I asked Todd Smith, a RE/MAX Hall of Famer and blogger at Little Things Matter, about what drove him. You can see (or read) his answer here.

The clip

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The transcript

Well, it, you know, Napoleon Hill says in the book “Think and Grow Rich,” that desire is the starting point of all achievement.

Even for years, I would say that success begins with desire, a burning desire. Because without desire, you won’t do what is required to succeed. And in most cases, what you’re not willing to do is overcome the obstacle, the discipline.

Shen I look at why I was successful, I believe I was successful because of the benefits of being what successful would provide me was important to me. I believe the people who are successful in anything in life are the people who becoming successful is important to them.

I’ve worked with tens of thousands of people in my direct sales business, people who would say “you know, I’ve got the desire to live in a nicer home, to have a nicer car. You know, I want to make an extra 500 bucks a month,” but yet they wouldn’t follow through, and do what was required of them. And it’s because the benefit of what they would gain was not important enough to them that they were willing to do what was required.

So I believe that the true foundation to all motivation is based upon what is important to you. And to me, my goal has been to retire by the time I was 40. And so, I did the math, I determined the kind of net worth I needed to build.

I’m not somebody who can tell you that the things I have done were passions of mine. They were a means to an end. They were a way for me to accomplish what was important to me, and that is to be able to live here on the beach like I do now, to live and enjoy a great quality of life, to be at home with my wife and four children, and now my grandchild running around. You may hear him running here in a minute. I just love working out in my home. I love the freedom and flexibility of doing what I want when I want. And that is what drove me.

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