In the Spring of 1944, a boy who we’ll call J.P. was born to immigrant parents in a rough neighborhood in the heart of Los Angeles. Before J.P. was two years old, his parents divorced, his mother struggled financially, and by the time he was nine years old, J.P. was out on the streets looking for a way to help his mom make ends meet. Newspapers, flowerpots, Christmas cards- you name it, he most likely tried to sell it. When his mother could no longer take care of J.P. and his brother, the boys were placed in a foster home.

As a teenager with no parental guidance, J.P. fell into the wrong crowd, joined a local gang, and struggled to pass his classes as a student at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. One day in 11^th grade J.P.’s high school teacher caught him and his friend Michelle goofing-off and passing notes in class, and proceeded to make them both stand up in front of the room while he proclaimed; “See these two? Don’t hang around them because they’re not going to amount to anything. They’ll absolutely never make it in any business.”

J.P. may have not realized it at the time, but moments like that are what start to create our life habits: successful ones but also bad ones that can hold us back from our full potential. J.P. could have said to himself: “I’ll never amount to anything.” But he said, “The hell with that guy, I’ll prove him wrong.”

J.P. developed his first success habit on one of his very first jobs. He said, “I worked all of my life, starting from nine years old. I had things like paper routes at eleven years old that I continued throughout high school. I even worked for a while at the local dry cleaner sweeping the floors and doing odd jobs for an owner that was so tight with money that he squeaked when he walked! I was working as hard as I possibly could for a mere $1.25 per hour. Then one day after school he called me over and said, ‘last night I looked behind the cabinets and there was no dust! Then I picked up a rug, no dust! You clean this place as if I’m watching you every minute!’ I said, ‘You hired me to clean and my job is to do the best I can.’ He was so pleased he gave me a raise to a $1.50 an hour. For him to do that, it was like I won an Academy Award. And to be honest, I learned an important lesson from this period of my life. Successful people, whether they’re working for somebody else or working for themselves, do whatever they do to the best of their ability-as if the boss is watching them every minute of every day. I learned that in everything you do, always do your best.”