Successful people do things unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. They do things like keep on going when everything looks bad. Maybe they work after 5pm, into the evening, because there’s something that needs to get done. They don’t give up, even in the face of challenge.

I sold encyclopedias door-to-door when I was 19 years old. The first time I sold a set of books, I knocked on at least 100 doors, gave at least 10 presentations, and doors were slammed in my face. My presentations were terrible! I realized I didn’t know enough, so I studied more and more to get my presentation really good. Finally, I’d knock on maybe 10 doors and get one prospect. Then I’d give 3 or 4 presentations and sell to one person. Eventually I got a little better, so maybe I’d knock on 8 doors, and give two presentations and sell one of the two.

Successful people don’t call their mistakes rejection or failure. They see mistakes as success opportunities. If you ever start a business or get involved with anything – or even work for somebody else – be prepared for rejection.

As long as you’re prepared for rejection, you can easily overcome it, instead of being completely devastated.

Offer the best you can offer within your means. In other words, don’t have a fancy label but a lousy product. Or a fancy story for your service, and nothing by which to back it up. Success is not what you do, it’s how well you do what you do. A janitor that moves the table or chair when non one is there, sweeps underneath and cleans up as if someone is watching him every single minute – but he doesn’t do it because someone is watching him. He does it because that’s the thing to do. That’s an extremely successful person.

Successful people are willing to redefine their goals. They grow their performance by starting with a realistic objective in mind, taking their experience, learning from it, and doing it better the next time. In 1980, my partner and I started John Paul Mitchell Systems with $700. Our goal then was to build our business to $5 million per year. We thought that if we could each make a couple hundred thousand each, we’d be on top of the world! That was our goal. Then, as we started reaching that, we realized we could go a lot further than that. Our goal became $30 million. As we neared that, we realize we could make $50 million per year. It was right before my partner passed away that we had the ultimate thought: If only our company could do $100 million per year. Well, I surpassed that quite rapidly. I had figured out how to continuously strive for something greater. The key to success is to not be complacent and always to ask: What can I do to take it to the next step? You get sharper and smarter as you go along.

I like what I do, so what I’ve done is incorporated what I do into my lifestyle.

Recently, my wife, Eloise, my son John Anthony, and I flew to South Africa to do a photo shoot for John Paul Mitchell Systems. One of the groups that we are a part of in Africa feeds 8,000 orphans, ages 1 day old to 12 years old, whose parents have died of aids. We give them nutritious meals, shelter, and education. While we were down there, we brought some of the kids to the photo shoot to be in the shoot. So during this one trip we were able to have the family together, connect with our philanthropic business, travel to an incredible sight, and, of course, we had a few bottles of Patron around.

Everyone’s happy!

If you have it, you have to do something good for your community and the world. I am rarely motivated to get involved in causes by something somebody sends me in the mail. Almost everything sent to me is discarded because I get too much. But if along the way I run across something that move me in a particular way, I’ll do it. At some point, you realize you can’t help everybody.

Plus, there’s something in life called karma, and perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned, in which case the handout isn’t what is needed to learn the lesson.

And that comes from someone who’s been homeless. It’s important to be involved in helping others – physically as well as putting in money. Success unshared is failure.

The question to ask yourself when considering your success is: How far you’ve gone to get to where you are today, and how good you do what you are doing today. Now, what is your performance? Next time you do it better!