Hello listeners, buckle up for a new episode of voice over work and audiobook sampler.

Where do you listen today is Thursday, April 20th, 2023.

This bonus episode comes from Daniel Walter's book Habits For Success from the author.

Most people resign themselves to the false belief that success isn't for everyone but it is.

If you know how to attain it, you may have listened to the gurus been to the seminars and tried all the techniques but for you, nothing's working, it's because there's a missing ingredient that's rarely discussed and in Habits for success, you'll learn exactly what that is in this excerpt from Daniel Walter's book.

We take a look at several successful entrepreneurs and business people and examine their background and circumstances and see how they overcame their own difficulties to become very successful.

Let's take a look at the lives of some of the most successful people in the world who might never have achieved anything if they had allowed their circumstances to define them.

Ursula Burns Ceo of Xerox, raised by a single mother in a New York City housing project.

Ursula Burns could have very easily ended up with statistic but she chose a different route.

After graduating high school, she went on to study mechanical engineering at N Y U Polytechnic School of Engineering Burns.

Then gained a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University.

At the age of 22.

She was hired as an intern for xerox.

Once she completed her degree.

Ursula was hired as a full time employee.

She became the executive assistant and was later promoted to the Vice President for Global Manufacturing.

In 2009, Ursula Burns became the CEO of Xerox.

She's also on the board of directors of several companies including American Express Corporation, Exxonmobil Corporation and Data in Burns also provides leadership counsel to nonprofit organizations and was appointed by Barack Obama as the Vice chair of the President's Export Council Forbes has several times.

Given her the accolade of one of the 100 most powerful women in the world.

Leslie Less Brown motivational speaker, Les Brown is probably my favorite person on this list.

I've been listening to him for years.

His story is just so inspiring.

Les Calvin Brown is a twin.

He and his brother were born in one of the most dangerous areas in Miami Liberty City.

Their mother gave birth to them on the floor of an abandoned building.

She was married to a soldier who had been deployed.

So when she got pregnant from another man, she was forced to give the Children up for adoption to prevent her husband from finding out Les Brown and his brother were adopted at six weeks of age by Mamie Brown, a 38 year old domestic cleaner and cafeteria cook.

His adoptive mother was terribly poor but Brown and his brother were loved unconditionally.

He credits his success to the confidence Mamie Brown had in him.

She always believed her son would one day become somebody great.

Despite his disabilities.

In the fifth grade, he was labeled educable, mentally retarded.

He didn't do very well in high school and his teachers didn't believe he would ever amount to anything.

Unfortunately, he accepted the label he'd been given and he suffered from low self esteem.

In many of his speeches, Brown talks about one of the defining moments in his life.

He was asked by a speech and drama instructor called Leroy Washington to write something on the blackboard.

Less responded to the teacher saying that he wasn't able to do it because he was educable.

Mentally retarded.

Washington told Brown never to refer to himself like that again and to go ahead and write on the blackboard because he had the ability to do anything.

He put his mind to.

It was at this moment that his life changed because he started to believe that he really could achieve anything.

He put his mind to Les Brown just managed to graduate from high school, but he didn't go to college because he was determined to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a disc jockey after much perseverance, he was eventually hired by one of the most prominent radio stations in the United States.

Unfortunately, due to his controversial topics of conversation and his refusal to apologize for the things he said that listeners found offensive, he was fired, but losing his job ended up being a blessing in disguise.

And his mentor at the time, Mike Williams who saw his great potential to become an international speaker, encouraged him to run for the Ohio legislature.

He won in the 19 eighties.

He started working as a motivational speaker.

All he had was a suitcase of clothes and a tape of his speeches.

He couldn't afford an apartment.

So he rented an office, slept on the floor and washed in the bathroom sink.

Les Brown spent his time reading books and studying the most successful motivational speakers.

He started off speaking to grade school students and within four years, he had been awarded the National Speaker Association's Council of Peers Award of Excellence.

Today, Les Brown is known as one of the most impactful motivational speakers in the world.

Andrew Carnegie Steel tycoon.

Andrew Carnegie was born and raised in Scotland.

He was the son of a poor handloom weaver and he was raised in terrible poverty.

His most prominent childhood memories are of sleeping, to rid himself of hunger pains.

At the age of 13, his family moved to America to help with the bills.

Carnegie worked for 12 hours a day six days a week as a Bobbin boy changing thread in a cotton mill, he went on to work as a messenger boy for the telegraph and got promoted to an operator.

Carnegie loved to read.

And every Saturday, he was given access to the personal library of Colonel James Anderson.

It was during this time that he learned the information that would eventually help him turn his life around.

He later went to work on the railroads and became very familiar with the transport industry.

His business acumen also grew substantially.

He started investing in steel and made his money back tenfold.

By 18 89 he was the owner of Carnegie Steel Corporation which became the largest steel company in the world.

He was bought out by JP Morgan in 19 oh one for $480 million and then went on to establish several foundations including the Carnegie Mellon University.

When Andrew Carnegie died in 1919, he was known as a generous philanthropist and the richest man in the world.

Kenny Trout.

Founder of Excel.

Kenny Trout came from a poor family.

His father was a bartender and Kenny was forced to work from a young age to help sustain the household, desperate to get out of the cycle of poverty.

He managed to finish school and go to college where he paid his fees by selling insurance.

After graduation, he co-founded Excel with his business partner, Steve Smith.

Within nine years, the company had earned billions of dollars in revenue.

And Excel became the fastest growing company in the United States.

Lakshmi Mittal steel tycoon, Lakshmi Mittal is the CEO and chair of the steel company, Aar Matal.

He's one of the world's most successful billionaires and has helped put the steel industry on the global map.

He was raised in a poor Indian family.

The first years of his life were spent living with his extended family in a house built by his grandfather, he slipped on beds made from rope and hard floors.

His father scraped enough money together to move to Calcutta and start a steel business where Mittal was employed after he graduated from college.

It was here that he learned about the steel industry and later went on to start his own company.

Reports suggest that he is now worth more than $12 billion.

Leonardo Delvecchio Italian businessman.

After his father died, Leonardo's mother was forced to put him in an orphanage because she couldn't afford to look after him and her other four Children.

He was later employed by a factory that made eyeglass frames and molds of auto parts.

Delvecchio opened his own molding shop at the age of 23.

His company eventually became the largest maker of sunglasses and prescription eyewear, including Oakley and Ray Ban.

I think you get my point.

Now go ahead and take personal accountability for your life and then get yourself an accountability partner to help take you to the next level.

As you've heard, there are plenty of people who have succeeded despite not having the best start in life.

Your level of success isn't dependent upon your circumstances.

It's a mindset that you need to cultivate.

The less browns.

And Leonardo Del Vecchio of this world could have used their upbringing as an excuse for failure.

But instead they chose to drop the victim mentality and use their adversity as a stepping stone for greatness.

And you can too.

This is Ben Habits for Success.

How to change your life one step at a time written by Daniel Walter, narrated by Russell Newton.

Copyright 2022 by Daniel Walter production copyright 2022 by Daniel Walter.

More information regarding today's book and the author can be found at audible dot com or amazon dot com with an eclectic collection of water cooler knowledge, inspirational stories and motivational thoughts from some of the newest audio books on the market.