Success for me is happiness and exceeding the goals that I've set for myself and the company. Five years ago I had a fairly grandiose vision of where I wanted this business to go. I wanted to be different. I wanted to make a difference, but I didn'tknow how good it would feel and how well financially rewarded I would be by achieving those things and having an impact on other people's lives. I think we've had a positive impact.

We [BORN Information Services] had to ask ourselves why have employees historically left the jobs in the past. What's important and what do we have to provide everyone in this organization so that they want to come here and stay here. We came up with four things; challenge, opportunity, reward, fun. Every company knows that they need to pay what the market requires to get the best people. I think a lot of them understand that they need to provide growth and opportunities. Even fewer look at challenge and a challenging career as a factor for motivating employees. And, I think most companies forget the whole fun part. I guess they think that 1) it'll take care of itself because we're good guys, or 2) they say "Hey, that's not our responsibility. We pay you. Have fun on your own time."

I came from a concert promoting business. That's a fun business. It's basically a constant party. Obviously I lost all my money in that environment, so there's got to be a balance there (laughs). For me it really came down to the fact that you spend the majority of time at work, driving to and from work, or at home thinking about work. So, you'd better enjoy what you're doing. So we provide things for our employees (because they work very hard) so that they feel appreciate and their families feel appreciated.

I think persistence plays a part in success. I think not being afraid of failure. Some people may argue with this, but I think if you're too conservative, it's hard to really feel that you've totally succeeded. I've got friends who are successful. They have the wealth and things, but they look back and say, "If I only would've. If I only could've." Or, "I wish we would have taken more chances when I was younger." The people who are really successful are those that probably failed in the past and learned from those failures. There are some people that fail once and never want to take a chance again and I think that's unfortunate.

It all comes from within. I think too often people listen to much to other people. You have to trust your own instincts. Don't take chances or do things you're not comfortable with. So you have to know yourself and know what you're capable of. Not that it's not important to listen to advisors, but when it comes down to it, you can't do what they tell you to do, you have to do with what feels right.

The key to success is to not get discouraged. Try to be the very best and set high goals for yourself. Don't get discouraged if you don't hit them the first time. Keep trying. Understand that successful people are often times no different than anybody else. I used to look up to successful or wealthy people in awe and it was kind of a "we" versus "they" concept, but that's not the case. Anybody can obtain those things if you try hard, if you have a vision, if you're persistent, and if you don't take no for an answer. Don't let other people talk you out of it. What holds a lot of people back are other people's thoughts. Anybody can achieve success and I absolutely, positively, honestly believe that.