Steven Phillippe has had a tremendous entrepreneurial career, and gives a lot of credit to the way he was raised by his father. He says that he grew up watching his dad never wanting to work for someone else, and still to this day works for himself. He quickly realized that being able to do what you want in business when you want is the dream, and he has worked hard over the years to make that a reality in his own life. In fact, Phillippe has been blessed to take over 20 vacations over the past 3 years as he is able to work from anywhere in the world with a wifi connection and is never tied down to a physical location.
Even with all of his success, Phillippe knows what it’s like to be at rock bottom. At 21 years old and just starting on his sales journey, he was so broke that he was forced to sleep in his car as he began making enough money to support himself. Rather than let his circumstances get the best of him, he excelled at his position and quickly had enough money to support himself.
On the topic of failure, Phillippe says that just because you experience failure does not mean you have failed. In his case, living out of his car with no money to his name would have been the time to chalk him up as a failure, but he sees it the exact opposite. He says that as long as your feet are moving towards your goal, you’re failing forward and are moving one step closer to your goals each day. Phillippe has experienced hundreds of failures in his short career, but says that every failure he has experienced has ultimately led him to his success.
The biggest challenge for Phillippe initially was getting involved in business without any credibility. As a young adult with no substantial background, he had to prove to everyone that he belonged as a salesperson. This allowed him to build character, confidence, and gain real world experience, and he would not trade that initial period becoming successful as a salesperson for anything.
Two things he wishes someone told him when he was first starting out would be to properly brand himself and properly invest. Just as he said it was a struggle with no credibility early on, having a weak personal brand brings on many of the same challenges. By building a strong brand on social media and online, anyone looking to do business with you will easily be able to find you and instantly establish a level of trust when they see how solid your brand is.
On the other hand, knowing how to properly invest is crucial in any career path. The path to financial freedom is through investing and making money work for you, and this is what will allow for the twenty plus vacations Phillippe has taken and will ultimately allow you to be free from any boss of nine to five jobs. While Steven Phillippe comes from humble beginnings, he’s certainly left no question as to whether or not he’s successful today.