A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

40 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
Academy Awards. He has been making movies since he was fourteen
years old. He took any unpaid job he could find to develop his expertise
and made his first film for theatrical release before the age of 21.
He started college at California State University, Long Beach, but
dropped out at the age of 22 to take a television director contract <strong>with</strong>
Universal Studios.
Bill Gates is founder and chairman of the Microsoft Corporation, <strong>with</strong>
almost $40 billion in annual sales. Gates discovered his interest in software
and began programming computers at the age of 13. He entered
Harvard University, but left during his junior year to devote himself full
time to Microsoft, which he had started while still a student.
Steve Jobs attended one semester of Reed College, but dropped out
of college to co-found Apple Computers <strong>with</strong> his friend Steve
Wozniak. His actions changed the personal computer industry at the
time and also had a major impact on building it into what it is today.
But the decision to drop out of college and found a computer company
was not done <strong>with</strong>out self-confidence. Jobs had been working on
computers as his main interest even in high school. Moreover, Apple
did not immediately start designing and manufacturing computers.
The company Jobs and Wozniak founded built circuit boards first.
Mary Kay Ash built her self-confidence and success step-by-step
over the years. She didn’t have the money to attend college during the
Great Depression. Having to support a family as a single mother, she
started by selling books on child psychology door-to-door. Her success
at that built her self-confidence. She progressed to selling for the
Stanley Home Products Company, and over a thirteen-year period, she
again was a highly successful salesperson. Denied entry into top management,
Mary Kay left to become National Training Director for the
World Gift Company and gained more expertise and self-confidence.
In 1963, she started Mary Kay Cosmetics <strong>with</strong> $5,000 and nine
saleswomen. By then remarried, she planned to keep the company
going on her husband’s income until she could get a positive cash flow
started. Two weeks before she was to open her doors, her husband died
of a heart attack. However, she had developed the self-confidence to
keep going, so she didn’t quit until she was earning a profit. Before she
died in 2001 at the age of 83, Mary Kay Ash saw her company, Mary
Kay Cosmetics, reach a billion dollars in sales. 6