though I was often tired and exhausted and depleted, I trudged to my laptop, opened it up… and… and… did the work.

It wasn’t sexy… in fact, on many days, it was downright painful.

But doing the work… day in and day out… that is the secret.

Aikido master George Leonard says that mastery comes from showing up on the mat every day… and staying 5 minutes longer than anyone else.

The Internet and various purveyors of “success” programs have done a huge disservice to entrepreneurs hawking solutions to business problems that promise instantaneous, overnight success.

The real overnight success has worked many overnights.

There is no question that having good mentors, coaches and guides make a huge difference in the rate of your business growth. And having a proven reliable system that you don’t need to re-invent really matters. (I learned and now have the privilege of coaching the Book Yourself Solid System®.) But I have built five businesses successfully from the ground up. And in the end, there is only one thing that matters.

One secret.

Showing up every single day. And doing the work.