I’m a lucky man. My job puts me in front of many successful different people. I’ve realized that this is a great opportunity.
I’m always amazed how many success stories there are in San Antonio. One of those people is Gordon Hartman. I had a chance to interview Mr. Hartman on my public affairs show, “In The Loop.” I was impressed! I knew of Mr. Hartman’s business success and I had seen his commercials promoting awareness for organizations that support children and adults with special needs. I was very impressed with his passion for his current projects, especially Morgan’s Wonderland.
If you are unfamiliar with Morgan’s Wonderland, it’s an ambitious project to create a one-of-a-kind park designed to accommodate children with special needs. What impressed me though was Mr. Hartman’s approach to the park. The park will be designed to be accessible to “special needs” children, but appealing to
all children. All children will be able to play together in Morgan’s Wonderland.
Morgan’s Wonderland will not be just a copy of an existing model. Hartman is creating the model that others will copy. “No one has ever done this” or “this has never been done before” came up throughout the interview. And you only have to listen to Mr. Hartman for a few minutes to recognize that he has the drive and the desire to make this happen.
But remember this blog is about me. When I learned that he and I are the same age, it depressed the heck out of me. Successful people are supposed to be older than you. And here was this very successful entrepreneur that began his very successful business at the age of 19, an age when I was more interested in opening a can of beer than opening up businesses.
So here we both were, more than 25 years from high school graduation; a self-made millionaire and someone still trying to decide what he wants to be when he grows up. But you know me, Mr. Positive, Senor Half-Full, the Silver Lining Kid. I asked him if I could meet with him to discuss his success. To my surprise, he said yes.
Respectful of his time, I had one goal: Tell me one trait I needed to be successful. What I got was a real treasure of insight that for the most part was just common sense.
“First you have to define success,” said Hartman. ”It’s not tied to your bank account.”
Okay, I had heard that before and was a bit skeptical. Quite frankly, here was a man that probably wasn’t too worried about his bank account.
Then Hartman admitted that wealth did drive him during his early years, but it was having Morgan, his daughter with special needs, that changed his perspective of success.
“Money,” said Hartman, “Shouldn’t be attached to success.”
Success seems to come through achieving goals, not gaining wealth.
Okay, so what was Mr. Hartman’s advice to me? What was one thing that successful people had to have?
Focus!
“When I was starting out, I was focused on turning a small company into a large company,” said Hartman.
He explained that if you know your goal and focus on it, you’ll be able to overcome the obstacles you’ll face. “Focus leads to persistence.”
Ready for more common sense? “Attitude is everything.”
Hartman explained that given the same talent and opportunity, a positive attitude will win out every time. By the way, having positive people around you helps you stay positive. In fact, when asked how he’s doing Hartman’s response is, “I’m incredibly blessed to be vertical.”
There were a couple of things that surprised me about his advice. For instance, on goal setting Hartman’s advice is to set realistic goals and try to exceed them. I’m paraphrasing here, but the ideas seemed to be that if you know your goals are unrealistic from the get-go, you’ll subconsciously work against yourself.
Here was another surprising bit of advice: Success is a balance between ego and achievement. Too little ego and you won’t achieve much. Too little humility and no one will want to work with you.
“So how do you find focus?” I asked.
“Find what you love to do,” said Hartman, “Do that and success will come.”
I was expecting a magic pill to take or advice like “eat a slice of pizza every morning.” Nothing is more frustrating than learning that difference between achievement and mediocrity is as simple as finding what you love and focusing your energy on that.
Well, if that’s the case, it’s easy to see why Hartman is successful.
