Greg's Corner

How a barrier can be your building block to success

Schmidt’s Naturals CEO Michael Cammarata

A lot of people tend to make a little joke that they must be dyslexic because they made a typo on an email. However, for people who have been legitimately diagnosed with the disorder can struggle for their entire lives due to having difficulty learning in traditional environments. For example, take Michael Cammarata. After he was diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age Michael’s mother was literally told that her son would never be independent on his own. By Micahel’s own admission, he was repeatedly told that he would never amount to anything. The looks on those people’s faces must have been priceless when Michael made his first million by the time he was 13-years-old.

He started off by starting his own webhosting company before getting into the online advertisement business. He eventually entered into the entertainment business where he managed a boy band which led him to get into the business of natural personal care products. This, in turn, led him to heavily invest in Schmidt’s Naturals where he is now the CEO and continues to cultivate the Schmidt’s brand with his unconventional way of thinking. Schmidt’s succeeds by not only listening to their customers’ feedback but making micro-changes in their business platform because of customer requests.

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The phrase ‘thinking outside of the box’ has become a worn-out business trope over the past several decades but its core moral still applies today. For Michael Cammarata, he had no choice but to think outside the box because the box wasn’t designed for him. Due to his perseverance, he overcame what many others saw as a handicap and used it as his strength. You may have a hindrance barring you from success whether it’s physical or something less tangible. Instead of using that hindrance as a pretext for a lack of success, use it as your catalyst to get yourself on the road to accomplishment.