How often does the tightrope walker balance when walking across the tightrope? All the time! It is the same thing if you really want to have a successful career, and you want to have a happy home life. It is a matter of balance.

Define your goals in terms of the activities necessary to achieve them, and concentrate on those activities.

There are, basically, three kinds of people: the unsuccessful, the temporarily successful, and those who become and remain successful. The difference is character.

So, always start with a product, always start with a customer, always start with a service and how this product or service will dramatically improve the quality of the life or the work of the customer.

Your solution for a customer has to be either amazingly valuable to someone who will pay an enormous amount of money for it or has to be valuable to an enormous number of people who pay a small amount. And also the person you're talking to-especially if you want to raise capital or raise support-has to personally say, "I want that. I like that. That sounds really great. I want that for myself."

Your earning ability today is largely dependent upon your knowledge, skill and your ability to combine that knowledge and skill in such a way that you contribute value for which customers are going to pay.

Whatever job you take on, make yourself valuable, then indispensable.