FREE CD Inside: How to Reach All Your 2013 Goals

MAKE
THIS YOUR
Best Sales
Year Ever!

68

Ways to
Bust Out
of a Rut

A RECIPE FOR

GREATNESS
HOW MARTHAS GOING
FOR IT IN 2013

FIGHT
FEAR...
and WIN!
GOT SOCIAL
BUTTERFLIES?
Marketing
Beyond
Facebook
& Twitter
LAND YOUR

DREAM
CLIENTS!
A 4-STEP
PLAN

STOP
SWEATING
THE SMALL
STUFF
(HERES HOW)

SUCCESS.com January 2013

New from the publisher of SUCCESS magazine!

A Southern
Girls Guide
to Love,
Laughter,
and Money
by Rita Davenport
with John David Mann

Read a Sample
Chapter or
Order Your Cop
y Now at
FunnySideUp.S
UCCESS.com

New
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Cover: Scott Ducan; Table of Contents: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/Contour by Getty Images

JANUARY 2013

On the Cover

42
Do Not Scramble
Martha Stewart shares the secrets of
a perfect omelet and how shes always
had a knack for business achievement.
by Susan Young

Contents

FEATURES

70

50
Make 2013 Your Best
Sales Year Ever
Deploy four smart strategies to reach a
new peak during the next 12 months.
by Anthony Iannarino

58
To Teach His Own
First on the phone and then via
YouTube, Sal Khan tutored a young
cousin in math. Then he began his
online Khan Academy, which offers
new hope ineducation.
by Roger Brooks

62
52+ Ways to Get Out of
Your Comfort Zone
Each week during 2013, do one of our
68 challenges to break away from your
status quo.
by Sally Deneen

70
Fearing the Worst
Maybe youll never face a mountain
lion attack as our heroine did, but this
heart-pounding story will teach you a
lot about trusting your instincts.
by Jeff Wise

50

76
Beyond Facebook
andTwitter

62
2 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Find the social media niche thats just

right for your job, your business or
your interests.
by Jennifer Chang

www.

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Contents

Departments
8 Publishers Letter
10 Editors Note
11 Your Say
13 StartUP
28 Whats Around
the Corner
Want to change the
direction of your
life? Then leap into
theunknown.

by Josh Ellis, Jim Motavalli, Lisa Ocker,

Betsy Simnacher, Deborah Skolnik, Laura
Stack and Mike Zimmerman

20 Strides
Happiness tip: Focus on whats
important without obsessing about
the small stuff.
by Melissa Balmain

by Jason Dorsey

30 How To
Build business
by exhibiting at
tradeshows.

24 A Healthy YOU!
What you dont know can hurt you
when choosing a doctor and dealing
with medical insurance issues.
by Drs. Mehmet Oz and Michael Roizen

Courtesy of CHANGE

by Emma Johnson

34 Results from
the Corner Ofce
A former C-level
executive with The
Home Depot, 7-Eleven
and Coopers &
Lybrand reveals best
practices for sales.

36

36 Making a Difference
Navy veteran Tim McAuley, a C student
in high school, became a scientist who
safeguards air quality.

by Jennifer Abbasi

38 Your Personal Best

Ralph Braun, confined to a wheelchair
because of a rare disease, pioneered
mobility for thousands of Americans.

by Tony Jeary

BUSINESS

by Sally Deneen

84 SUCCESS Foundation

22 Can This Business

Be Saved?
We tell you how to
improve the value (and
perceived value) of your
product or service.

26 Maximum
Leadership
Surround yourself
with inspiration to
achieve more than you
everdreamed.

by Tory Johnson

by John C. Maxwell

A North Carolina man uses the

SUCCESS for Teens program to battle
the nations dropout problem.

by Betsy Simnacher

RESOURCES
80 Tech Tools

26

38

Gadgets to help you keep

yourresolutions

by Tim Gideon

82 On the Bookshelf
How to grow in your personal life
andcareer

by Erin K. Casey

88 Action Plan

4 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

BraunAbility

Applying the lessons from this issue to

chart a great new year

New York Times Best-Selling Authors

+ Entrepreneurs
+ Leadership Gurus
+ Financial Experts
JOSEI'll MCCLENDOI

III

Author, Speaker, and

Leadership Expert

DARRE

HARDY

Author, High-Performance
Expert & Publisher
SUCCESS magazine

DENIS WAITLEY

Author, Lecturer, and

Productivity Consultant

PAUL ZANE PILZER

Economist, Entrepreneur,
and Professor

SPEAKING
FEES START
AT $15,000

RITA DAVENPORT
8

Seminar Leader, AwardWinning Keynote Speaker,

and Author

SUCCESS

A SUCCESS Partners Company

CALL MERIDITH SIMES AT SUCCESS TO INQUIRE ABOUT THESE OR OTHER SPEAKERS WE REPRESENT

940-497-9924

OR EMAIL MSIMES@SUCCESS.COM

Contents
MORE ONLINE

live on

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DEC. 11

Only on SUCCESS.com

Weve admitted our

huge girl crush on
Mel Robbins. Now
SUCCESS.com
is tickled to
host her monthly column
exclusivelyonline.

SUCCESS.com/Mel

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Patrick McMullan/AP Photo

From the
Cover Story

SUCCESS.com/BestOf2012

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n
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10 Essential Guidelines
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SUCCESS.com/Martha

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6 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

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Make your choice at

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publishers letter

Tiffany Pond

Be Foolish

Be bold and just

go for it!

8 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

at Universals gate and

To make 2013 your best everr
rom
f
e
r
o
w
waved at h i m c a s uyear, to reach goals that may
M
blog at
is
h
n
o
ally. The guard waved
look impossible, you must
D a r re n
CESS.com
C
U
.S
y
d
back. He was in.
be boldpossibly even
ar
t
D arrenH
a r re n a
D
h
it
All summer he
to the point of seeming
tw
n
Co n n e c
HardyFa
n
e
r
r
a
D
wore
t h at s uit a nd
foolish. Let me tell you
k.com/
Faceboo
hu n g o u t w i t h t h e
how one such fool pursued
d
directors and writers,
hisdream
tic
inc
including Silvers, who
This guy was no scholastic
orky
knew the kid wasnt a studio
achiever. He looked a bit dorky,
employee but winked and looked
and some of his classmates teased him
harshly. Rather than read his assign- the other way. The wannabe fi lmmaker
ments for school, the kid spent his time found an unused office and became a
shooting 8 mm movies of wrecks of squatter. He loves to tell how he bought
his Lionel train set. For a small fee that plastic tiles and put this entry in the
would be donated to charity, he would building directory: Steven Spielberg,
show the film tofriends; concession sales Room23C.
Well, his foolish audacity paid off. Ten
financed future projects.
He dropped out of high school his years later, at age 28, Spielberg directed
sophomore year. And when his parents Jaws, which took in $470 million, setting
persuaded him to return to school, he a record as the highest-grossing film
says administrators assigned him to a at that point in Hollywood history. Of
learning-disabled class. He quit again course, dozens of films and awards have
after a month. Only when the family followed, all because Spielberg continumoved to another town did he graduate ally acts foolish and attempts the impossibleand then does it. (Think E.T. the
from high school.
He applied to attend fi lm school but Extra-Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark,
was refused admission, so he enrolled at Jurassic Park, Schindlers List, Saving Private
California State College at Long Beach. Ryan and War Horse, among his dozens of
His story took a dramatic turn in 1965, directing credits.)
So heres your takeaway: Be bold, be
when on a visit to Universal Studios he
met Chuck Silvers, an executive in the a bit foolish and just go for it! All of us
editorial department. Silvers liked the at SUCCESS are here to help you go for
kid who made the oddball 8 mm fi lms. your big goals, your big desires and your
So he invited the teenager to come back bigdreams.
Your SUCCESS mentor,
and visit sometime.
The k id app e a r ed t he ne x t d ay.
Without a job or security clearance
(dressed in a dark suit and tie, carrying
his fathers briefcase with nothing inside
Darren Hardy
but a sandwich and candy bars) he
SUCCESS Publisher & Founding Editor
confidently walked up to the guard

EDITORS NOTE

have stood onstage arm in arm with

Martha Stewart as cameras flashed. I
have chatted with her at a book party for
a mutual friend. But I have never cooked
with Stewart, the honor bestowed on
Susan Young, who wrote our cover
feature. And heres the great back story behind it:
Martha Stewart is a one-woman megabrand who
exists in a category of two, alongside Oprah Winfrey.
We had unsuccessfully pursued Stewart for a cover for
four years. Young, past president
of the Television Critics
Association, knows everybody
in the TV biz, and when she
proposed a Stewart cover story,
we wished her luck and kept our
expectations low.
Young wangled an invitation
to a preview of the new Martha
Stewarts Cooking School show.
Stewart asked for volunteers to help her make an
omelet. Young waved wildly and got picked. Then,
once onstage with Stewart, in front of the live
audience, Young confessed she had never made an
omelet before. Talk about chutzpahkind of like
getting an audience with the pope and telling him
youre an atheist. What followed is a life lesson you can
read about on page 42.
Fast forward: Stewart liked Young and told her
reps Young could interview her for SUCCESS. Even
though the interview alone made us happy, we
still hoped for a cover story. So we nudged. And
waited. And nudged. And waited. And one day my
wonderful editor Lisa Ocker emailed the following in
all caps, MARTHA WILL DO THE COVER!! We all
jumped up, high-fiving and hugging (that would be
me hugging Lisa). Even Stewarts publicists seemed
awestruck. You have to understand, one said,
Martha just doesnt do covers.
But her attitude is one that every entrepreneur
and every personmust adopt to be successful and
happy. Its the SUCCESS attitude of optimism and
resilience. So its neither dumb luck nor coincidence
that this icon is gracing our cover.

Editor in Chief
Susan Kane

Publisher & Founding Editor

Darren Hardy

Editorial
Editor
Lisa Ocker
Features Editor
Josh Ellis

Melissa Balmain
Jill Becker
Chris Brogan
Erin Casey
Sally Deneen
Jason Dorsey
Tim Gideon

Managing Editor
Mary Vinnedge
Staff Writer/
Photo Coordinator
Brandy Jules
Contributing Editors
Emma Johnson
Tory Johnson
John C. Maxwell
Patty Onderko
John H. Ostdick
Marc Ostrofsky
Mehmet Oz, M.D.

