John Paul DeJoria defines success as mastery and consistency, not money. As a janitor at Stuart's Cleaners, he swept so thoroughly the owner found no dust and gave him a 25¢ raise. He argues successful people work like someone important is always watching.
Chapters
Success is not how much money you have, which a lot of people equate to success. Success is how well you do what you do. How well do you do what you do? And do you continue doing it that well? Do you master mastering something is doing it extremely well, but doing it that way every time, and then having the ability to grow from there and realizing success and shared as failure. Now, how can a janitor be extremely successful? I'll take a quick minute with a quick story. Worked all my life, from 7 years old and then paper routes at 11 years old. Throughout high school. I worked for a while at Stuart's Cleaners. I'm the guy that swept the floors, put the little drape on the hanger and just did all the work after school and on Saturdays. And Stuart was so tight, this guy squeaked. They paid me a dollar and a quarter an hour because he had to or he'd give me 75 cents an hour. Anyways, one day after school, he calls me and says, johnny, come over here. He says, last night I was working late. I went up to my mezzanine to lay on my cot for a few minutes, and I took my watch off, put it on the table, dropped on the floor. So I went down there to pick up my watch and looked under the cot, and there was no dust. Well, the cot's light. I moved it. No dust. Look behind the cabinet, no dust. Picked up a rug, no dust. You clean this as if I'm watching you every single minute. But, Stuart, that's my job. You hired me to it. And my mom, growing up, taught the boys how to clean. I know how to clean. So my job, which I like, my job is to the best job I can. Whether you tell me or not, that's my job. He was so touched. He said, johnny, I'm giving you a 25 cent an hour raise to $1.50 an hour. Oh, my God. For Stewart to do that, it's like, wow, I won the Academy Award. But the lesson learned is this, successful people, whether you're working for somebody else or working for yourself, do whatever you do, as if whoever's really involved is watching you every single minute. Do.
