Blog | Entrepreneurship

Levels of Success

Sitting on the amazing white sand beach, gazing across the deep blue ocean at Kauai, I was reflecting back on the journey to what got me to where I am today. How life’s choices, lessons, teachers, challenges, commitments, and actions form one’s destiny. As I was drifting deeper into thought, a Hawaiian monk seal groans and awakens from her nap on the beach. She did not hear me sit down about 20 feet from her to watch the sunrise.

The monk seal and I, along with hundreds of crabs running on the beach, enjoyed the early morning together. The only footprints in the sand were our’s, and we were on the Forbidden Island, Niihau. Niihau is a privately owned island in the Hawaiian Islands and one island north of Kauai.

I was looking at Kauai and remembering only a few years earlier when I had spent a week on the island with my family at the Grand Hyatt. After years of hard work, extreme focus, and building my business, we treated ourselves to a family vacation. I was playing in the beautiful pools with the kids thinking, “This is it, I made it.” The business was running well, family was healthy, and I was happy.

Sitting on the beach on Niihau, I realized that the family trip to Kauai was a moment in life, and only one level. It was not the end game, but a moment to reflect and enjoy. If I had stopped and not maintained the drive, passion, and vision that created the trip to Kauai in the first place, I would have never experienced the next level on Niihau.

On Niihau, I was on a private hunting trip with my friend and teacher Robert Kiyosaki. At the same time, Lisa, my wife was sailing with Kim Kiyosaki on her boat around Maui, up to Molokai, then to Oahu. The kids were with the grandparents on Oahu and loving it! It was truly a “fast track” experience just like in Rich Dad’s Cashflow 101 board game. It was the next level for us in business, enjoyment, and friendships.

I saw the islands of Kauai and Niihau sitting across from each other as levels. When we are on one level that is all we can see. The process of each level is not always enjoyable or easy. It is far from it. It’s not until we have mastered the current level and have advanced to the next level that we can see it from the bigger picture.

We never know how close we are to the next level until we achieve it. It’s when the opportunities in life present themselves that we get to choose. We can choose to be Rich, Poor, or Middle Class (for more on this listen to Rich Dad's Choose to be Rich).

No matter where you are in life and in your journey, you may be closer than you think to achieving and mastering your current level, and moving forward to the next level. The levels of: Heath, Wealth, and Happiness. In essence, a Rich Life.

Keep creating, keep driving, and keep going. Create the positive moments in life that last forever.