What Top 25 Successful People In The World Were Doing At Age 25

Everyone’s measure of and path to success is different.

For some, it’s mostly linear. Others encounter more twists, turns, and bumps along the way.

Before becoming the leader of the free world, Donald Trump, was born into a real-estate development family and inherited his father’s business at 25.

Kat Cole, the group president of Focus Brands group, on the other hand, saw her 20s as more transformative years, working her way up the ladder from a Hooters waitress to the company’s vice president by the time she was 26.

To illustrate how no two paths to success are alike, here’s a highlight of what 25 highly successful people were doing at age 25.

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos had a cushy job in finance.

Two years later, he became the company’s youngest vice president.

President Trump took over his father’s real-estate-development company.

Trump grew up the wealthy son of a real-estate mogul.

At 25, the young real-estate developer was given control of his father’s company, Elizabeth Trump & Son, which he later renamed the Trump Organization, according to his bio.

Shortly thereafter he became involved in large, profitable building projects in Manhattan.

Actress Jennifer Lawrence was an Oscar-winner raking in millions.

Actress Jennifer Lawrence was an Oscar-winner raking in millions.

Twenty-six-year-old Lawrence is Hollywood’s highest-paid actress, raking $46 million pretax over 12 months in 2016, and closer to $52 million in 2015, according to Forbes.

By the time she was 25, Lawrence had starred in the box-office hit “Hunger Games” trilogy and worked alongside a star-studded cast in the “X-Men” series.

At 22, she became the second-youngest winner of the best actress Oscar for her performance in “Silver Linings Playbook,” and she has won many more awards for her work.

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs took his company public and became a millionaire.

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs took his company public and became a millionaire.

By the end of its first day of trading, in December 1980, Apple Computer had a market value of $1.2 billion, making its cofounders rich men. Jobs, one of the three cofounders, was 25.

He later told biographer Walter Isaacson that he made a pledge at that time to never let money ruin his life.

Focus Brands COO Kat Cole was a star Hooters employee.

Focus Brands COO Kat Cole was a star Hooters employee.

Cole, COO and president of Focus Brands, North America and former president of Cinnabon, worked at Hooters for 15 years, starting as a hostess at 17 and eventually getting promoted to vice president by the time she was 26.

A star employee, at 19 she was asked by Hooters to go to Australia to help open a franchise location there, and she spent much of her early 20s training global employees and managers, Fortune reports.

Though she never earned a bachelor’s degree, she eventually went on to get her MBA, according to Fortune. She told the magazine:

“I was lucky that Hooters wasn’t a more sophisticated company because there’s no way someone my age would have had those chances. It wasn’t like people graduating from Ivy League schools were dying to get a corporate job at Hooters.”

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