CEO
Stuart Johnson
Senior VP & General Manager
Steve Norton
CFO
Joe OConnor
Senior VP, Creative Services
Deborah K. Heisz

eCommerce
eCommerce Manager
Curtis Broom
Product Marketing &
Development Manager
Hugh Murphy
Mid-Level Software Developer
Jody Thigpen
SEO/PPC Specialist
Julie Morrison
Web Designer
Sam Watson
Website Support
Nathan Noom

SUCCESS.com Editorial
Managing Web Editor
K. Shelby Skrhak
Content & Social Media Specialist
Jennifer Chang
Web & Digital Content Coordinator
Misty Kimball

Customer Service

JANUARY 2013

Production Manager
Alan Dwelle
Production Artist
Christian Stovall

SUCCESS Partners

SUCCESS CD

10 SUCCESS

Chris Raymond
Michael Roizen, M.D.
Don Yaeger
Susan Young
Mike Zimmerman

Creative Production
Creative Director
Carl Waters
Contributing Art Director
Alexander Flores
Graphic Designer
Floro Torres

Digital Asset Production Manager

Mariana Lenox

Susan Kane
Editor in Chief

Copy Editor
Peter Tepp
Talent Executive
Paul Scott Adamo

Customer Service Lead

Melinda McQuillin

SUCCESS Speakers
Speaker Services
Charlee Russell

Senior VP, Marketing

Paul Adams
VP, Marketing & Events
Meridith Simes
VP, Business Development
Reed Bilbray

Advertising and Circulation

Marketplace & Inside Sales
David Williams
940-497-9961
dwilliams@SUCCESS.com
West Coast Sales
John McCarthy
818-706-8066
johnmccarthy@sbcglobal.net
Maria McCarthy
818-991-7564
m.carthy@sbcglobal.net
Southeast Sales
940-497-9958
snorton@SUCCESS.com
Northeast Sales
Frank Colonno
201-962-2759
fcolonno@SUCCESS.com
Midwest Sales
Tim Henning
708-606-3358
timh@taustermedia.com

Circulation
Newsstand Consultant
John Morthanos
Subscription Marketing
Sue Sidler

YOUR SAY
The Buzz
on Facebook
aand keep a professional image by not
p
posting pictures of yourself out drinking
oor otherwise making a fool of yourself.
A
As a new entrepreneur, I dont know how
tto encourage appropriate interaction.
Birgitta Jorgenson
Oviedo, Fla.
Editors note: Great idea! We hope to
cover
this topic soon.
c

Darren Hardy called him a stud,

but most of our readers just called
him hot! Whatever you think of
Denzel Washington, we can all agree
that theres a personal-development
lesson or two to be learned from
the widely admired award-winning
actor. Heres a snapshot of your
overwhelming response to the
November cover gure.

WE HAVE GROWN
W
TIES THAT BIND
One of the best articles youve had. This
man is pure integrity and quality!
Jon Anfinson
Springfield, Mo.
Denzel Washington has mastered life.
To know what is most important and to
enjoy lifeall of lifeis key.
Jamie Stimpson
Via Facebook

ARTICLE BROUGHT TEARS

Boomers Still Battling [the October
article about football star Boomer
Esiason] brought tears to my eyes. I have
a 5-year-old son who has this disease
[autism, which affects Esiasons son, too].
As a mom, you want to take all of the
burdens away from your child but cant.
Instead, you submerge yourself in your
childs needs and do your best to comfort
him. You must teach the importance of
staying healthy, but more important, of
staying positive. This is his battle, but I
must make sure he never feels like hes in
it alone.
Stephanie Ochs
Pflugerville, Texas

HELP WANTED: SOCIAL MEDIA

In the November article Have You
Friended Your Customers? a bullet
point mentions training employees on
proper social media interaction. I would
appreciate an article on this topic
especially ways to pleasantly address
complaints, supply helpful information
without selling or pushing your product,

For several years, regional vice

p
presidents in Primerica Financial
Services in the United States and Canada
have received your magazine each month
free [through our company]. We have
learned and grown in all areas in our
lives from this remarkable magazine that
just keeps getting better; the CDs are
worth listening to over and over.
We are blessed to be with such an
awesome company to give us this gift.
Thank you for each month of SUCCESS.
Joe and Jennie Osga
Chatham, Ontario

KEEP INSPIRING US
In SUCCESS and its CDs, I have
noticed a shift from positive motivation
toward marketing/business content.
In doing this, I believe you are turning
away from the larger audience that is
hungry for positive inspiration but may
not have a business career.
For example, I am a career firefighter
and federal employee. I use the positive
inspiration to deal with the bureaucracy
that can limit and endanger firefighters.
It also pushes me to stay physically fit for
my job, and in any career, people need
help with public speaking, leadership,
interpersonal skills, motivation and
financial management.
Your magazine and especially
your CDs help us fight the negative
gravitational pull of modern life. Please
go back to CDs that are at least half
dedicated to positive motivation and
human potential.
John Lyons
Fairbanks, Alaska

Great to see Denzel Washington featured,

and of course the focus is positive and
low-key, which are what I admire about
him. No, I dont want to hear gossip about
him and his family, and he doesnt lend
himself to such. Hes also looking hotter
than when I last saw him!
Jennifer McLeod

Denzel [is] looking as condent as

ever. We can all learn from this cover.
Joseph Brown

Thank you for featuring Mr.

Washington. He is one of the truly
great actors of our time. He chooses
roles that gives us hope, etc. I admire
his work ethic. I wish him continued
success for the future.
Judy Kessinger

He is my favorite Hollywood guy. I

just wish he would teach classes
on how to be a decent man, how to
live with integrity and how to treat
your wife like a woman should be
treated a role model, indeed.
Heather Connor

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Please include the writers name, city/state, email address and
daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for clarity or space.
MAIL: SUCCESS Letters, 200 Swisher Road, Lake Dallas, TX
75065. FAX : 940-497-9987 EMAIL: editor@success.com.
TERMS OF SUBMISSION
By submitting anything to SUCCESS Media in any format, written or
otherwise, you agree that: (1) your submissions and their contents will
automatically become the property of SUCCESS Media, without any
compensation to you; (2) SUCCESS Media may use or redistribute the
submissions and their contents for any purpose and in any way; and
(3)there is no obligation to keep any submissions condential.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

11

Finish Your Holiday

Shopping Now!

Give Them What They

Really Want in 2013
GO TO SUCCESS.COM/GIFT OR CALL 800-570-6414

For each gift subscription you send, a special

gift card will be sent to announce your gift and
acknowledge your investment in their success!

Corbis

up
START

To DARE is to lose ones footing momentarily. NOT TO DARE is to lose oneself.

If you arent in over your head, how do you know how tall you are? BE THE CHANGE
YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD. Heres to the crazy ones. The mists. The
rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things
differently. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the
ones who do. JUST DO IT!
Soren Kierkegaard, T.S. Eliot, Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Jobs, Nike

13 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

13

Hows your resolve?

If youre making resolutions, make them stick.
Im not a big believer in New Years resolutions.
Making a decision to change just because the
calendar says Jan. 1 isnt enough to keep you motivated for long.
Instead, think of a desire or a frustration. Maybe
your staff meetings have become a big waste of time.
Or you want to make it out the door with a decent
breakfast in your belly. Perhaps you want to spend
more alone time with each of your kids.
For each goal, follow this three-step plan to
create a reasonable resolution:
Use an actionable phrase. Instead of saying,
This year I am going to relax, say, I will schedule
one activity each month that I find relaxing.

Create a plan of attack. Brainstorm what needs

to happen to achieve your goal and list the steps.
Schedule it. Attach dates and load them into
your calendar. If you wish to start an exercise
program, where will you exercise and when?
When the designated day and time arrive, be
disciplined in following your plan. If you can do
just a little bit to get going, soon youll feel the
positive effects of the changeand that can lead
to habits that last far beyond New Years Day.
Laura Stack, productivity expert
Stacks company, The Productivity Pro Inc., helps people save time
at work and in life. Her newest book is What to Do When Theres
Too Much to Do.

Too Big to Not Fail

Though not exactly role models, these celebs 2012 resolutions
provide a cautionary tale: Avoid high-minded generalities and
set resolutions you can measurably achieve.
50 Cent

DJ Pauly D

Resolution: I just got to be

Resolution: To make a

conscious, and try and be a better

judge of character with others.
Result: Maybe he sees something we dont. In July, the rapperturned-boxing promoter enlisted
help in signing fighters from
WBC Welterweight Champion
Floyd Mayweather, who was
serving a three-month sentence
for domestic battery.

difference in any way I can

in2012.
Result: You be the judge: A
June bar brawl involving Pauly
and his Jersey Shore co-stars
ended with a female roommate
being injured during taping of
the sixth and (mercifully) final
season of the MTV show.

14 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Heidi Montag
Resolution: Drink more
champagne, eat more lobster
andchocolate!
Result: The admitted
plastic surgery addict and her
husband, Spencer Pratt, formerly
stars of MTVs The Hills, have
confessed they are essentially
broke and living at the home of
Prattsparents.
Josh Ellis

Rather than long

emails, I record
a voice message
and send it to my
team as an email
attachment. This
provides stronger communication
given the fact that tone, inection and
passion are more easily conveyed.
My team appreciates the break
from lengthy email threads. I do the
same thing with client relationships
and business development. I often
receive no response to email, which
leaves me unsure if theyve read it,
loved it, hated or even received it.
A quick calleven just to leave a
voicemailresults in more frequent
and more timely responses. I believe
my clients also appreciate hearing a
friendly voice.
Tamra Chandler, CEO of PeopleFirm

Its hard to resist that

urge to grab your
smartphone every
time it chirps. For
the new year, set
communication
boundaries and
commit to them. Decide on specic
windows of availability and inform
your colleagues. When those
windows are closed, be present
for your family and friends; turn
off email alerts when youre
not on the clock. Family time is
rejuvenating only if its genuine
anduninterrupted.
Michael Dr. Woody Woodward, Ph.D.,
executive coach and author of
The YOU Plan: A 5-Step Guide to Taking
Charge of Your Career

JPeopleFirm

TOP
of Mind

BEST Practices

WHAT
WOULD
YOU DO

Venture Capitalist Ben Horowitz

on Crisis Management

We had just toured Facebook headquarters with a

group of magazine editors. Chief Operating Officer
Sheryl Sandberg and other Facebook executives
spoke to us in a conference room lined with motivational wall-sized slogans. Back on the bus, my boss
Susan Kane and I opened our souvenir boxes. Among
the goodies were computer-screen cloths printed
with mantras similar to those we had seen inside.
Mine read: Proceed Boldly Forward. Susans read:
What Would You Do If You Werent Afraid?
Oh, this pushes my buttons, she said.
Do you want to trade? I asked.
No, I like it, she said. Then turning to me, What
would you do if you werent afraid, if you dont mind
my asking?
Im still pondering my answer. What about you?
Lisa Ocker

Visit SUCCESS.com/startup
and tell us what youd do if you werent afraid.

