Business View Magazine - April 2016 117
with a laundry list of principles, or a menu of pithy say-
ings, or a mish-mash of equally ambiguous bromides.
In fact, quite often, success comes almost as an after-
thought. That is not to suggest that hard work, focus,
and forward thinking are not its handmaidens. It’s just
that, many times, the successful businessperson who
winds up successful finds him or herself looking back-
wards, simply to notice a time, an incident, or a situa-
tion that has changed the paradigm and launched them
on their own particular road to greatness.
Recently, BVM posed the following question to several
company founders, presidents, general managers, and
CEOs from many different industries and sectors, ask-
ing them to take a glance at the road they’ve been on –
just to see if there was a signpost there that gave them
the precise direction to follow:
“Can you point to a defining moment in your life or
career that you feel had the biggest impact on your
success?”
The answers we received were all very revealing. And
furthermore, they suggest, as we had anticipated, that
everyone does, indeed, take his or her own path to suc-
cess. Herein are ten responses to the question – all dif-
ferent, all personal, and all worthy of reflection:
“For me, it was the knowledge that I acquired through
