{"id":608,"date":"2025-01-13T01:46:45","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T01:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mylegacyden.com\/joedifalco\/dads-guide-to-careers\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T04:12:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T04:12:43","slug":"foundations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mylegacyden.com\/joedifalco\/foundations\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe&#8217;s Foundational Principles for Success"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>The following tidbits are just a few pieces of advice to get you started. More to come.<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Success is a journey \u2013 <strong>enjoy the ride<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The first order of business is to <strong>define what &#8220;success&#8221; is to you<\/strong>. And it better not be something boring like &#8220;<em>Have a lot of money so I can buy a bunch of things<\/em>&#8220;! The sooner you realize that success is not about that, but about being a better &#8220;you&#8221; today than you were yesterday, the quicker you will start enjoying success.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Invest in yourself:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Don\u2019t look at what you are today, look at what you want to become<\/li>\n<li>Do something that moves you forward every day. If you are not moving forward, even small increments, you are losing ground. <strong>EVERY DAY<\/strong>. I can\u2019t stress this enough\u2026 <strong>EVERY DAY<\/strong>!<\/li>\n<li>Find men and women who are where you <strong>want<\/strong> to be:\n<ul>\n<li>Meet them \u2013 <strong>be bold<\/strong> \u2013 successful people <strong>LOVE<\/strong> to give back to motivated young people who show respect and appreciation<\/li>\n<li><strong>Network Network Network<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Find someone you respect and establish a mentor\/mentee relationship &#8211; Do not waste their time \u2013 if they give you advice&#8230;<strong>follow the advice<\/strong>. If you don&#8217;t follow advice, at some point they will stop giving it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Craft a profile of yourself of how you want people to see &#8211; <strong>both right now and future you<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Own it<\/li>\n<li>Do what it takes to move forward every day: consistency is your friend.<\/li>\n<li><strong>INVEST IN YOURSELF<\/strong>! Make a habit of doing something productive in each of the following areas every day.\n<ol>\n<li>First of all, and most importantly &#8211; <strong>spiritually<\/strong>. Make sure you are growing in God&#8217;s word.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The rest are in no particular order of importance, they all take a back seat to number 1.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Intellectually<\/strong> &#8211; Read books that help you develop skills. Do not neglect improving your people skills. The best habit to get into is shutting off all screens at least 1 hour before bed and read good books right before you go to sleep.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Physically<\/strong> &#8211; Being physically fit is invaluable to your success &#8211; just trust me.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Relationally<\/strong> &#8211; spend time with the people you care about.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Financially<\/strong> &#8211; make sure you pay yourself FIRST &#8211; meaning, after giving a portion of your resources back into God&#8217;s Kingdom you should always put a nice chunk away in savings. This is a big topic&#8230;too big for this list.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Be patient!<\/strong> Success takes time &#8211; give yourself that time to grow.<\/li>\n<li>If I didn&#8217;t say it before&#8230;.Take some action that moves you forward every day. <strong>EVERY DAY<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Build a <strong>library of resources<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Cover letters<\/li>\n<li>Resumes<\/li>\n<li>Case studies<\/li>\n<li>Job descriptions<\/li>\n<li>Profile resources \u2013 like images, bios, summaries, etc. of yourself<\/li>\n<li>Anything that can help you later<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>Relax with it<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Seriously, <strong>relax with it<\/strong>. Have fun along the way. <em>You are a great person, you have what it takes<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Continue to focus on what <strong>God<\/strong> has given you and <strong>how He sees you<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Remember <strong>the Holy Spirit is your secret weapon<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>BE BOLD<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Learn to enjoy networking<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>LinkedIn can be your best friend<\/li>\n<li>If you are intimidated to reach out to someone you respect because they are &#8220;<em>so far ahead of me<\/em>&#8220;&#8230;put yourself in their shoes. Think about it &#8211; if you were a successful leader, and a young, up-and-coming, respectful young person was asking <strong>you<\/strong> for advice\u2026<em>how would you feel? How would you react?<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Trust me on this, the fear of &#8220;<em>putting yourself out there<\/em>&#8221; is <strong>TOTALLY FABRICATED BY THE ENEMY<\/strong>! I know because <strong>I HAD IT TOO<\/strong>!<\/li>\n<li>S<strong>mile when you are talking on the phone<\/strong> \u2013 it comes through.<\/li>\n<li>If you are in an important conversation, like an interview or just meeting someone you want to make a connection with, and you are trying to get a thought out but are struggling for the words\n<ul>\n<li><strong>DO NOT GET FRUSTRATED<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Do not get embarrassed<\/li>\n<li>Pause, take a breath \u2013 look them in the eye and tell them you need a minute<\/li>\n<li><strong>Measure your words<\/strong> \u2013 meaning after you gather your thoughts be sure your response is addressing the question at hand or making the point you are trying to make.<\/li>\n<li>If after a short time you don\u2019t know how to answer, <strong>THAT IS OK<\/strong>! Simply tell the person &#8220;I Don&#8217;t Know&#8221; and if the situation warrants, tell them you can get back to them once you have a chance to find out the answer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Learn to be proactive<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Remember the main thing? Always know what is going on around you.<\/li>\n<li>Learn to be the best &#8220;<strong>you<\/strong>&#8221; you can be &#8211; and get a little better each day.<\/li>\n<li>Listen and pay attention &#8211; practice active listening<\/li>\n<li>Ask questions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following tidbits are just a few pieces of advice to get you started. More to come. Success is a journey \u2013 enjoy the ride. The first order of business is to define what &#8220;success&#8221; is to you. And it better not be something boring like &#8220;Have a lot of money so I can buy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tld_youtube_id":"","tld_audio":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-code-to-live-by"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mylegacyden.com\/joedifalco\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mylegacyden.com\/joedifalco\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mylegacyden.com\/joedifalco\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mylegacyden.com\/joedifalco\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mylegacyden.com\/joedifalco\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mylegacyden.com\/joedifalco\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1191,"href":"https:\/\/mylegacyden.com\/joedifalco\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions\/1191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mylegacyden.com\/joedifalco\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mylegacyden.com\/joedifalco\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mylegacyden.com\/joedifalco\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}