Michael Prince/Forbes Collection/Corbis Outline

if you
werentafraid?

Anyone at the helm of a business faces

crises. Whats hard is figuring out whether
youve got a run-of-the-mill crisis or one
thats transformational for the company
which is made more difficult because
every crisis is emotional, Andreesen
Horowitz co-founder and general partner
Ben Horowitz said at the annual American
MagazineConference in October.
To see your way through the fog, you
have to work through your first principles,
he saidthose original assumptions you
had when you started the business. In a
blog, Horowitz likens this to being a race
car driver: Focus on the road and not the
wall, on where youre going rather than
what youre trying to avoid.
A few other techniques Horowitz uses to calm his nerves include getting his
thoughts on paper to sort through the facts and his own emotions, and talking with
someone who has faced a similarly challenging crisis. Even so, there may be many
times when you feel like quitting.
Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it, he writes.
Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business
sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be
remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say: I didnt quit.
L.O.

Heavy on the Butter

Lessons from Popcorn

Surely a creation of t he
s i n i ster, p ower f u l a r t i f ic i a l
butter lobby, National Popcorn
D ay i s Ja n. 19. A l l k idd i ng
a side, t he Popcor n B oard
(which really exists) suggests
s ever a l w ay s to c elebr ate
make popcorn strings for birds
to eat! Popcorn relay race! Write
a popcornhaiku!
No one has time for any of
those, but there actually is a

lesson to be learned from those

f luff y, salted ker nels. Think
of trips to the movie theater.
A ticket may cost only $9, but
inside, a bucket of popcorn goes
for six or seven bucksmore
than a 1,000 percent markup
on average. But a s t he r ich,
buttery scent wafts through the
lobby, we cave. We always cave.
The popcorn doesnt change
the scr ipt or the acting, but

it seems to makee
the films we
watch better. C an
our
you en h a nce your
customers ex perience popcor nding
styleby prov iding
xury
a high-margin luxury
for which theyll gleefully overpay?
J.E.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

15

AMERICAS YOUTH
LOOKING UP
Survey Reveals Increased Optimism and Self-Reliance
60 percent of high school students are hopeful about the countrys future, vs. 53
percent in 2008.
96 percent of high school students and graduates agree their own actions, rather
than luck, shape their ability to succeed.
69 percent believe they will probably be self-employed/own their own business.
37 percent of high school students reported receiving mostly As, up from 25 percent in 2008.
97 percent of students aspire to further education after high school, up from 93 percent in 2008.
Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans survey

Culture Clash
How Greek-Style Yogurt Dominated Its Competitors

TOP
of Mind
I cant put down
Understanding Michael
Porter, the perfect
book for anyone
who doesnt have
time to read the
Harvard Business
School professors dense
works. Its a refresher course for
building a successful company. It
provides a unique understanding
of competitive advantage and
strategy. Our industry is very
competitive but we want to
go beyond competitive and be
creative. One favorite quote from
this book is: Competing to be the
best feeds on imitation. Competing
to be unique thrives on innovation.
Rebecca Jennings,

16 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

CEO and president of Hips and Curves

Im reading Katie
Courics The Best
Advice I Ever
Got. It has great
ideas for success in
business and in life. Right
now, the activity outside of work I
enjoy the most is volunteering at
Sloan Kettering in pediatrics, because it makes me appreciate how
lucky I am. The children and their
parents are so courageousthey
inspire me. The practice that is
best for me personally and professionally is exercising rst thing in
the morning, which clears my head
and establishes the tone of success
for the day.
Susan Bratton,
Founder/CEO of Meals to Heal

PeterHurley

Why is this so sweet? Ulukaya asked the first

time he tried American yogurt, and it was the right
question to ask. The conventional wisdom that
Americans wouldnt take to tart yogurt proved
completely wrongits 25 percent of the market
nowand traditional leaders Dannon and General
Mills (Yoplait) missed the developing trend. Of
course, theyre making up for it now by introducing
a blizzard of Greek yogurt products. But it could
be too late to regain their former dominanceas
one illustrative example, the Big Three automakers
let Toyota take the lead on hybrid cars and havent
been able to make a dent in Prius sales since.
The free market enabled Ulukayas success,
but another corner of the American system
could t ake it dow n.
The yog u r t mog u l s
p ed i at r ic i a n e x-w i fe,
Ayse Giray, sued him
last summer, claiming
that she under w rote
the launch of the business. Shes asking for a
controlling 53 percent
stake in thecompany.
Jim Motavalli
Frank Ordonez/AP Photo

The American dream has rarely been as fully realized as it was for Hamdi Ulukaya, a Turkish immigrant who came to the United States from his familys
dairy farm in 1997 to attend college and convince
Americans to change their taste in yogurt.
To describe the success of tangy and upscale
Greek yogurt in the marketplace as meteoric is to
understate the reality. Ulukayas company, Chobani
(Greek for shepherd), now controls 17 percent of
the overall yogurt business in the United States, far
ahead of its chief Greek competitor, Fage, or any
other yogurt brand, for that matter. Ulukaya, who
started his company in 2005 by buying an unused
Kraft yogurt factory in economically depressed
Central New York, is now a billionaire.
S a le s of C hob a n i s
yogurt have increased 400
percent since 2009, and the
company is valued at $1.1
billion. Chobani has the
top brand awareness in the
Greek yogurt category, (due
in part to Chobanis sponsoring the 2012 Olympics in
London and proving to be a
savvy user of socialmedia.)

Stuff My
Dad Says

Victoria Will/AP/Corbis

Next time you want to ignore parental

advice, remember Rashida Jones.
One of the great universal mysteries: Why
dont children take their parents advice? Think
back (maybe even as far as last week). At some
point, you must have rolled your eyes at something your mom or dad told youand, in turn,
rolled the dice in some of your own decisions.
This wasnt true for Rashida Jones. When
her dad gave her advice, she listened. Now shes
carved out a multifaceted career that led to being
chronically in demand and dubbed The Coolest
Girl in Hollywood by Rolling Stone.
So what was this magical tip? My dad
always encouraged me to be good at more than
one thing.
OK, full disclosure: Rashida Jones dad is
Quincy Jones, one of the sharpest and most
successful men in the music industry. But all that
still breaks down to a pop wanting his little girl
to do well.
In retrospect, Jones, 36, calls it really good
advice and has lined up achievements that
required talents in performing, writing and business hustle. Starting with a Harvard degree in 97
(never a bad career move), she has acted in dozens
of movies and TV shows, co-created a comic
book series called Frenemy of the State, worked
as a contributing editor to Teen Vogue, and
co-written multiple screenplays. One of the most
recent was last years Celeste and Jesse Forever, in
which she also starred.
The main benefit of versatility? Theres something about splitting your energy and your focus
and your education that almost takes the pressure
off one thing, she told Rolling Stone. It allows you
to create something on your own.
So heres a radical idea: The next time one of
your parents offers a bit of career advice, dont
roll your eyes. Listen. Think about it, even if its
a seemingly useless clich like work smarter,
not harder. Chances are, no matter what it is,
you can apply it to your situation in a productive
way. It might not get you named the coolest
anything, but the end result could be very cool
all by itself.
Mike Zimmerman

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

17

TOP
of Mind
These small steps
help me balance
work, relationship,
tness, travel, diet
andleisure:
1. Allocate time for
each area; dont let work
take over. Make your time with
loved ones sacred.
2. Be present. I get much more out
of all my interactions when Im in
the momentno multitasking
with my smartphone or email.
Work around your brains natural impulse.
3. To resist junk food, pack
healthy snacks for traveling or
If the public service announcements and dirty looks from fellow commuters havent caused you to change
workinglate.
your behavior on the road, theres a reason. Recent research shows that seeking out and accessing information
4. Develop an in-room hotel
triggers a release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, providing an addictive high. So even at the most inopworkout using your body weight
portune times, the familiar ding of an incoming text is difficult to ignore.
(push-ups, for instance) and
As it turns out, the same brain signals that brought Pavlovs dogs running for dinner give us an intense urge
things in every room, such as
to find out which hotel our buddy from college will be staying at when hes in town next month. The greater
desks and walls. (Mens Health
our anticipation for an imminent reply, the greater our compulsions, as dopamine is created in
ooffers one: SUCCESS.com/
n.
various parts of the brain and overpowers the opioid system, which governs satisfaction.
M
MensHealth.)
We cant change our nature, but technology certainly enables us to be more prudent
Learn more about
55. Take regular vacations;
while behind the wheel. Try downloading an app to curb your urge to text and drive,
what these folks and
others are loving,
truly unplug except for set
such as AT&Ts DriveMode, which automatically sends a customizable message,
thinking about or doing
times and brief durations
letting the sender know you cant respond, similar to an out-of-office email.
for email.
Use airplane mode (offline use only; no calling/no online access) when you need
Dush Ramachandran,
a quiet moment to work.
SUCCESS.com/
CEO of The Net Momentum
J.E.
startup

Cant Stop Texting

at the Wheel?

Give Stress the Boot

Three Innovative Ways to Shake It Off
A bit of stress keeps you on top of your game, but high levels can have
terrible consequences. Here are new ways to combat stress during your workday:
Shake, literally. This is the natural
response to stress, but humans have trained
themselves to suppress it, says Arizona therapist Dave Berceli. In his Trauma and Tension
Release Exercises, patients jiggle their limbs
(simulating trembling) to release tension.
Squeeze something. The theory is that
stress balls work because they make you

18 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

concentrate on squeezing the ball instead

of someones neck. Plus, the physical act
releases pent-up energy.
Be kind. In studying compassion and
altruism, Stanford University scientists
determined compassion decreases stress. A
related study showed that physical markers
of stress, such as blood pressure, eased

when participants felt compassion for the

staffers who evaluated them; researchers
theor i zed that compassionate people
could accept support more readily, which
reduced their stress. So Proverbs is right: A
soft answer turns away others wrathand
yours, too.
Betsy Simnacher

BE SHARP.

