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    How to Beat the Odds: Be Driven!
    How to Beat the Odds: Be Driven!
    How to Beat the Odds: Be Driven!
    Ebook121 pages1 hour

    How to Beat the Odds: Be Driven!

    By Eddie Maddox

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    About this ebook

    In How to Beat the Odds: Be Driven, Eddie Maddox, Ph.D., a successful corporate engineer and college professor shares wisdom keys that catapulted him from an African-American youth from a low-income family to becoming one of the top one percentile earners in the United States. Today, Dr. Maddox is a successf

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMaddox Higher Educational Services
    Release dateSep 21, 2020
    ISBN9781953535030
    How to Beat the Odds: Be Driven!

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      Book preview

      How to Beat the Odds - Eddie Maddox

      A Letter To The Reader

      Dear Reader,

      My name is Brian Maddox, and I am the son of Eddie Maddox, Ph.D., the author of this book. Before you dive deep into the pages that follow, I want to encourage you to commit yourself to finishing this book. The lessons that you now hold in your hands can and will change the trajectory of your life.

      My father offers wisdom to all people that he meets and works with each day. This book displays wisdom for those who want to work towards success. He instilled all the values in this book into my sister Kristin and me. Following the words of wisdom that he offers in this book has allowed me to play college football at the University of South Carolina and graduate in three and a half years.

      He taught me to make God my foundation. He was and still is a strong family man today. He spent quality time with me and my sister as we were growing up and he taught us life lessons that have prepared us for our journey towards success. He also taught us to build a strong circle of friends. You need others to help you get through the journey towards success and he taught us to help others on their journey towards success. He stressed the importance of an education. He showed us that an education, more than anything, can help determine the level of success that we will achieve. He exposed us to how to manage money at a young age. He put emphasis on the following areas: never live above your means, be patient, and save and invest to achieve even more. He told us at an early age that we would run into obstacles in whatever we did, but he taught us to never give up because we could make it over those obstacles.

      My dad taught us not to hold pity parties when things were not going our way. He taught us to determine how to overcome those challenges instead. He also stressed the importance of being coachable and learning from others. Once I graduated from the University of South Carolina, the wisdom he shares in his book helped put me on a path of success in management in the logistics industry. I recommend that you read this book so that you can learn valuable information that can help you on the path to success. Lastly, I believe that others should take advice from this book because of my father’s hardworking mentality and his drive to always make things better (Continuous Measurable Improvement). In all his success, my dad is committed to always giving back to the community through love, coaching, mentoring and collaborating with others.

      These are three of the biggest takeaways that I’ve learned from my father and that you will glean from the pages of this book:

      1. Hard-working mentality: He always starts with a plan on how he will solve whatever the task might be. He will take action and never give up when it gets challenging. Nothing screams hard work more than pursuing higher education, especially the daunting task of earning a Ph.D.! Finally, he always goes back to review the results.

      2. Drive to always make things better (Continuous Measurable Improvement): He has always taught my sister and me that anything can be improved. From personal experience, when I would have my best games in high school or college football, we would always analyze what I could have done differently. When you look for ways to improve and never get to the point that you think you have arrived, then your success level in life will be astounding. Thanks to him, I now use this in the business world and have found a tremendous amount of success!

      3. Giving back to the community: I have always known him to care about the community. This has been evident in various different ways: coaching Little League sports in the town in which he grew up, serving with the Chamber of Commerce, serving on boards, speaking to groups about key ways to be successful, and just being an overall leader in the community!

      We love him and will continue to use all of these key factors in this book in our everyday lives! This book can be a game changer for you as you take the journey toward success.

      Sincerely,

      Brian Maddox

      Be involved with things that matter to this world.

      - Eddie Maddox, Ph.D.

      FOREWORD

      If you were dropped off by helicopter into the unfriendly wilderness, with no training, and all you had was a pocket-knife, a small backpack, and a piece of flint, would you survive? For most of us the answer would be NO! Of those who would survive, how many would thrive? Eddie is one of those very few who has not only survived, but thrived in the wilderness, and I would put my money on him.

      Eddie’s life start can be best described using the first two lines of Stevie Wonder’s song Living for the City. It goes like this: A boy is born in hard time Mississippi. Surrounded by four walls that ain’t so pretty. Eddie’s book starts here except in South Carolina, not Mississippi, and takes you on his life’s journey. Vegas would probably bet against Eddie being successful. The oddsmaker would probably say the odds are five to one that he would not make it to the twelfth grade, ten to one that he would not graduate from college, twenty to one that he would not graduate from a four-year university with a degree in manufacturing engineering. So if you were a betting individual you would probably bet with Vegas and lose your money.

      Having grown up in the same town with Eddie, I watched him play football starting at the age of ten. When I returned home from college I volunteered and worked with the high school track team in which Eddie was a sprinter. Years later Eddie and I formed an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team and coached a summer track team together. Our children played on the team, attended the same public schools, and our wives and families shared common interests. All of the above have allowed me to observe this remarkable man’s journey through life. This observation advantage has prepared me to write the Foreword for his book, and for this, I am honored.

      We all possess special gifts, tools, and talents. We are born with them. Some of us never develop them, while others excel in certain areas. When you see someone who excels in what they do, it is usually because they have perfected their gift or talent. They become so good at what they do that they make it look easy (i.e. Steph Curry, NBA professional). They tend to dominate their competition at times (i.e. Simone Biles, Olympic gymnast). It is so obvious that they are a better athlete, pianist, or teacher. Eddie showed at an early age that he was born to be a football running back. I had heard about Eddie’s running style and speed at the barber shop in our home town, so I went to a game. After the first quarter of his game, I said to myself, This kid is the real deal. He had all of the gifts and tools needed to be a successful athlete. He had the speed, lateral quickness, great acceleration, he ran with a low center of gravity, and most importantly, he was smart and ran with an attitude. With all of that talent the big question was, Will he make it out of the wilderness? As this book reveals, he and his siblings were surrounded by four walls that were not pretty. Eddie, like so many others, would have obstacles to get around and jump over. I am proud to say, years later, that he made it out of the wilderness and I’ve been here to witness his success.

      All of us possess at least one or two characteristics that are dominant in our personalities. For Eddie Maddox, I see determination. That is one reason why I enjoy engaging in conversations with him when I see him around town and at events. When I spend time with Eddie, his positive energy leaves me feeling fired up. Determination was and still is the key vehicle that has gotten Eddie to where he is today. A physically challenged athlete, Bill Demby, once said, There aren’t really enough crutches in the world for all the lame excuses. Eddie does not entertain excuses as a reason for not achieving. His determination prohibits that.

      The second strong characteristic that I see in him is drive. We were on the phone one day and Eddie told me that he was working on his Ph.D. I was speechless for a moment as I was thinking, Here is a guy who has already accomplished so much. He finished his collegiate career as an Academic All-American football player, he graduated with honors, and he moved through the ranks to become the quality and operations manager for a major manufacturer, just to name a few of his accolades. And now he’s working on his Ph.D.! Eddie is fifty-plus-years-old and still has so much drive.

      Eddie grew up to be a family first provider. One could see that this was monumentally important to him. Eddie and his wife, Candace, were high school sweethearts, so their relationship was well established by the time they married and had children. They seemed to have been of one accord when it came to values and how to raise their children. Eddie and Candace were very active and supportive parents when it came to their children. You would see them attending their children’s school activities such as open houses or parent teacher conferences. Our sons participated in the same science

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