John Qualls grew up on the West side of Indianapolis—on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak.

“I felt like I was in this situation and I needed to find a way out,” John recalls. “I was a straight-F student in high school and around 15 or 16, I realized I was going absolutely nowhere.”

But in the following years, John would prove to himself that he isn’t the kind of guy who sits around waiting for something to happen. He has a winning psychology. John’s quest has taken him literally around the world and led to him starting a technology company that would end up reaching profitability and $20 million in revenue within its first three years.

In this candid interview with John Qualls, you’ll learn:

• how he made a million dollars in sales selling out of a bookstore,
• how John started one of the first cloud hosting companies (BlueLock), and
• why he’s now leading the charge in software development education at Eleven Fifty
• …and more!

I was lucky enough to work closely with Qualls at his first startup and can tell you that there’s more substance and life experience in John’s pinky finger than there is in the average startup founder. I’m confident you’ll learn something by watching the full interview here:

On the go? Listen to the whole Winning Psychology Interview Here:

Why a Winning Psychology Drives Success in Startups

I rode shotgun with John Qualls in the early days of BlueLock as we scaled annual revenues north of the million-dollar mark. It was there, riding between sales calls, that I was able to witness first-hand John’s remarkable psychology.

I credit his consecutive successes to three core traits, which you can see from watching our conversation:

Winning Psychology Trait #1: Let Gratitude Give Life to Your Dreams

John’s childhood on the West side of Indianapolis didn’t give him a clear path for growth. But despite his limiting circumstances, something told him that there was something more out there, beyond his immediate reality.

This belief in abundance led Qualls to join the Marine Corps, which would establish a strong foundation of skills and habits while exposing him to other areas of the world.

“Living in Japan, I had this tremendous appreciation for what we had in the United States,” John says. As I’ve worked with John through the past five years, it’s become clear to me that his attitude of gratitude has fueled a powerful abundance mentality. These qualities have become John’s startup superpowers to weather the storm of entrepreneurship while allowing him to see opportunity where others do not.

Winning Psychology Trait #2: Let Go of Excuses

“I’ve seen it kill so many companies and so many people’s career,” says Qualls. The cancer that has killed so many ambitious dreams is something that John calls the “Can’t, sir.”

As in, “I’m sorry, I can’t, sir.”

And John doesn’t let any such language infect his mind. That’s because this kind of self talk limits creativity, ambition and ultimately, potential.

“Why can’t you do that?” was John’s attitude while making moves in his first professional role after returning to the United States. And while John humbly credits his success to naivete, it’s clear that it’s the lack of perceived limits that allowed John to think big—and swing big.

By letting go of excuses, John found early success in sales, selling more than a million dollars in contracts out of a bookstore by simply approaching people who picked up books from the “computers and programming” section of the shelves. That same lack of limits gave John the ambition to pursue an RFP in the early days of BlueLock, which would turn out to be a pivotal multi-million-dollar contract with Lehman Brothers.

Winning Psychology Trait #3: Stop Playing to Not Lose. Play to Win!

“It literally about killed me. I was sleeping 8 hours total each week for about 8 months straight,” John recalls of the days following the signing of the Lehman Brothers contract at BlueLock.

And John credits his success to this focus on moving towards a goal, as opposed to focusing on avoiding negative results. He calls this paradigm shift playing not to lose vs. playing to win.

This relentless pursuit of positive goals has empowered Qualls to make difficult decisions, like replacing himself as CEO of his own company after three years of consistent growth. But it continues to drive his efforts today, as John continues to elevate the level of talent in his home state of Indiana.

“It’s about finding your passions and getting involved with people,” John says. As the President of Eleven Fifty Coding Academy, Qualls is working to help people learn to code. He’s attracting and training the best people and companies to grow their tech businesses in Indiana—something he refers to as “brain gain.”

(Tweet this story, or your own growth story with the hashtag #BrainGainIN)

How can you invest in these three psychological traits for yourself? We all have these qualities within ourselves. The question is…

Will you continue to invest in them? Will you continue to invest in you?