COMING OCTOBER 20, 2026
The Success Journey Wheel
Your Bridge to Happiness and Achievement
A practical guide to how real, lasting success actually happens — built on three decades of leading teams and building a life that works, at work and beyond.
About the Book
We’re often told that success comes from talent, luck, or a lucky break. It doesn’t. Success is built — from what you believe, the effort you invest, what you learn along the way, and the small correct choices you make day after day. The Success Journey Wheel turns decades of real-world leadership experience into a simple, repeatable framework for growing, leading well, and closing the gap between the life you have and the life you’re working toward.
The Success Journey Wheel
At the center is your mindset. Around it, three drivers — effort, meaningful learning, and small correct choices — turn belief into progress. And holding it all together is the outer ring: consistency over time.
Tap or click any section of the wheel to explore it.
What’s Inside
Each part of the wheel becomes a practical, teachable habit — with real stories, clear principles, and steps you can put to work immediately. It’s not theory; it’s what actually moves the needle, explained plainly.
Who It’s For
Anyone who’s been handed responsibility without a roadmap, new and experienced leaders alike, and anyone who wants success that lasts — not just at work, but in every part of life.
About the Author
Joseph E. Whitaker Jr. has spent more than twenty-eight years as a senior executive in financial services — the last eight as Chief Executive Officer, and before that as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Lending Officer. Those roles gave him a close, unglamorous view of how organizations actually improve: not through a single bold stroke, but through thousands of small, correct choices made consistently over time.
That observation became the seed of this book. Across nearly three decades of hiring, coaching, and promoting people, he kept meeting the same puzzle — talent was never the scarce ingredient. What separated those who built happy, successful lives from those who stalled was far more learnable: the daily habits of choice, effort, and learning, held in place by belief and repeated until they became who the person was. The Success Journey Wheel is his attempt to make that pattern visible and teachable.
Joseph is a doctoral student in Global Leadership and Change at Pepperdine University, where his research examines how leaders and organizations sustain growth in constantly changing environments. With his son, Jacob Whitaker, he founded SJW Leadership to help individuals and teams build greater success and happiness.
Above all, he is a husband, father, and grandfather. He and his wife, Noelle, have been married for forty years and are the parents of eight children and grandparents of nine. Many of the lessons in this book were shaped as much at family activities as in the boardroom. Joseph and Noelle live in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.
Stay connected to your journey
Weekly snippets to keep you moving — short, practical ideas to help you succeed, plus first word on the book as it launches. No spam, just the good stuff.