"Good things happen to good people."
That is the way things SHOULD be, but unfortunately that is not always the case. Bad things do happen to people who do not deserve it, and great things do happen to people who have done nothing to earn it.
In the end, it is about making opportunities for yourself. Business is intrinsically linked with power, and the game of power is essentially amoral. There is no getting around that. If you want a successful business, then have good business practices, but if you want to be Fortune 500, then you'd better be prepared to step on some toes and smother some dreams, because nice guys absolutely do not finish the race in the world of big business.
Business is money, and money serves itself. The only good thing to do to pursue success is this: whatever it takes.
Everybody who has ever succeeded did so at the expense of someone else. Someone's happiness is ALWAYS built on top of someone else's unhappiness. That is an inescapable fact of life.
It is possible to run a business and just be an all-around nice guy, you do have that option, but make sure you have the understanding that you WILL be walked on by those people who DO take advantage of others and are more aggressive or cunning than you allow yourself to be. In business, a conscience is a handicap to success.
You don't have to kill anyone or bankrupt a small town's economy for your own selfish gain, but when it comes to business, if you get the chance to score big, you either do or you don't, because business does not function on karma. It runs on who you know, what you know, and not pissing off the wrong people at the wrong times.