57%

Think cute.

of all smartphone app users have either

declined to install or uninstalled an
app when they discovered how much
personal information they had to share
before using it.
Pew Internet & American
Life Project

Match
Points
Find a mentor online.
You might call Goalee the Find-a-Mentor social
network because it connects information from your funloving side (Twitter and Facebook) with your buttoneddown side (LinkedIn). After you sign up, Goalee
attempts to match your interests, contacts and goals with
others of the same mind. Depending on how many sign
up, it might help you meet someone who could introduce you around. Check it out at goalee.com.
B.S.

1894
Year the first cat video
was made by Thomas Edison.

The cats were wearing

gloves and boxing.
Gothamist.com

From the same Far Eastern culture that created Pokemon

and Hello Kitty, heres a pointer on staying sharp: Japanese
scientists tested people who viewed images with the quality
they call kawaiicute in Japaneselike kittens and puppies.
The researchers found that their subjects were more careful and
focused afterward, and performed better on tasks such as driving
and office work. Why? Well, researchers theorize its because
we want to examine these images more closely, so we pay more
attention to details in other tasks, tooat least for a while. So if
your mind is wandering, a visit with LOLcats.com could ramp
up your concentration.
B.S.

For Your
Memory
Rest is best.
Once you go to the trouble of learning something, you definitely want to remember it. But whats the best way to do that?
University of Edinburgh researchers found a helpful tactic: They
told study participants two stories. After one, they let participants
rest (but not sleep) with their eyes closed for 10 minutes. After
the other story, researchers gave participants a game to play. A
week later, participants had better recollection of the story they
heard followed by rest. So give yourself a break for rest and
youll do your next presentation without needing notes.
B.S.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

19

Strides

MELISSA BALMAIN

Deciding to
Decisively Decide
A Satisficing Resolution
for the New Year

Scary but true: I spent as much time picking out

my coffee table as I did picking a name for either of
mychildren.
Its not that I consider those choices equally
importantnot at all. Its that, as psychologists
would say, Im a maximizer. I try to make the best
decisions I humanly can. And if a decision, no
matter how minor, is giving me troubleas with
that coffee tableI might just obsess about it for
months. Even after I make up my mind and pony
up some cash, the ordeal isnt over. I keep Googling
to see if I missed something better. I revisit every
aspect of my choice, from stain color to leg height,
and also begin to wonder if, on second thought, the
very concept of coffee tables has grown a bit pass.
As you might expect, there are healthier ways to
live. Chief among them: making good-enough decisions and moving on, a practice known as satisficing. (Think satisfying plus sufficing.) Unlike
satisficers, my fellow maximizers and I tend to be
unhappy with our choicesor so a recent study
from Florida State University suggests. This regret
can naturally dampen our moods overall. (Not to
mention the moods of our loved ones. My husband,
Bill, has a special Look of Pain reserved for when I
say things like, Can we hang that picture half an
inch higher?)
Maximizing also makes us sitting ducks for
decision fatigue, the mental and physical drain
that everyone feels after facing a bunch of daily
dilemmas. Researchers believe decision fatigue
leads us to overspend, overeat and suffer countless
other failures of willpower; any day now, Im sure
theyll prove that maximizers, who not only make
drawn-out decisions but also remake and re-remake
them, are headed straight for bankruptcy and The
Biggest Loser.

20 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

But I dont need studies to tell me that, when it comes to decisionmaking, I could use some serious New Years resolutions. All I need is
math. In the past year, I figure I spent at least 150 hours fretting over
minor choices when I could have been working, or enjoying my family,
orgaspspending time on decisions that really mattered.
Take last fall. I had deadlines to meet and classes to plan, so of
course the main question preoccupying me was what color to paint

my living room shelves. I went to the paint store for

paper strips in rainbows of green. I held the strips up
to our burgundy walls. I went back for paint samples
and brushed Sherwood Green, Georgian Green and
Weathersfield Moss on big pieces of cardboard to
see how they looked against the burgundy walls. I
consulted with friends. I returned to the store for
more strips.
Pick something already, said Bill, who was getting
the Look.
Green was a mistake, I said. I need to check out
some blues.
Back at the paint store, it occurred to me to ask the
woman behind the counter what she thought. She
glanced over the latest strips and samples I had piled
up, plus photos I had with me of the living room. Then
she started shaking her head and taking colors out of
contention. Too bright. Too muddy. Too assertive for
a whole piece of furniture. Within minutes, we were
down to two shades of blue. They looked lovely, but

Melissa Balmain
is an award-winning
journalist and poet whose
work has appeared
in The New Yorker,
The New York Times,
Parenting and elsewhere.
She teaches writing at the
University of Rochester.

stillonly two? Didnt she have another dozen or

so that I should try? Nah, she said. Either of these
colors would do the job just fine.
Clearly, I was in the presence of a professional
satisficer. And for once, with Bills exasperated face
in mind, I listened.
The path to healthy deciding hasnt been smooth
since then, I admit. Days after I picked one of the
two blue finalists, for instance, I found myself
getting sucked into an epic hunt for bathroom cabinets. White or brown? Metal or bamboo? But at least
I realized what was happening and forced myself
to make a choice that same night before bed. I felt
pretty proud.
Which brings me to those New Years resolutions:
Less maximizing. More satisficing. And focusing
each day on the truly important things, such as
making sure this column has the most fantastically
inspiring, I mean, unbelievably insightful, I mean,
thoroughly adequate ending. S

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21

Can This Business Be Saved

TORY JOHNSON

Add Value
Customers consider everything they get
for the price, so make sure yours feel a
big bang for their bucks.

Q: At the start of the year, I always dream of

raising prices, but after struggling through last
year Im thinking of going rogue and actually
lowering them. Is this a wise way to attract
and retain clients, or is there an alternative
to consider?
A: Instead of lowering prices, focus on adding

value to what you sell, whether its a service or a

Tory Johnsons Spark product. Most of us base our decisions on how to

& Hustle company

spend by asking, Is what I am buying the best?

Think about Apples success, says Ross
small-business owners.
Kimbarovsky,
co-founder of crowdSPRING, an
Shes also a workplace
online
design
marketplace.
Apple products are
contributor on Good
never
the
cheapest
but
many
customers, after
Morning America and
playing
with
those
products
at
an Apple store,
a New York Times bestbelieve
those
products
offer
the
best value,
selling author. Follow
her at Facebook.com/
he says.
Tory and Twitter.com/
Or take Zappos, the online shoe giant that
ToryJohnson. Email her at has taken customer service to new heights. By
Tory@SUCCESS.com.
reducing the hassle of buying shoes, buying from
a vendor with complex return policies and other
problems people encounter when buying shoes, Zappos
has created a perception of value that makes it difficult for
Zappos competitors to compete solely on price, he says.
If youre struggling, Kimbarovsky says, you may not be
delivering enough value for the money youre charging.
If people cared only about price, everyone would drive a
Yugo, wear clothing bought at a garage sale, and listen to
the radio.
Customers always appreciate value, says Brett Reizen,
CEO of Entertainment Benefits Group, which publishes
online destination sites such as BestOfVegas.com and
BestOfNewYork.com.
produces conferences for

22 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Free parking, extra shopping hours, free gifts with

purchase, or gift cards for future use are all examples
of simple value-add opportunities, Reizen says. Try
different things and expand on the campaigns that work.
Your customers will share the success and you will witness
the power of value-added product marketing.
The amount of income entrepreneurs earn depends on
the perceived value of what they offer, says Lena West,
founder of a social media mastermind program for women
entrepreneurs called the Influence Expansion Academy
(InfluenceExpansion.com).
So if yours is a service business, West says to offer a
bonus session as a value-based incentive. If you coach,
add on a few helpful checklists, templates or scripts.
If youve written articles about specific topics, package
them together to create an e-book and give it away as a
bonus to anyone who signs up for your next program,
event or product.
The key, West says, is to make your perceived value
appear as high as possible, without stretching the truth
about what your offering can do for a potential client.
Finally, consider providing a mobile app for your
product or service to increase value, says Michael Alter,
CEO of SurePayroll, which offers mobile apps to more
than 35,000 small businesses who use its payroll services,
allowing both employers and employees remote access to
payroll information.
The app economy is big and growing, Alter says. It
is almost essential today that customers can access your
product or service from wherever they are, whenever
they want. The attention given to the recent launch of
the iPhone 5 gives us evidence this trend is only picking
upsteam. S

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A Healthy You

DRS. MEHMET OZ & MIKE ROIZEN

Gimme Shelter

Have trust in your health coverage with these suggestions.

The only thing worse than being injured or falling ill is not
having faith your insurance provider will help get you back on
your feet. Follow this months tips for peace of mind.

Q: Ive got a new plan and need to choose my doctor

from those listed in the network. How can I find a
good one?

A: Choosing a new doctor can be overwhelmingafter all,

its one of the most important health decisions you can make.
But take heartthe right match for you is out there. Heres how
to narrow the field:
Ask around: This is probably the simplest, most effective
way to find a good doctor quickly. If you know someone who
24 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

has health issues similar to yours, start there. Otherwise, check

with your friends, relatives and co-workers and compare their
recommendations to your list of in-network providers. Youre
bound to discover at least a couple matches. Another great
resource: local emergency room nurses. They know which docs
are the most dependable, responsive and caring.
Do a background check: Once youve narrowed the list to
a few possibilities, check the physicians credentials with the
American Board of Medical Specialties to be sure their certifications are legitimate. Youll want to verify that your candidates
attended an accredited medical school and have been boardcertified for at least three years. Then check the doctors own
websites (or call their office) to find out their hours, whether
they take emergency calls and if theyll answer personal or

Handle insurance
headaches
for a family pre-tax, like a 401(k).Heres what
general questions via email. And dont forget to ask which
you need to know:
hospitals they useif one of those facilities is not also part of
SUCCESS.com/ To be eligible, you cant be covered by any
your network, keep looking.
Insurance
Make an appointment for a meet-and-greet: Even iff
oother health plan besides yours, nor can you be a
tadep
youre not due for a checkup, its smart to schedule a consultadependent on someone elses taxreturn.
When you make a withdrawal from your HSA to pay
tion. By the end of the meeting youll have a good sense of whether
a medical bill, like a doctor visit, prescription or lab test, you
youre compatible. Did you feel relaxed, or rushed? Anxious, or at
can withdraw that money tax-free.
ease? Did you receive clear, understandable answers to your ques Unlike flexible spending accounts, whatever is left at the end of
tions? You deserve a doctor who gives you the time and attention
the year rolls over for you to use in the next.
you need to become your healthiest selfso dont give up till you
You can use the money only for medical expenses. If you
find one!
make withdrawals for any other reason before age 65, youll
Q: What is the difference between Point of Service
be subject to a 20 percent tax penalty on top of your ordinary
(POS) organizations and Preferred Provider
income tax. (After 65, withdrawals for nonmedical expenses
Organizations(PPO)?
are taxed at your regular rate.)

