Achievement

As the old saying goes, overnight success is usually 20 years in the making. The harder we work, the more opportunities we create. Along the way, confidence grows, restoring meaning, relevance, and dignity to our lives.

We Build Achievement Incrementally

On August 13, 2012, I woke up for the 9,135th time in federal prison. It was the last morning I would spend inside a prison facility. Although I walked out before 11:00 a.m., I was not yet free. I still had another year to serve in a halfway house.

Even so, I marked that day as an achievement.

It felt like finding the exit to a long maze. I had not yet reached open ground, but I could see the path forward. Everything I had worked toward inside prison prepared me to accelerate toward a better life.

Many of our most meaningful achievements happen quietly. No one else may notice them, but we do. That awareness builds confidence.

Achievement Follows a Pattern

From the beginning of my sentence, I committed to living a values-based, goal-oriented life. I focused on building a strategy:

• Earn academic credentials
• Use those credentials to build relationships with mentors
• Leverage those relationships to contribute to society in measurable ways

Each step created the conditions for the next.

I thought of achievement as climbing out of a deep pit. It was dark above me. I could not see the top. I could only see the next rung on the ladder I would continue building.

How Achievement Compounds

By my tenth year in prison, I had earned two university degrees. Publishers brought my work to the attention of others. That attention led to meaningful relationships. Those relationships developed into a coalition of people who trusted me and supported my preparation for success after release.

Each achievement reinforced the next.

Incremental achievements compound like interest. Warren Buffett famously described compounding interest as the eighth wonder of the world. Small, consistent gains grow into major milestones over time.

Why Achievement Matters

This is why the Straight-A Guide dedicates an entire lesson to achievement. Not to celebrate outcomes, but to reinforce the importance of recognizing progress.

Small wins matter more than we realize. They build confidence, credibility, and capacity. Over time, they open doors we could not have predicted.