By Hucky Austin
There are no magic pills that you need to take to become successful in the Executive Protection Industry. To put it simply, it’s just hard work nothing more nothing less. Have you heard of the saying, “Work hard now and play later?” This phrase holds great meaning. So many individuals are unwilling to put forth the effort needed to succeed in this field.
Let me explain. In order to succeed in this EP industry or any industry for that matter, you must have the desire and hunger to achieve your goal. And by the way, your goal is to obtain continuous employment in this field. One of the biggest reasons individuals are not successful in this industry is Laziness.
I speak with at least 10 individuals a week, who expect me or someone like me to not only take them to the water, but they also expect me to drink it for them as well. In other words, they count on me to hand over all of my secrets to them so they don’t have to put in any hard work. This is a simply, without doubt, called laziness. Laziness is not a characteristic that will lead to successfulness by any means. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about.
A few months ago I received a call from someone. He said, “Harlan I’m frustrated because I am having a tough time finding work.” Now I remember giving him a list of 10 things to do to find work. So I start to ask him questions from the list, and to be discrete, let’s call him Carl for the purpose of this article. I asked him, “Carl, did you start on your contact list?” His answer was no. I then asked him, “Carl, did you plan out your week for contacting potential clients?” He again said no. I said, “Did you get your business cards made?” As the above answers, he said no. So I stopped and asked him, “Did you do anything on the recommendation list I provided to you?” His responded by explaining that he was planning on doing it but things continuously came up that prevented him from completing the items on the list. It quickly became obvious to me that Carl’s problem was just pure laziness. So I said to him, “You know what your problem is?” He goes on to ask me what is his problem. I said, “Well first, I have some news for you, Good News and Bad News. Now the bad news is you’re lazy.” As you might imagine, he didn’t take that very well. So he goes on to ask me what is the good news. I simply told him, “There is a cure for laziness, its called tenacity.”
“Tenacity” is described as one who is persistent, one who continues to move forward and does not give up, which is the resolute determination to succession within this field. For example, you sent out a resume on a hot job prospect. Assuming you are indeed qualified and follow directions well, the most important thing to understand in this industry of executive protection, as in any industry you must be unwavering in your pursuit to find lucrative employment. A lot of people want to do this kind of work, but most give up too easily. You hear stories all the time about people who submit manuscripts and are rejected. A good example is one from Jack Canfield, motivational speaker and creator of the “Chicken Soup For the Soul” series, who says he received 144 rejections before a publisher believed in him and his idea. (By the way, the way book publishing works is you can only send out your manuscript to one publisher at a time and then you wait as long as 6 weeks for a response! (Now THAT’S tenacity!) He is now a millionaire!
Without putting forth the necessary hard work, you will not experience Financial Growth.
