When millionaire entrepreneur Cameron Johnson was eight years old, he wanted nothing more than to stay at New York’s Plaza Hotel, which was featured in the blockbuster movie Home Alone 2. His parents agreed to take him, so Cameron wrote a letter to the hotel’s owner, Donald Trump, asking if he could take a look at the suite where Home Alone ’s hero had stayed. Trump did him one better. He arranged for Cameron and his parents to stay in that suite.
Cameron’s questions didn’t stop. At age nine, he asked himself, "Why couldn’t I become a businessman like Donald Trump?" His first company – an invitation printing service – was born. From then on, Cameron’s career blossomed. At age 12, his eBay Beanie Baby business was pulling in $50,000 a year. Before he graduated from high school, he was worth a million bucks. He’s since started a dozen Internet companies, written the books 15 Year Old CEO and You Call the Shots, consulted for Fortune 500 companies, spoken at colleges nationwide, and appeared in Oprah’s reality series The Big Give.
That’s a lot of success for anyone – let alone a 23-year-old. And much of it is due to the fact that Cameron was never afraid to ask that crucial question: "Why not?"
"Question your limits. Question others’ boundaries. Question whether you can do something different," Cameron told me. "And you won’t believe just how far you can go."
Michael Masterson agrees. "Think about the chances you might have missed in your own life by failing to ask ‘Can I?’ Or ‘Would you?’ Or ‘Is he?’" he said in his article" The Power of a Simple Question."
Here’s a question for you: What do you have to lose by asking?
[Ed. Note: Look for Cameron in ETR in coming weeks.
Learn 19 of his secrets to becoming a successful entrepreneur in his latest book, You Call the Shots.
And get more strategies for how to overcome all the obstacles in your path and achieve your goals by signing up for ETR's Total Success Achievement program. Learn more here.]
Similar Articles:
- The Plain Truth – There are some people who aspire to have power over others. And there’s not a person on this earth w…
- The Way You Work Could Be Working Against You – "If I had more time, I’d have more fun," we tell ourselves. Or, "If I had more …
- Word to the Wise: Militate – To "militate" (MIL-ih-tate) – from the Latin for "soldier" – is to have force or…
- Living Rich the Wrong Way: Nate’s Dream House on Oprah – I recently watched a disturbingly warm and fuzzy Oprah show. One of Oprah’s cohorts, Nate Berkus, ha…
- Word to the Wise: Supercilious – "Supercilious" (soo-pur-SIL-ee-us) – from the Latin for "eyebrow" – means haught…
- Jump Into a TV Career With This Powerful Selling Tool – There are more opportunities than ever for you to sell reality show concepts to Hollywood. Virtually…
- How to Become a Chicken Entrepreneur – I firmly believe that one of the best (or possibly the best) ways of growing wealthy is to start you…