Sometimes success isn’t about how high you progress, but where you have to come from in order to get there.
If you start from a place of great abundance and opportunity, and then achieve some sort of success, you may not feel it as deeply as someone who has to climb from a very low point in order to reach the same place.
Austin Walker is a case-in-point example: he rose from soul-crushing adversity that would make most people quit, including prison, almost being homeless, and much more, and became a premier entrepreneur with an Airbnb empire of over 150 worldwide locations.
Austin explains,
“I just trusted my vision and knew that my formula could work if I just pushed through… one’s definition of success is directly related to how you were doing before taking on the project. Prior to doing Airbnb I was fresh out of prison, living at my mother’s house and doing yard work to keep my stay. Success was felt instantly because I no longer just living at my moms house. I had a game to play everyday and I became addicted to it. Within a year’s time I had 12 apartments and was making over $20,000 a month in profit.”
Being an entrepreneur means being willing to absorb rejection, pain, disappointment, and adversity, and keep going anyway. Austin Walker had what so few people do in the face of adversity: a single-minded focus and a razor-sharp, relentless dedication to achieving his dream and moving out of the place of pain he had found himself in.
Building a business and creating a great company involves much more than just the mechanical and procedural elements of going to market. It involves a deeply human, emotional passion to persevere and break through adversity.
Austin Walker has lived this… and he’s just getting started.
