These are the things you should do in your 20s to be successful

You're never going to run the world from your sofa - not even Bond villains can boast to that power.

The life of a CEO can sometimes seems miles away from your current mundane job. You don't think your skills are valuable, you feel like your workplace wouldn't miss you, and you don't know how your career is ever going to gather upward inertia.

So how do you break out of the feelings of worthlessness and start building a career?

Here's some wise words from people who have started from the bottom and reached the top.

A few CEO's told Business Insider their top tips for building a career:

Drew Houston, Dropbox:

First, no one is born a CEO. This is an acquired skill set, and, furthermore, it's one that you learn on the job. So everybody is a first-time CEO by definition at some point.

Second, just about everything is learnable. I started out just on the engineering side. I had no real business experience. I literally went to Amazon and typed in "sales" or "marketing" or "strategy" and would just buy the couple top-rated books, and that's what I would do on the roof of the fraternity. I would just read.

John Sculley, former Apple, Pepsi:

I was always insatiably curious. I still am. I kept observing — when I was working in bottling plants, resetting shelves in supermarkets, out on the trade, talking to other Pepsi bottlers. Observing, thinking, asking questions, you know, "Why is it done this way?"

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook:

It really was about getting on a rocket ship, being willing to take risks and do something that I hadn't done before like work in technology, and finding the ways to start believing in myself.

One thing that's worth thinking about if you're in your 20s and you're a woman particularly — but we have men, too — are "Lean In" circles. There are 33,000 all over the world. We grow by almost 100 a week. We hear over and over again how much they work because they give women an explicit place to be ambitious and to support each other. None of us get through anything alone.

Steve Ballmer, Clippers, formerly Microsoft:

No. 1, find something to do that you're passionate about. If you're not passionate, I can't imagine how anybody can get there. There are two kinds of people. My son will tell me this: "Dad, there are people who live to work and there are people who work to live." And I respect both of those things. But if you're trying to have a career, you're going to have a little bit more live-to-work in you than work-to-live. So, passion.

Dan Schulman, PayPal:

I do think there's no substitute for really hard work.

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