Sustainable Business Success for Women

What I'm about to tell you turned my wretched business start-up into a thriving success. And it's also turned many of my floundering clients into lasting business successes.

I'll tell you my secret—right here—and show you how you can do the exact same thing. There's nothing mystical or magical about it. It's not a quick fix or get-rich-quick scheme. Instead, it's what every master of business success does. It's the three-part key to long-term, lasting, and sustainable business success.

The Three Ps of Lasting Business Success

1. Persistence

Persistence means that you keep at it day-after-day, month-after-month, and year-after-year. You keep keeping at it, even through the occasional fumble, intermittent failure and repeat mistake. Persistence means you stay with it. You are unrelenting in your pursuit of business success.

Follow the example of other successful businesswomen. Look to Oprah Winfrey, Indra Nooyi, Chair and CEO of PepsiCo, and Marissa Mayer, Vice President at Google, for your inspiration. They aren't successful just because they've applied themselves for one year or even ten. Nor are they successful by luck. By the time they became successful, they'd already been at it for a very long time. Their success looks easy because they'd already have success momentum going for them.

Start now to act as if you are currently successful and will be for the rest of your life. Then be persistent.

2. Patience

Be patient. Just about every woman I've helped start up a business has been impatient for results. Many of them wanted to start up a business right away, turn a profit in less than a year, and franchise in two.

Often this lack of patience is characteristic of women who've had an unsuccessful mindset for many, many years. Now they are desperate to turn their thinking around and be successful immediately. Changing a mindset that has become conditioned to being unsuccessful, though, takes time. Be patient. Think like a baby learning to walk. You will fall down many times before you're able to string a succession of steps together. Focus on the goal. Be patient with the results.

3. Practice

Masters are people who understand what it takes to be successful. If you examine the lives of professional dancers, Olympic gymnasts, concert pianists, or anyone who has gained mastery in a specific area, you'll discover that they have one thing in common: They've had a lot of setbacks.

What made the difference was not how they dealt with those setbacks but how they practiced success. Mastery in any area comes from daily practice. So, focus on what will lead you to business success. Then practice.

Persistence, patience, and practice are the three Ps of lasting business success. Every successful businesswoman knows this. It's what made Oprah, Indra, and Marissa successful. It's what will make you successful, too. What's your plan to start building success momentum and set your course toward thriving business success?