Habits of Highly Successful People

At the age of 25, Alex Cotraviwat became a self made millionaire.

In 4 years he had built up a cutting edge clothing company called Kallusive.

His clothing was featured in stores like Fred Segal and Metropark. You could see it on dance crews on the hit show America’s Best Dance Crew. Celebrities would be rocking his shirts.

Life was good. For a while.

Two years later, Alex nearly lost everything.

His largest client, Metropark, had gone bankrupt. His bank account had been drained down to $67.

One day, while sitting on the curb of his home street in Arcadia, Alex hung his head, as the reality of the situation started to sink in. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure if he could recover from the situation.

At this moment, most people would have quit. Alex didn’t.

His wife Yuna and co-founder Michael took a seat next to him. Yuna put her arms around him. They told him that if anyone could rebound, it was him.

So what did Alex do?

He sold his house in Arcadia and invested the money into building his next new business.

It was all or nothing.

Two years later, Alex is now the CEO of Jaback Group, a holding company that owns and operates 20 subsidiaries. His companies span the areas of consumer goods, natural products, fashion, and entertainment.

And guess what? He’s a self made multi-millionaire. Again.

Here are the top 10 habits Alex has embraced to find success:

1. Have an excuses jar - It’s simple. One of the key reasons that Alex is successful is because he doesn’t make excuses. Period. If you need help building this habit, use an “excuses jar.” Every time you make an excuse in your head or when someone hears you making an excuse, you have to put $20 into the jar. The reason this is so effective is because when we make excuses, we usually use it to give ourselves a reason to be lazy or to give up. In this case, you’ll feel the financial pain of making an excuse. Want to be down $20 every time you make an excuse? Didn’t think so. If $20 isn’t enough to make you feel the pain of making excuses, up the ante!       
2. When in doubt, start - Here’s a secret most successful people don’t usually talk about: Everyone sucks in the beginning. When Alex first started creating t-shirts for his clothing company, he literally lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He had no experience in the clothing industry, no connections in the industry and a huge learning curve. But he learned. And along the way, he got better and better. Eventually his clothing became a huge hit with dance crews on TV shows and celebrities too. So don’t get too caught up with what you don’t know or worry about how hard the journey is going to be. Just get started. Now.                                                                                                                                                                   
3. Make preparation a requirement - When Alex had his first big sales pitch with Metropark, he did his research in advance on the purchasing team. He memorized their photos, names and titles to make sure he was really prepared for the meeting. When he arrived at the Metropark office, he met the Assistant Buyer outside on a table. After showing her his portfolio of clothes though, she declined to move forward. At this point, most people would have just left the meeting dejected. But right at that moment, the Head Buyer walked out of the office and right by Alex. He recognized her in an instant - because he had prepared. He ran up to her and asked her for just one opportunity to show her how amazing his clothing line was. And guess what? She agreed to give him a meeting. She took him into a conference room with the CEO sitting there. The CEO offered him 15 minutes. Alex replied, “I only need 5 minutes.” They ended up talking for an hour. At the end of the meeting, the CEO agreed to put his clothing into all 78 stores at Metropark. Think that would have happened if Alex didn’t do his homework?                       
4. Invest in yourself daily - Every single day, Alex does one thing that improves his life. For example, some days he’ll meet with experts in different industries to learn from them. When he had wanted to learn about the entertainment industry, he asked for a meeting with Sean Dulake and Chris Martin, co-founders of Third Culture Content, an award winning entertainment company with a show streaming on Netflix. He was so excited about what he learned he decided to join them as a co-founder. That one meeting led to an amazing transition into owning an entertainment company. Focus on investing in yourself every single day. You never know what could come of it.                                                                                                                    
5. Take the long view - When things go bad, it’s easy to get caught up in the moment. But instead of panicking and worrying, one habit that Alex does helps to keep him steady in the toughest of moments. He takes the long view. For example, when Alex first got into the food business, he didn’t know anything about the industry. Did that mean it would be painful and hard to learn in the short term? Absolutely. But the long view of building a great plant based company and helping people live healthier lives was going to be worth all of the short term sacrifice.                      
6. 1 hour of clarity - What do most people do when they wake up in the morning? They grab their phone and check their email or the news. Instead of doing that, Alex opts for a moment of clarity. Meditate. Enjoy a nice breakfast. Go for a walk. Get your moment of clarity.                         
7. Thank someone - It can be anyone. The cashier at the grocery store. The mentor who helped guide you when you were just starting your career. Your parents. One of the best moments in Alex’s life is when he was thanked his parents…by taking care of their retirement. That was his way of saying thank you and it filled him with so much happiness. Take a moment to practice gratitude towards someone.                                                                                                                     
8. Strong opinion, weakly held - Alex and his teams routinely go through debates on their conclusions. It’s incredibly healthy because it promotes a dialogue of transparency that gets people working towards the best solution possible. Alex’s approach is “strong opinion, weakly held.” This means that Alex expects people to bring their conclusions and opinions to the table for the discussion. From there, the “weakly held” part simply means that you look for information, data or indicators that would prove your conclusion wrong. Sometimes the conclusion is strong enough to hold its ground. Other times it cannot…and you end up with a better conclusion. That’s the beauty of this process.                                                                                
9. 15 minute pick me up - Feeling a bit sluggish or down? Use Alex’s “15 minute pick me up” habit. For 15 minutes, do an activity completely different from what you’re currently doing. Just make sure it lifts you up. For example, you could dance to your favorite Youtube video. You could sing a song. You could yell out from the rooftops “I’m going to make a difference in this world!” You could make a silly video to make your friends laugh. Take the time to lift yourself up.                                                                                                                                               
10. Daily pep talk - Repeat these words after me: I will keep improving. I will follow my heart. I will do the right thing. I will achieve my dreams. I will give it my best. Got it? Good. Now get out there and be the best that you can be!          -Mr. Nelson Wang