If
you switch employers (or private plans) midyear, you can
A: The biggest difference between the two types of plans is
roll
over your funds, just like a 401(k). If your new employer
flexibility. Lets start with Preferred Provider Organizations. PPOs
doesnt
offer an HSA or you change to a lower deductible plan,
offer a list of in-network doctors and hospitals; the company has
you
keep
the money for out-of-pocket medical expenses but
negotiated discounted rates with these docs, and you typically are
can
no
longer
contribute.
charged a co-pay for visits or care. Members dont have to designate
a primary care physician, and they can usually see any specialist
Q: When I cant budge the insurance company on a
without a referral. PPO plans do give members some coverage for
disputed reimbursement, are there any government
out-of-network providers, but you may have
agencies that might be able to help me?
to pay for the treatment up frontsometimes
A: Yes. But first, be sure to do everything
a considerable amountand submit your
you can with your insurance company to
receipt for partial reimbursement later. Many
clear up the issue internally. After youve
plans also have yearly deductibles.
reviewed your health plans policies thorPoint of Ser v ice plans, on the other
oughly, contact the customer service office
hand, often dont require members to meet
to plead your case. If they still wont budge
a deductible for in-network care, but they
and youre sure your reimbursement has
prov ide ver y little, if any, coverage for
been wrongfully denied, its time to begin
out-of-network doctors. Youre required to
the formal appeal process. Your insurance
designate an in-network physician as your
policy will outline the paperwork required,
primary healthcare provider, and youll
which usually includes copies of your
get most of your care from a designated
medical bills and a letter from your physinetwork. The only time out-of-network
cian describing why your treatment was or
doctors are covered is when your primary
Mehmet C. Oz, M.D., is a professor and will be necessary.
doc refers you to one.
vice chairman of surgery, as well as director
Many health plans have several steps in
of the Cardiovascular Institute and Integrated
the appeal process. If your initial appeal
Medical Center at New Yorks PresbyterianQ: My employer will allow me to set
is denied, you most likely will have addiColumbia University. He hosts The Dr. Oz Show.
up a health savings account. Should I?
tional appeals available. Only after youve
A: If you have an insurance plan with a
Michael F. Roizen, M.D., is a professor exhausted the internal appeals process
high deductible (one requiring at least $1,200
should you turn to your state insurance
of internal medicine and anesthesiology, and
chief wellness officer and chair of the Wellness
for self-coverage and $2,400 for family),
commissioners offi ce to request an indeInstitute at the Cleveland Clinic.
a health savings account (HSA) is a great
pendent review. Navigating the appeals
way to set aside pre-tax money for medical
process can be diffi cult and stressful, so
Roizen and Oz are the authors of YOU: The
expenses, including those not covered by
if you need more information and guidSmart Patient: An Insiders Handbook for
your insurance. Youre allowed to stockpile
ance, visit the Patient Advocate Foundation
Getting the Best Treatment.
up to $3,100 a year if youre single, or $6,250
(PatientAdvocate.org). S

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

25

Maximum Leadership

JOHN C. MAXWELL

WhatYour Office Says AboutYou

Where do you go for wisdom? All of us in this leadership

business know its crucial to be lifelong learners, to be students
of the world. So how can we tap into the knowledge of others?
We know the usual routes: a book, a class, ormy favorite
a list of questions and a lunch date with someone we admire.
But today I want to let you in on one of my secret and subtle
ways of learning.
I visit peoples offices.
Let me explain: You remember that old saying, If these
walls could talk. Well, listenbecause they do talk. The
books on the shelves, sayings on the walls, memorabilia in the
displays: They are windows into that persons leadership style,
the sources of his or her inspiration, the values that drive his or
her decisions.
Indulge me for a few minutes, and lets tour some offices I
find particularly rich with leadership lessons. Then well visit

26 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

my office, and Ill share some things I display that keep me

motivated and might offer lessons for you.
Ive learned a lot from renowned UCLA basketball coach
John Wooden. When I finally met him, I was delighted that he
invited me to his condo after lunch.
Prominently displayed was his famous Pyramid of Success,
that wonderful visual reminder of the key pillars of leadership, such as poise, enthusiasm, inventiveness and, of
course, team spirit. The majority of the real estate on his walls
was dedicated to his past players. He loved them and kept in
constant contact with them. Wooden used to say, Make every
day your masterpiece. That philosophy echoed throughout the
room, especially in the photographs of past players. It was the
people in his life who made every day so special.
Seeing that and other mementos from his career ultimately
inspired me to write my book Today Matters.

Im
Responsible.
You cant
pass the buck if a message like that dominates
your office and your thinking.

Im told Bill Gates had a picture of Henry Ford

in his office to remind him how not to treat his
customers. Ford famously said, Any customer
can have a car painted any color he wants so long as it is black. That
I keep a shelf of favorite books, the ones that have changed my
stubborn refusal to change cost Ford Motor Co. its preeminence in
life, such as Woodens The Essential Wooden and Mother Teresas
the automobile business.
Come Be My Light. I have memorabilia of Christian reformer John
As New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani kept a sign on his desk
Wesley. You all know I started off as a preacher, and my love of the
that said, Im Responsible. And Giuliani was, as he reduced New
faith drives my decisions. What drives yours?
Yorks crime rate from an all-time high and later led the city after
On my wall hangs a photograph of Mother Teresa with my son
the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Think about that: Im Responsible. You
Joel at age 16. He had a bit of an attitude problem then, and I sent
cant pass the buck if a message like that dominates your office and
him to India for a month so he could see the world as it was, not how
your thinking.
he thought it was. He worked in a food line in Kolkata several weeks
I cant visit presidents offices, so instead I visit presidential libraries.
and then traveled the country by train in coach class, which meant
My wife, Margaret, and I have seen them all. Those libraries are full
sitting on a wooden bench crammed with people, chickens running
of writings, documents and photographsstuff from their walls and
around at their feet.
desks that reveals so much about what drove them as leaders.
Our deal was Id get him an audience with Mother Teresa after
My favorite library is Ronald Reagans. A sign from his Oval Office
his tour. He spent 20 minutes with her, and the photo of them is
desk revealed his essential attitude toward governing: It Can Be
a prized family possession. But its more than that: Its a reminder
Done. Reagan believed our country and its people could get back
to see the world from multiple perspectives, make decisions with
on track and be great again. His belief became our belief. Isnt that
empathy, appreciate what you have and work to better the lives of
message an essential one for every individual, business and governpeople who dont have as much.
ment? Doesnt Reagans sign prompt you to
I have a photograph of my brother Larry,
think about your attitude toward possibility?
our dad, Melvin, and me in front of the
Offices can teach us other things, too, such
Maxwell Leadership Center at Indiana
as how leaders communicate. One favorite
Wesleyan University. Every time I see it, I
example comes from computer company
think about my fathers great legacy of leaderfounder Michael Dell. Ive read that he keeps a
ship and character, and how important it is to
toy bulldozer on his desk. It reminds him not
me to continue it.
to crush ideas from his staff. The more power
Ive got a photograph of Margaret and
a leader has, the more mindfully he needs to
me on our 40th anniversary. Shes my best
push back his own ideas in order to encourage
friend, and this picture reminds me that my
others to offer innovations.
success is her success, that our partnership
Or heres another great example: When
allows us to lead others on a path of posihe was a Capital One vice president, Steve
tivity, self-improvement and compassion.
Arneson (now a leadership consultant) had
Who is your partner on your journey?
a sign that read, Leaders are known for the
Whats on your wall? Are there words of
questions they ask, not the answers that they
wisdom that keep you on track? Photos of
give. Arnesons sign is right. Its impossible
someone who inspires you? Reminders of
John C. Maxwell is a leadership
to have great answers for your people if you
whats most important in your life?
expert, coach and author who has sold more
than 22 million books. In January 2011 he
havent asked great questions first.
As you approach the new year, give it some
founded The John Maxwell Co. with a vision
I didnt do such a good job of that early in
thought. You may need to open a box in the
to inspire, challenge and equip leaders to
my career. Now I end each meeting by asking
attic to find something important. You may
live out leadership through training programs,
my team, OK, what did I miss? Then I let
need to search stores for the perfect sign.
development resources and public events. In
them respond.
And you may want to take down a few things
March 2011 he founded The John Maxwell
So lets visit my office for a minute. I love
to make space for something else. What you
Team, which trains and certifies coaches,
taking people into my office because it illushave on your walls communicates a lot to you
teachers and speakers.
trates my journey as a person and a leader.
and says a lot about you to others. S

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

27

Whats Around the Corner

JASON RYAN DORSEY

Break Free

Put yourself out there:

Daring projects can redirect your life.

I felt stuck. Frustrated. Bored. Maybe even a little scared.

I had worked so hard for so long that I lost sight of
my goal. I was spinning my wheels. Maybe you know
the feeling? Youre going through the motions but the
motionsnot your chosen directionnow defi ne you.
I had to break free, but how? The answer was my first
breakthrough project.
At the time, I didnt know what a breakthrough project was. All I knew was I needed
to regain my sense of self, inspire my spirit
and feel alive by taking a risk that comes
with public failure. I dared to do something
Id always dreamed about: write a book. The
project forced me way out of my comfort
zone. I had to believe in myself, trust new
people and be relentlessly determined. Many
times I thought I would fail, but I didnt give
up. The experience changed my life forever.
Jason Dorsey is a
Could you benefit from a similar experience?
highly regarded speaker
The t i m i ng could nt be better. A new
and best-selling author.
year
is a time for ref lection, to look where
Known as The Gen Y

youve
been, where you are now, where you
Guy , hes been on
television shows including
hoped to be and where you want to go. This
60 Minutes, 20/20
assessment can be unsettling. Goals remain
and The Today Show.
unaccomplished. Work piles up. Were a
His latest book is Y-Size
year older. At these moments, taking on a
YourBusiness.
breakthrough project can reinvigorate your
spirit and redefine your path.
A breakthrough project primarily consists of a risk
of failure, a specific outcome and public accountability;
a breakthrough project challenges you to push beyond
your comfort zone to reassert your power to create the
life you want. It jumpstarts you out of a rut, reminds
you what is possible and puts you on an inspired path.
I was scared when I took on my first breakthrough
project. I wasnt a writer, but I had a message to share.
Every morning I woke up, had coffee and started typing.
I didnt know what I couldnt do, so I finished writing the
book in 18 days. That was only the beginning.
I didnt know how to get a literary agent or a publisher,
so I published the book myselfleaving me $50,000 in

28 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

debt and feeling even more isolated. My breakthrough

happened when I was sleeping on the floor surrounded
by 5,000 copies of my book: I realized I had intentionally
created a new path for my life. I no longer felt stuck and
alone. I felt completely alive for the first time ever. Two
years later the book, Graduate to Your Perfect Job, became a
national best-seller.
Your breakthrough project could be starting a business, overcoming your fear of public speaking, or running
a marathon. All thats between you and your desired
outcome is taking action. Start writing your business plan.
Sign up to speak at four civic groups. Put down the remote
control and head to the track.
The key is to start right where you are, right now.
You never know where your breakthrough project will
take you, but I promise it will be more rewarding than
looking back 10 years from now and wondering, What if I
had only. My first breakthrough project took me around
the world. I met my mentors. I met three U.S. presidents.
I met my wife. I found myself. The best part: I get to write
a magazine column for people I care deeply about. Heres
to you, breaking through and breaking free! S

THIS IS WHAT A HEART ATTACK

FEELS LIKE TO A WOMAN.

