The 7 Habits of Unsuccessful People

By Dr. Larry A. Davis

The intent of this book is to encourage people of all ages, but especially young adults, to make good decisions so their lives will turn out more fulfilling. It is filled with stories about people who have made good choices and had rewarding lives and stories about people who made the wrong choices and regretted how their lives turned

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Dec 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9798887382265

Dr. Larry A. Davis

Dr. Davis was raised in Kennett, Missouri, a town of 8,000 people about one hundred miles north of Memphis. A town where it seemed everyone went to church, and everyone felt safe. A town where people did not lock their cars when they went into a store and where they left their windows open at night while they were sleeping. It was in this town where Dr. Davis developed his Christian beliefs. Over the decades, he watched family, friends, and patients grow up and start lives on their own. Some had happy lives, and some had lives they were disappointed with. A lot of times, these lives were determined by one or just a few choices in their lives. After noticing a pattern in the habits and choices people made who seemed to be struggling in life, he decided to write this book to hopefully help some people to keep from falling into the same bad pattern.

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The 7 Habits

of Unsuccessful People

or

What Not to Do If You Don’t

Want to Regret Your Life

Dr. Larry A. Davis

The 7 Habits of Unsuccessful People

Trilogy Christian Publishers A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network

2442 Michelle Drive Tustin, CA 92780

Copyright © 2022 by Dr. Larry A. Davis

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without written permission from the author. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

Rights Department, 2442 Michelle Drive, Tustin, CA 92780.

Trilogy Christian Publishing/TBN and colophon are trademarks of Trinity Broadcasting Network.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Trilogy Christian Publishing.

Trilogy Disclaimer: The views and content expressed in this book are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views and doctrine of Trilogy Christian Publishing or the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 979-8-88738-225-8

E-ISBN: 979-8-88738-226-5

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my wife, Teresa G. Davis, who is more creative than me and is now working on her own book, a Christian-based book for children.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank three people for their help in the writing of this book. First, I would like to thank Natalie Lacayo for her help in the typing of this book as well as her help with her computer skills. Next, I would like to thank Pastor Mike Blaylock for supplying me with material to help me in the research for the book. Finally, I would like to thank Pastor Charles Gamble for allowing me to use his amazing transformation-of-life story.

Preface

The intent of this book is to encourage people of all ages, but especially young adults, to make good decisions so their lives will turn out more fulfilling. It is filled with stories about people who have made good choices and had rewarding lives and stories about people who made the wrong choices and regretted how their lives turned out. All of the stories are true. I have personally known everyone whose story is included in the book, but I have changed their names to avoid embarrassing anyone. There have been many books written about how to get rich or the characteristics or habits of the rich and famous. This book is not about how to achieve wealth. It is a book about how the average person can achieve a happy life not full of regrets.

Chapter One:

Don’t Get an Education

Get a college degree, and you can assure yourself of a better life. At least, that used to be true; nowadays, that’s not so certain. With the rising costs of college and the huge financial debt that a lot of college graduates have, it’s questionable whether getting a college degree is worth it anymore. But we’ll address going to college later in this chapter. Getting an education doesn’t just mean a college education; there are a plethora of ways to get educated about something. The alternative is if you know nothing, then you are worth nothing; at least you’re worth nothing more than minimum wage.

For purposes of this book, we’re going to assume that making minimum wage is unsuccessful. Of course, that is not true for everyone; many Hispanics who cross American borders would think making minimum wage in America would be a vast improvement over the poverty that they had been living in, especially when you consider the government assistance people receive when they are living below what the government considers the poverty level. Determining success is a personal definition, actually. Some people feel success is having a loving family—a big family. Some people believe they are successful because they have a lot of friends. One type of success is having a relationship with Jesus and knowing everything will work out for the greater good, and in the end, going to heaven is all that really matters, but for the purpose of this book, we are talking about financial success. Not necessarily billionaire or millionaire success but at least financial success where you can afford the things you need in life. Things like a decent house that will be paid for by the time you retire. Things like a decent car you can afford that you can depend on if you want to take a trip or even a good enough car that if something does need to be fixed, you can afford to fix it without having to sacrifice somewhere else. Things like being able to take a decent vacation every year and things like being able to send your kids to college if that is where they want to go. You can’t do these things on minimum wage.

So how do you ensure that you can make a decent living? Become something. When someone asks what you do for a living, if you can say I am a ___ instead of I work for ____, then you are something. That something could be a doctor, welder, lawyer, dental assistant, electrician, or, well, you get the point. As long as you are something, then you can become a success. I want to tell two stories of women who became a success. One where a woman became a dental assistant and another where a woman quit being a dental assistant to become a bigger success.

In the first instance, a young woman was working in a retail job and was not satisfied with what she was doing or how much she was getting paid. She decided she needed to change the direction of her life and started looking into other career opportunities. After seeing an ad on TV for medical and dental assisting schools, she decided to check into it further. At first, she thought she would go into medical assisting, but upon further investigation, she saw that dental assisting would better fulfill her needs. So, she signed up and borrowed the money to pay the tuition. The money, $11,000, was a huge amount when you consider what she had been making and how much she had, but she could see a brighter future, and that made the money seem inconsequential.

Nine months later, she was a certified dental assistant with new skills she had learned. Getting her first job, with a certificate but no experience, she started out making more than she had been making at her old retail job. But she was just getting started. As time went by, she learned more skills and became more valuable in her job. In what seemed like only a few years, she was making over $50,000 a year. That was as much as a lot of teachers make with a four-year college degree.

That girl was now a success as a dental assistant. Financially she was better off, and mentally, she felt better about herself. Now when someone would ask what she did, she didn’t have to say, I work here or I work there, she could say, I am a dental assistant.

The second woman started out as a dental assistant. Before you had to have training and be certified to be a dental assistant, a person could just take a job knowing nothing about dentistry and just learn on the job. Of course, the pay wasn’t good; this woman, at an early age and with no training, took a job as a dental assistant. Unfortunately, not only did she not make much money, but neither did her husband, who had also just taken a job with no credentials; with two kids, they were always struggling to pay their bills. What made matters worse was her husband did drugs and drank and was frequently pawning their things in order to get extra money. In fact, the woman once lost her wedding rings, and she was pretty sure that her husband had gotten ahold of them when she took them off to wash dishes and pawned them.

What seemed to be a turn for the worse was actually the beginning of a better future for the woman. The husband was convicted of breaking and entering and broke probation conditions by failing a drug test. So off to jail he went. Now the woman was left to support herself and two young kids on just an assistant’s salary; unbelievably to her, she ended up with more money to spend. It turned out her worthless husband was spending more money on his selfish habits than he was bringing in. However, even with more money, she was still struggling. She eventually decided she didn’t need the bum anymore and got a divorce.

At work, she had a good friend who was a dental hygienist. Now, hygienists made over twice as much as dental assistants, and she was living very comfortably; the hygienist convinced her friend that she should become a dental hygienist also. So, the plan began. First, the assistant started taking a few prerequisite courses to try to get into dental hygiene school. Next, she applied to and was accepted into a dental hygiene school. After two years of sacrifice and hard work, she was finally a dental hygienist. Not only did she have an immediate increased income, but she was now able to attract a successful man. She got married, and with two good incomes in the family, her standard of living and what she could give to her kids increased even beyond what she had hoped for.

These two women are examples of becoming something, a dental assistant and a dental hygienist, in which they not only feel good about themselves but they will always be able to