Why Winners Win

3 Anything but ‘overnight'

Ask any successful person for their story and none will say they were an overnight success. Success is a journey. It's a journey many people have taken in the past, and you can take it as well.

There is no such thing as a natural-born anything. Some people have natural abilities, but they are only of advantage if you develop and use them. You might understand the winning qualities reviewed in the previous chapter, and know how to avoid the traps and pitfalls discussed in the chapter before it, but as with most things, knowing isn't enough. It's what you do with that knowledge that matters.

Catherine DeVrye writes in Hope as My Compass, ‘The only place for a “what-if” analysis is in a spreadsheet. There's absolutely no point being shackled by the past. Life is never about “what-ifs”, life is only about “what-is”. It's about what is happening now. What is my life like today?'

The four-step path

Winners win because they follow the four-step path of the success journey:

In the next four chapters, we'll look at each stage in more detail:

• Attitude: It all starts with the right attitude! This alone isn't enough, but it's an essential first step, because it gives you the internal motivation to keep going.
• Knowledge: The next step is knowing where you want to go and how to get there. This means having a blueprint (a ‘big picture') for your life, creating ...