MAKE THE CALL. DONT MISS A BEAT.

WomensHealth.gov/HeartAttack

How To

Build Business
by Exhibiting
at Trade Shows
by EMMA JOHNSON

Trade and consumer shows serve as a powerful stage for meeting

potential customers, building on current client relationships and
creating partnerships with other organizations. The keys are to
plan ahead, make the most of your time and space, and challenge
any preconceived notions of trade shows, says Thom Singer, sales
and marketing consultant and author of The ABCs of Conferences
and contributor for Trade Show Network News.
Trade shows can be one of the best ways to get in front
of a targeted group of potential customers and build on your
current client business, Singer says. But you need to prepare
for the before, during and after of the show. The following steps
can help you reap the greatest benefits from show participation.

30 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Determine which trade shows offer the most return on

investment. Patrick Hull, an entrepreneur who has attended
scores of shows to promote the 30-plus enterprises he has
launched, says to consult peers and competitors and ask your
trade organization to find the best fit for your business. Trade
shows are very expensive, Hull says. You need to pick the
right ones.
Scrutinize the show attendee list. Before the show, consult
this list and invite key people to breakout meetings or dinners, or
lure them to your booth with special offers. Make sure the offer
is really enticing, Hull says. People are bombarded with offers
these days.

 Mingle with attendees. One of the biggest mistakes vendors

make is to separate themselves from the attendees, Singer says.
Break down those invisible walls. Attend all keynote events,
networking opportunities and cocktail gatherings. A show is a micro
society, and when you stand shoulder to shoulder with people you
want to work with, you find ways to relate to them, Singer says.
People bond when they share experiences.
Spend money (but not too much) on your booth. You want
your booth to be inviting and make an impression of quality,
Singer says. But theres usually a point of diminishing returns, so
budget accordingly.
The most important booth asset is engaged people. Having
an empty booth is the same as flushing money down the toilet,
Singer says. So is staffing a booth with employees who are reading
magazines or playing with personal computers or smartphones. The
devices tell potential clients that there is someone more important
than them, Singer says.
Ask questions to spark conversations with attendees. Ask about
their expectations for the show, their needs, problems or greatest joys
related to your product and industry. Leading with an elevator pitch

is a turnoff, Singer says, but asking questions allows you to discover

ways to tailor solutions to the individualwhich leads to sales.
Walk the show. See what the competition is doing. Chat with
other vendors to explore partnerships and synergies. Sometimes
you dont know what other companies are up to until you see their
booths. It is so much easier to start a conversation in person rather
than with a cold call, Hull says. Ive made a fortune from partnerships, and most of those were initiated at trade shows.
Think carefully about giveaways. Branded tchotchkes are
destined for the garbage. Unless it is very special or unique, skip it,
Singer says.
Create promotions that gather customers information or bring
them back to you. Recently, Hulls company GetLoaded.com, an
online load board for the trucking industry, hosted a successful trade
show booth featuring beautiful models, with whom attendees could
get their picture taken. To download the photos, potential customers
had to log onto the companys website.
When following up: Do not send bulk emails. Create a system
to track all interactions at the show, and follow up in a personalized,
systematic way.

Greg Monterrosa
Co-Founder
Company: MyLLC.com, a business
incorporating service
Tactic: Walk the floor, get excited about
theproduct.
Sales for our product require educating the customers on why they
need our service. We found early on that trade shows were the most
efficient way to interact with the largest number of people needing
what we do. Meeting people face to face helps us build relationships
more quickly than if we called or emailed.
Another benefit is that it really pumps up our employees to talk
about our company nonstop. This enthusiasm is contagious and
drives sales even after the show. Each booth is staffed with four
brand ambassadors, and each team contains staffers from sales and
marketing, upper management and sales reps.
There is no downtime at the show. At all times, at least one of our
people is walking the show floor, talking to other exhibitors, and
working on alliances and partnerships.
We learned through lots of mistakes along the way. The first is to
pay attention to logistics. We were booking cheaper hotel rooms but
quickly learned that saving $20 per night was not worth the hassle.
Now we always stay on site.

We make sure our booth looks great.

One of my main concerns when shopping
for a display was durability; the table and
displays get beat up when theyre transported. Our booth has lasted five years
and still looks great. It is also flexible, in
that it can be used for a 10-by-10-foot space, or if we unexpectedly find we have extra room, can be bumped out to
10 by 20 feet.
We also learned to print only generic brochures. We were
ordering collateral that was specific to each event, and it was
heartbreaking to throw away expensive leftover literature.
Now the same flyers and pamphlets can be used at any show.
Were careful about what giveaways we invest in. Our
biggest success was our branded T-shirts, which we handed
out at South by Southwest in Austin last year. There was a
spot on the back of the shirt where wearers could write their
Twitter handles. We saw a lot of those around the show.
Our follow-up practice includes putting all leads in an
Excel spreadsheet, and those we really hit it off with get a
LinkedIn connection request immediately after the show.
Within one to two weeks after the show, they get a phone
call. That strategy has proved the most successful for us.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

31

How To

Allan Gourlie
Owner
Company: Quickn Brite, household cleaner
Tactic: Exhibited at more than 400 consumer and trade
shows during the past 30 years.
The key is to be active and engaged. Get out into the aisle. It drives
me mad when people are selling a product and just sit in their booth
and wait for someone to come in. It doesnt matter what the product
is; you have to find ways to get people to come in.
About 70 percent of our sales come from shows. We have a unique
model in that for our consumer shows, we do demonstrations and
then make sales on the spot. Our product is concentrated and more
expensive than anything youd buy in the store, so we have to show
the value through demonstrations. It is very action-oriented, with
our spokespeople cleaning soap scum off glass and ballpoint pen ink
off upholstery. At shows, we offer prices that are lower than Quickn
Brite sells for on the Internet, but because the demonstrations are

Niraj Tenanyf
Founder/Owner
Company: Netwoven, a consulting firm
specializing in Microsoft content programs
Tactic: Create a learning environment
and broadcast enticing promotions before
theshow.
When we first started exhibiting at trade shows, we made the
mistake of assuming that if we spent enough money and showed up,
people would come see us. That just didnt happen. Because we are a
services company, we have to attract people to our booth in ways that
product companies do not.
Right before the show, we send attendees email invitations to
answer a few questions in return for the chance to win a really great
prizelike a trip to Hawaii. They have to print out their answers
and bring them into the booth, where we offer more information and
start a dialogue.
Our goal is to create an environment of learning. Our people are
well-versed in what we do and the products we support. We ask

32 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

so compelling, most people are

ready to buy before we even share
the price.
When we ex hibit at trade
shows, we invite people to come
in and ask them what their needs
are and what theyre interested in.
If there are times when we wait
for people to come to us, sales
drop by 50 to 75 percent.
For wholesale customers, we
try to make an appointment while at the show to come to their
business, where our sales associate challenges the cleaning power
of whatever products they currently use. If we cant do that, we mail
them information and samples, and then follow up by phone to
make an appointment. Its all about the demonstration.
We usually staff with two people at each show, often a husbandwife team. I believe we should be dressed one step above the people
we are talking to. Likewise, our custom-made booths look really
professional, which makes a big difference. If you dont look professional, people dont take you seriously.

attendees a lot of questions and educate them about

what we do and how we can help their companies.
We also host cocktail parties where we can carry out
these conversations in a casual environment.
Lots of people think the goal of a trade show is to
close deals. Our goal is to generate leads and secure
a meetinghopefully later at the show in a private
meeting room or through our follow-up methods.
Another role these shows play is strengthening
relationships with existing customers. There is value
in the visibility trade shows offer, which boosts the perception that
we are a growing company. Everyone wants to do business with a
winning business. We reach out to these customers before the show
and invite them to have a chance at the same prize [that Hawaii trip,
for instance].
Follow-up is also really important. In the past, we made a list of
people we met, made a few phone calls, and if someone didnt reply,
we just dropped them. Today we have a program in which attendees
we meet receive a phone call and we send them materials. Then we
interact with them in an effort to secure a meeting. We make sure
we are very diligent in this process. Today, about 15 percent of the
annual $4.5 million in sales comes from trade shows. S

M AGA Z I N E

BONUS Audio Downloads

Listen NOW!
This issue on
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5
1: Darren HARDY
Introduction

2: Darren HARDY and Brian TRACY:

On achieving your big goals

Great Reasons
to Listen!

Exclusive interviews with

SUCCESS Publisher Darren Hardy

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the full CD
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3: S. Anthony

IANNARINO:

On having your best

sales year ever

4:Mike VARDY:
On being more
productive

5: Key Ideas

Summary and
Call to Action

Results from the Corner Office

TONY JEARY

Super
Selling
Elite organizations
motivate and innovate.

hat makes some

sales groups
successful while
ot hers dont
measure up? More
important, what distinctions separate
best-in-class businesses from those that
are merely successful?
I asked Michael Gade, who has served
at the C level with companies such as
Coopers & Lybrand, Boston Consulting,
7-Eleven and The Home Depot. Gade
also is or was on the boards of directors
for multiple companies, including Crane Group and Rent-ACenter, and is an executive in residence and lecturer at the
University of North Texas.
Tony Jeary: In your work with major organizations,
what practices yield the best results?
Michael Gade: It starts with learning from past successes,
including those of others. Dont
reinvent the world. Find things that
are working and build off of them.
No matter whats going on, you
have to have people who are dedicated and capable, and they need
to be focused with clear, definable objectives. Then they must
be rewarded and recognized for
accomplishments. This means more
than rewarding fi nancially. I cant
express enough how important recognition can be in motivating people to perform at world-class levels.

