success secretsAs I was driving down Fairfax Ave in Los Angeles, I saw a billboard.

Reese Witherspoon was on the billboard. I thought to myself, that’s a cool, dynamic woman. And then I thought even deeper. You know what’s driven me my entire life since I was a kid; My biggest fear when I was a kid that drove me to always push myself to the limit was I didn’t want to be ordinary.

When I was growing up, I found my father very ordinary. I mean sure, he was charming at times, but his life to me was so ordinary. Every morning he woke up the same exact time. He took the same train to Manhattan, at 7:58 or the 8:10. He went into his office job being a stockbroker. Whenever he was presented with anything outside his ordinary, he never did it.

He played golf at the same time every single Saturday morning with the same T-time. He came home on the same train, either the 5:13 or the 5:28 arriving home at Mamaroneck at 5:58 or 6:13.

He got a new car every certain amount of years and he dressed ordinary. His friends were all ordinary. I found them boring.  Even as a kid when they talked to me, I thought to myself, “I don’t ever want to do this.” As a matter of fact, they used to ask me all the time during their boring, ordinary dinner party. “What do you want to do when you grow up?”

And I used to look at them and say, “Not this.”

I found it ordinary.

So the second I could leave and go to college; the second I got out of college and move to Manhattan, I chose to live an extraordinary life.  I saw my friends getting out of college. Graduating along with me and getting the job they were supposed to get. Becoming the lawyer they were supposed to be, becoming the banker they were supposed to be, becoming the finance guy they were supposed to be.

My whole life, I was never supposed to be anything. And what always drove me to success was I had the fear of being ordinary.

The Secret To My Life Success

My number one success secret is that, I never wanted to be ordinary.  I never wanted to just be that guy that has a stable life who did everything by the book, who vacationed in the same spot every single year.  That never appealed to me at all.  What appealed to me was living an extra ordinary life. I wanted to be taking chances, and taking risks.

A life where I was able to do things and accomplish things that other people only dreamed of.  And even to this day, right now, I still push myself every single day.  I push myself to be extra ordinary because still, being ordinary scares me.  It’s still a driving force in me.  Even though I’m successful and I have so much of what I want, I don’t ever want to be ordinary and it still drives me to this day.

That is my number one success secret. And I wanted to share it with you today. So let’s talk. What drives YOU right now? And if you don’t have anything driving you, it’s time to get something!