My "success story" was mostly luck:
I muddled my way through college. During college I worked for spending money at some interesting places, but nothing that was life changing or a future career path. My girlfriend graduated from the same college with a degree in education and immediately got a job, but it was in another city so she moved. I was still a few hours from getting my degree (even though we started at the same time
), so I figured I better get my a** in gear and graduate.
I graduated with a business degree in finance, but due to my other interestes (drinking beer mostly) with with a GPA most potential employers classified as suboptimal. The only job I could talk my way into was a real estate agent with a commercial real estate firm in Houston. My job was cold calling potential investors, trying to sell them foreclosed apartment complexes, most owned by the RTC since the S&L crisis was ongoing. I started in 1989 and had limited success at this job for a coule of years.
Now the lucky part. First, my girlfriend agreed (at gunpoint) to marry me and move to Houston. Then later, my dad, who was a 50/50 partner in a small auto dealership, was getting ready to retire and wanted to know if I would be interested in working in the car business. Since I was not exactly getting rich in commercial real estate, I jumped at the chance. He first wanted me to work in Houston at a few car dealerships to get some "big city sales training" before coming to work for him. That was a great idea because I was able to learn some, um, more advannced sales techniques that we were able to apply at my dad's small store with some good success.
Long story short, my dad retired after 2 years and I was able to buy his 50% of the store. I then worked with his partner for 3 years and was able to buy him out, giving me 100% ownership just when the car business was really taking off. I owned the store for another 18 years, made some money, spent very little, and decided in March of 2009 that it wasn't any fun any more so I got out and retired at 45.
Like I said, lucky..........