34 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

I would add that it is all about improvement. In American

business today, we hear about continuous improvement. Its
incredibly important, but the question is how to do it.
How does innovation take place? It is important to listen
and try new things and learn. Its OK not to win every
time as part of the innovation process. Failure is part of
becoming successful.
TJ: What specific techniques did you use to increase
sales teams skills?
MG: Ive been involved in a variety of businesses. From
my consulting at Coopers & Lybrand [an accounting firm
thats now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers] and Boston
Consulting [a management consulting company], the key is
understanding the particular needs of your potential client vs.
selling them what you have; its understanding the benefits of
your product and services for specific requirements they have.
One of the biggest mistakes sales organizations make is that
they have products and services to push, and thats not what
customers need. They need solutions.

You must be able to innovate to

benefit your customer.
Another absolute requirement for success is listening better.
to them. Your ability to communicate the value you bring to that
If you dont have a sales organization that listens well, you wont
particular customer is the difference in getting or not getting a sale.
TJ: Is benchmarking a part of your strategy, and if yes, can
be successful. It starts with understanding that client, knowing
you explain?
what needs it has, and demonstrating how to make it win in
MG: My whole career has been built on analytics. Part of this is
the marketplace today. If you can enable that client to make its
understanding the best-in-class operators and performers. The real
customer more successful, you become a strategic partner as
success comes from extending whats happening today and making
opposed to just being a vendor.
TJ: From a leadership perspective, what are some of your best
that better. Consequently, benchmarking and understanding bestphilosophies?
in-class performance is critical.
MG: Effective leadership is an ability to manage different
Understanding that all competitors are probably as sophisticated
people in different ways to get the maximum out of their personas you and that theyre doing it alreadythat means youve got
alities; its also a way of behaving and understanding how and
to be faster, more direct, more focused, and willing to innovate
what drives each individual. From my perspective, I dont believe
and take risks if youre going to win. Part of success is daring to
in taking any recognitionall recognition goes to my team and
be different and become uniquely qualified to produce value and
specific individuals. If youre looking for individual reward [for
service for customers.
TJ: What do you believe is different about todays sales
yourself], youre missing the power of a team working together,
forces, and how would you do things differently now to adapt?
thinking together and attacking problems together. If a team is
MG: The amount of information available to [todays sales
focused, it brings much more to the table than any one individual
forces] is well beyond what we had early in my career. They need to
ever could. The key is getting them executing for the benefit of
take that and apply that data into actionable next steps to provide
the customer.
differentiation. Also, they need to use the data to
Its not about you. Its about making your
get a better understanding of who their prospect is
customers more successful. And if you can do
and what products can best be used by themuse
that, you become strategic to them. If you are
the information to provide best practices for each
just providing a product or service, you can be
individual account you serve and not treat them all
replaced. So often, people start taking things
the same.
for granted. Serving well is not enough to keep
Sometimes it means that your sales force will
them. You must be able to innovate to benefit
have to be pruned, because as the world becomes
your customer, to become a strategic provider of a
more sophisticated and as analytics play a bigger
product or service.
TJ: What are some lessons you learned from
role, not everyones going to fit, and thats OK, too.
failures or things that didnt go as planned?
Its how you manage transitions within a sales force
MG: Lets talk about 7-Eleven for a moment.
to keep the team working and operating together
We believed we could innovate in financial
effectively that creates success.
TJ: What other insights can you share?
services through a next-generation ATM that
MG: Ive been married for 25 years, and Im
provided an abundance of services for people:
proud of that. Ive accomplished that by balancing
check cashing, bill payment, wire transfers and
in life; it only works when you work at each area
a variety of things. It was a virtual bank and
Tony Jeary, The RESULTS
that is importantjob, career, [relationships],
was technically world-class. It clearly brought a
GuyTM, advises top organizations
self. If one hurts, it affects the others.
variety of services together in one package.
and high achievers from around
My advice is to understand whats important
It failed because it was too far ahead of its time.
the world, helping them clarify
to
you, your company and your customers, and
Customers didnt understand it. The techtheir direction, focus their efforts
focus
on their needs. Differentiate your services
nology was too sophisticated.
and execute to get the right results
a
nd
posit
ion yourself to m ake them better,
[You must] make it easy for your customers to
faster. For more on Tony Jeary,
visit SUCCESS.com/Tony.
notyourself. S
use the technology or product you are providing

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

35

Making a Difference

SoYou Can
Breathe Easier

A late-blooming Navy veteran

earns his Ph.D. and digs into the
science behind air pollution.
by JENNIFER ABBASI

Navy veteran Tim McAuley is on a mission: to improve

the air we breathe. For a guy who entered the military
straight out of high school (where he was a marginal
academic performer), researching pollution seems
an unlikely career. But he found his calling and now
evaluates the impact of industrial development, cigarette
smoke and automobile fumes that choke the atmosphere
in places such as where our kids walk to school.
For instance, a few years ago, when an asphalt company
tried to set up shop in Westford, Mass., a community
group contacted McAuley to analyze the factorys impact
on air quality. The last thing this small country town
needed was an asphalt plant, McAuley says of Westford,
which already had a quarry and a concrete plant.
His research team determined that the asphalt companys air quality impact models, which projected legal
levels of emissions, were dangerously inaccurate; in fact,
the plant would probably significantly exceed national
air quality standards three months of every year. Because
of research by McAuley and other scientists, the towns
board of health rejected the permit.
McAuley is chief executive manager of CHANGE
(Consulting for Health, Air, Nature, & a Greener
Environment), an air quality and human health exposure
firm in Queensbury, N.Y. He started the company in
2009, when he was 35.
Back in high school in Lake George, N.Y., McAuley
probably couldnt have guessed that hed end up with a
doctorate in environmental science and engineering
the first ever granted by Clarkson University in Potsdam,
N.Y.or that hed direct a multinational consulting
business with networks in close to 150 countries. A jock
with a C average, McAuley entered the Navy after high
school graduation because he knew he wasnt ready for

36 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

college. Two years into his service, McAuley was stationed aboard the USS
Mount Whitney at the Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia. On Sundays, his day off,
hed hang out at the towns Barnes & Noble, and during one visit he picked up
a book on Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. The purchase ignited an interest
in science that changed his life.
Before long, he had a stack of science books in his tiny quarters, and fellow
sailors came to him for tutoring for their chemistry courses at the nearby
community college. It was then that he realized he would go into medicine or
science after the Navy.
Although he was one of the worst chemistry students in high school,
McAuley can recall an early science lesson that captured his imagination.
His first-grade teacher drew an atomelectrons circling a nucleuson the
chalkboard and compared it to the classroom, with everyone working together.
McAuley began to look at himself as an entity in the vast universe. He remembers standing on a beach in Maine when he was 12, looking out toward the
horizon and feeling like a tiny molecule with amazing things surrounding
him. Ive always been interested in things you cant see but that are going on
around you, he says.
After the Navy, molecules became his lifes work. When he showed up for a
campus visit at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, N.Y.where he would later
earn his undergraduate degree in biochemistrythe dean of admissions asked
him to fill out an application. He produced one that was already typed up, and
she accepted him on the spot.
McAuley, a self-described type A personality, says hes always been driven,
whether in sports or in science. But it was the military that taught him the
discipline necessary to succeed in academia and then build a global business.
In the Navy, he served as a radioman, a communications officer responsible for decoding and delivering classified messages up the chain of

Photos courtesy of CHANGE

From left, Tim McAuley discovered a passion for science when he was serving in the Navy; McAuley and his
team have done studies in places such as the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, N.Y., and (two right photos) Ho Chi
Minh City in Vietnam.

command. The job, which took him to Haiti for

Operation Support Democracy in 1994, sometimes required working 16- to 18-hour shifts for
weeks at a time. It was a highly detailed position
with intense pressurean admiral could reduce
you two levels in rank for one mistake. Youre
exhausted, but you dont have the option to say,
Im going to bed, Ill be back. That doesnt exist.
Today that diligence extends to prov iding
his clients with accurate science on air quality,
says Margo Pedroso, deputy director of the Safe
Routes to School National Partnership, an organization that works to promote children safely
walking and biking to school. McAuley produced
a report for the partnership on how communities, school districts and families can reduce kids
exposure to air pollution while they stay active
on their way to school.
Funded by the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and published in August
2012, the report was sent to 13,000 educators,

parents, health professionals, planners and engineers around the country. It

provides suggestions on mapping lower traffi c-pollution routes and implementing anti-idling zones, remote parking programs to reduce traffic congestion near schools and walking-bus programs, where parents walk a group of
children to school on a set route to increase physical activity and make the
journey to school more fun, all focused on ensuring kids breathe cleaner air.
Tim was really important in helping us understand the complicated science
behind air pollutionhow it affects children, how it disperses, and how you
can and cant mitigate it, Pedroso says. He combed through the research journals to assemble a group of studies on the impact, and then explained them in
a way that nontechnical people could understand. And he used his connections
within the air-quality world to identify some good examples of efforts to reduce
air pollution that could be applied in a Safe Routes to School setting.
As a dadhis daughter, Corinne Elise, is 16 months oldMcAuley is
personally motivated to help kids breathe better air. Research has shown that
children exposed to high levels of air pollution can have abnormal lung development and growth, and even cognitive problems.
I want my daughter to have an environment thats cleaner because of some
of the work Ive done, McAuley says. I feel that the work Im involved in will
help shape and establish strict guidelines for protecting not only the environment, but human health.
Despite his passion for clean air, McAuley is committed to presenting the
truth about air pollution, even when the results are controversial or unpopular. The Westford community group that hired him to assess the impact of
a proposed new asphalt factory asserted that the towns existing industry was
responsible for a high asthma rate in its school, but McAuleys research showed
that the school was actually upwind of the quarry and concrete plant.
He has worked to help people locate sources of secondhand smoke in their
apartment buildings, in some cases getting repeat offenders evicted, and yet his
recent two-year study showed electronic cigarettes dont expose bystanders to
carcinogens. (Electronic cigarettes are electric-powered devices that vaporize a
nicotine solution into a mist thats inhaled; smokers sometimes use e-cigarettes
to help them kick or cut back on their habits.) This research is a victory for
e-cigarette users, but opponents of the devices argue that they could be a
gateway for more people to become addicted to nicotine. As a result, there will
be a lot of unhappy people, McAuley says. But science is scienceI dont care
what side of the fence Im working on. S
Jennifer Abbasi is a science and health writer living in Portland, Ore. She profiled Vy Higginsen,
who teaches gospel music to New York teenagers, in the June issue.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

37

Your Personal Best

Hometown

Below, In 1962, Ralph Braun,

20, rides a prototype scooter he
designed and built. Right, Braun on
one of his modern scooters.

