What determines how your life will be?

From The Brookings Institution:

"In addition to the thousands of local and national programs that aim to help young people avoid these life-altering problems, we should figure out more ways to convince young people that their decisions will greatly influence whether they avoid poverty and enter the middle class. Let politicians, schoolteachers and administrators, community leaders, ministers and parents drill into children the message that in a free society, they enter adulthood with three major responsibilities: at least finish high school, get a full-time job and wait until age 21 to get married and have children.

Our research shows that of American adults who followed these three simple rules, only about 2 percent are in poverty and nearly 75 percent have joined the middle class (defined as earning around $55,000 or more per year). There are surely influences other than these principles at play, but following them guides a young adult away from poverty and toward the middle class."

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/

I didn't have a particularly "rough" childhood or anything, but we were pretty poor when I was growing up and my family didn't have any particular connections to help with a leg up.

I started working at a young age. When I was in rural Nebraska, I had a walking paper route at the age of 10 and also mowed lawns in the summer and spent a season detaasseling corn. I moved to New Mexico when I was 13 and it was a little harder in the city, but I did random yard work for neighbors and people at church. When I was 15 I got my permit to work and started working at a roller skating rink and later a movie theater until I graduated high school.

I joined the military out of high school as I didn't really feel ready for college and didn't really know what I wanted to do or be. When I left the military I started back to school at a community college; I worked full time and took classes at night. It was slow going with only being able to take a couple of classes per semester. When I finally got to the point of having to transfer to university to finish my education, I went to part time work during the school year to better focus on getting school over and done. I did have to take out some student loans to accomplish this and supplement working less, but I kept it to the bare minimum that I could.

I graduated when I was 30 and consolidated all of my loans with an educational loan foundation at a low interest rate. As an accounting graduate I started working as a staff auditor with a CPA firm. I also married my long term girl friend at this time. My wife and I also decided to delay having children to focus on building our careers and just enjoy some "us time" and being newly weds. I worked for the firm for 6 years and worked my way up to a senior associate. At that point, my wife was pregnant with our first and we both thought it was time to move on from public accounting given the hours I had to work and the amount of time on the road I had to spend. She didn't want to feel like she was raising our children on her own, and I didn't want to miss out on them growing up.

For any newly graduated accounting major I would highly recommend spending some time in public accounting as a financial auditor. It is an absolute grind, but you learn many more aspects of financial accounting than if you were to just go work for a private business and get stuck in the A/P department for years. Given the nature of being a financial auditor, I also made a lot of connections with people in various industries, so it was also great for networking. That networking is how I happened upon the opportunity to be where I am now and have been for the last 11 years as a Controller/CFO.

It was all very much worth the effort, the long hours, and the 25 weeks per year on the road. I'm still married to my beautiful wife and we have two outstanding young boys of 9 and 11 and those are the most important things in my life. We also both do well financially which is a delicious gravy, but not necessarily how we define our success.

I believe it's subjective because "success" means different things to people. For some it's money, some relationships, some meeting a lifelong goal (say climbing Mt. Everest), etc.

While I believe that anyone can achieve what they want that's reasonable, HOW hard it is for them varies. For some it comes easy and for others, they may struggle.

I worked in sales organizations where all they thought about was money and that was the sign of their success. I worked long hard hours and really didn't enjoy that much, but did it for 12 years because I thought money defined me.

Later, I decided to go after my passion........health and fitness. And that's what I do today. I LOVE MY JOB. The hours I put in don't seem hard or crazy even though I may work 45 hour a week or more. I'm not rich doing it, but I live within my means and am quite happy. Stress is super low and I come to work enthusiastic every day. How many people can really say they totally love what they do for a living?

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Just five things that I strongly believe influence success in anything.

I read a fantastic book by Jo Boaler called Limitless Mind. Most people look at the book and believe that it's geared toward teaching. It's actually a book on how your mind learns and how it's "limitless" if you believe that you learn from mistakes, welcome mistakes and learning plateaus, understand you will get through it eventually, learn collaboratively and believe that you can do it. Should be required reading for every teacher and high school student because it applies to life and it's all science based.

Years ago, they did a study with kids and followed them for years. The ability to put off instant gratification was the highest trait in those with the most success. That's something that's sorely lacking in today's parenting. We give kids (immediately) whatever the hell they want. That's actually child abuse in my honest opinion. You're setting your kids up for failure. Teach them, instead, good things come with sacrifice, hard work and patience. Make them wait on things. Don't hand them cell phones at 2.

Stanford University did a study years ago following people that did goal planning versus those that didn't. Those that did were widely more successful than those that didn't following them for around a decade (I believe). I've always been a strong believer in five year planning. Start with where you want to be and work backward. Franklin Planner seminars are great. Panda Planner is also a wonderful tool.

A support structure starting with parenting. Present parenting. Enough said. Give your kids at least a moral compass for starters. A strong community structure can certainly replace parents that aren't there.

Ability to communicate. And, I believe, this can be learned. My wife wasn't particularly good at school (she was dyslexic and it never got diagnosed). In adulthood, she's learned to spell, studied vocabulary, even taken up a lot of reading. I was a terrible/petrified public speaker. I joined Toastmasters and learned to communicate in front of others. After five years, I was the best speaker in my club. I was horrific to start and that's not an exaggeration.

I'm sure there's more but one other that comes to mind (I see this all the time as a high-level recruiter for over two decades) -- conflict resolution skills. I don't know where these went, but they are sorely, sorely needed in business. It's the most common ability I see lacking in the workforce, whether it's laziness, no one has ever taught them, intentional avoidance or immaturity. But people cannot address difficult decisions and confront others and tell them honestly and openly how they feel and that's a real shame. That's how things progress.