HERO

Disabled before adulthood,

Ralph Braun made mobility
possible for himself and
thousands of others.
by SALLY DENEEN
Ralph W. Braun was 6 when he was told he wouldn't live
past his teens. He and his cousins were playing with toy cars
in his aunt's driveway when he stopped to show them a bottle
of newly prescribed pills and, to his dismay, the pills tumbled
into the dirt. That's when he first got the bad news: It doesn't
matter, his cousin Harry said. I heard our parents talking, and
they said you're going to die anyway, probably before you grow up.
A doctor earlier on that summer day in 1947 privately told
Ralph's parents their boy walked upstairs on unsteady legs
because he had muscular dystrophy (the diagnosis was later
corrected to spinal muscular atrophy, also a degenerative
disease). Nothing could be done, they said.
Confusion and hurt gave way to determination for the
small-town Indiana boy, who not only survived but seemed
to be motivated by people saying "you can't do that" and went
on to make it big. Braun went on to found The Braun Corp.,
which calls itself the world's leading maker of wheelchairaccessible vehicles and wheelchair lifts. The global company,
now 40 years old, has 850 employees, many headquartered in
Winamac, Ind., Braun's hometown located amid cornfields,
halfway between Indianapolis and Chicago.
"I didn't set out to be this successful," says Braun, now 72
and the married father of five adult children, speaking from
his large office with windows that provide a view of semitrailers going into and out of the 88-acre complex. "I set out to
put food on the table and shelter my children."
His enterprise started out small... and out of simple necessity: Young Ralph Braun grew tired of pushing himself around
in a wheelchair, so he motorized the wheelchair by adding
lawnmower parts and go-kart tires. That led to a side business that grew by word-of-mouth and eventually creating the
Tri-Wheeler, the world's first motorized scooter. (''I'm pretty

38 SUCCESS JANUARY 2013

much the one who is responsible for

all those things being run around
in the shopping malls.") The scooter
provided him a way to get to his day
job as a quality control inspector at a
nearby factory. When the factory moved
too far to arrive by scooter, he engineered
his first accessible vehicle out of an old
postal Jeep with hand controls and a
hydraulic lift. "For the first time, I could drive
and ride from my scooter without having to
rely on someone else-freedom," Braun says.
Braun still was working as a factory inspector
by day when, during his off hours, he created and
installed the Lift-A-Way wheelchair lift for vans.

liMy philosophy
still is to take the
profits and invest
them in the business
and iust keep
11
growing.
"I knew that if it were true and I wasn't
going to live past my teens, then I'd better
live a fast and quick life during those teens
so that I could enjoy life as much as possible."
He realized death could take him any day"which it could to any of us."
Obstacles were many for a disabled young
man creating a business, and his experiences can enlighten other entrepreneurs. For
example:

At 22, Braun was an inventor with no

money, no business plan and his parents'
garage as a workshop. "It was all by the seat of
my pants," Braun recalls. If he faced obstacles
such as needing to borrow money, he'd try his
hardest to get it, "but I found it a lot easier just to
do without." His M.O.: Every time he'd make a
few dollars on something he built, he'd reinvest
the profits into his business so it would grow. "I
still do that," Braun says. "Really, there has been
no change, even though I could borrow probably whatever I wanted to from the bank. My
philosophy still is to take the profits and invest
them in the business and just keep growing."

He worked nights and weekends to meet the demand of

disabled people who called from far and wide. He founded The
Braun Corp. in 1972 (and around that time quit his factory inspector job).
The White House in 2012 named the boy-made-good a "Champion of Change"
for "overcoming society's barriers to bring mobility to the world."
"It was kind of devastating," Braun says of his muscular dystrophy diagnosis.
But "that just made me more determined to do what I needed to do as quickly
as I needed to do it.

Braun didn't patent his products (because

of the potential cost of defending patents). His
motorized scooter ultimately attracted more
than 20 lower-cost competitors, nearly all of
them offshore, so he faced a turning point. He
stopped making scooters. "There was no way
that I could compete against offshore stuff,"
Braun says. He focused instead on his other
innovations: the wheelchair lifts for vans and

SUCCESS JANUARY 2013 39

Your Personal Best

The

town would be a ghost town if it wasnt for him.

trucksproducts that arent easily imported. Braun hasnt

patented his wheelchair lifts, either. If you can build a better
mousetrap at the same price or better than anybody else can
build it, he says, and you keep making the product better, why
do you need a patent?

He chose his 2,500-population rural hometow n as

company headquarters. Braun says it never really crossed
my mind to locate his 210,000-square-foot manufacturing
facility anywhere but Winamac. By staying in my hometown,
I had the familiarity with everything that goes on here and
the people structure and the peoples work attitudes so that
you could get things done. If you go into a strange area, it
could take you two to three times longer to get a zoning ordinance passed or who knows what. Besides, the work ethic
of the people in this rural community is untouchable. There
are none better.
Town Council member Tom J. Murray, who grows hay on
some of Brauns farmland, calls Braun a big asset for the community. Murrays dad, Tom C. Murray, a part-time real estate agent
who as a kid rode the school bus with
Braun, couldnt agree more. Theres a lot of
employment and hes been real good for the
town, he says, adding that he sees Braun
just about every day eating lunch at Vickys
Restaurant in Winamac. The town would
be a ghost town if it wasnt for him.
L ike m a ny g reat entrepreneur i al
ideas, his business grew out of necessity
and met unsatisfied needs. Just think:
There were no curb cuts and no wheelchair ramps when Braun was young; his
dad for a long time gave him piggyback
rides to get him around, and Brauns
high school buddies carried him to the
schools second floor. Braun was stunned
whenas his business started to grow in
the early 1970she learned that many
disabled people were kept at home, never
to venture out into a formidable obstacle
course of a world with multiple steps,
curbs and tinybathrooms.
40 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

There were a lot of people that were put in a closet, Braun

says. It made me almost ill to see how backward some
people were, where the parents just didnt want to take them
out in public and basically just kept them at home with no
education. It was sad. He hasnt come across such stories
in years, so apparently weve done something to move
thingsalong.

Theres no magic potion for success. It basically comes

down to just hard work and determination.
Thats how a company that started as a side business in
his parents garage grew up and recently celebrated its 40th
anniversary with a fireworks show and company picnic that,
a spokeswoman said, drew more than 3,400 people for its
carnival rides and hot air balloon race. (Interestingly, Braun
himself has competed in hot air balloon races. He is believed
to be the first person in a wheelchair to compete in the Indiana
State Fair Great Hot Air Balloon Race; he finished among the
top five in that 2002 competition.)
Braun currently is fighting cancer and, as he puts it, is
doing a real good job of it. He sold
part of the business to three groups
and maintains majority ownership.
A new leadership team is carrying on
his vision. He still works half-days as
chairman and CEO. Theres no retirement for me. He has told his story in
an autobiography, Rise Above (2010, The
Braun Corp.); proceeds from sales go
to The Ralph Braun Foundation, which
assists people with mobility needs.
He remembers praying as a kid to ask
God to perform a miracle and make him
able to walk. I have to say that miracle
did happen: He blessed me with the
ability to take care of myself and help
others, Braun wrote in Rise Above. My
prayers were answered. S
Contributing editor Sally Deneen lives in
Seattle. In a recent SUCCESS feature, she
describes how the cellphone explosion has
changed the world.

Lead paint poisoning affects

over one million children today.
Learning disabilities, hearing loss, speech
delays, violent behavior and, in rare cases,
seizures and even death: these are just some
of the effects lead paint poisoning has on
young children. If your home was built before
1978, lead paint on your walls, doors, windows
and sills may be dangerous. And its not just
large paint chips that can cause damage. In
fact, three granules of lead dust are enough to
poison your child. Lets make all kids lead-free
kids. To learn more about the simple steps you
can take to safeguard your family, log on to
LEADFREEKIDS.org or call 800-424-LEAD.

42 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Courtesy of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia

Do
Not
Scramble
by Susan Young
Martha Stewart
dishes about her new
show, grandkids and
building a business
empireand shows that
preparing the perfect
omelet has a lot to do
with navigating lifes
obstacles.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

43

Do
Not
Scramble

ike eager schoolchildren begging the

teacher to call on them in class, a group
of TV critics shot their hands into the
air in response to Martha Stewarts
request for a couple of volunteers.
W he n she pic k e d me to he lp
with her demonstration, it was like
w i n n i n g t he lot t er y a nd eve n
sweeter that she was going to teach
me how to make my first omelet.
How have you avoided making an
omelet for so many years? she asked.
I told the truth. I cant stand runny eggs, and I tend to panic and
go into scramble mode when I see an almost-cooked omelet start to
ooze. Stewart wore a dont-disappoint-me look as she proceeded to
give instructions.
After whisking and carefully folding the mixture into the pan, my
fellow sous-chef and I stood by while Stewart worked the crowd of
TV critics gathered last summer at the Beverly Hilton ballroom. She
aimed to sell them on her new Public Broadcasting Service series,
Martha Stewarts Cooking School.
With carefully tousled blond hair and minimal makeup, the
71-year-old former model appeared at least a decade younger, and
seemed remarkably refreshed for a woman who sleeps an average
of four hours a night. She dressed casually elegant in a loose white
blouse, smoky blue legging-like pants and strappy heels, her large
pearl-and-diamond earrings swinging saucily as she spoke.
I really think that people need to know how to cook, she told
the writers. Well, not everybody. If you hate cooking, you dont
have to watch the program.
The crowd laughed. Stewart had won them over in record time.
Meanwhile, the eggs seemed determined not to cook and I felt
that familiar urge. But before I could make the wrong move, I heard
a stern voice say: Do not scramble.
The perfect omelet, it seems, is also a metaphor for life. Panic
never helps in any situation, Stewart explains. You have to stay
calm and trust that your preparation will see you through. And,
just like that, Stewart the teacher imparted the same wisdom that
has gotten her through some famously turbulent times, including
a five-month prison sentence for charges stemming from an insider
trading scandal.
Through this and other travails, including business ups and
downs and a divorce in 1989, Stewart has remained remarkably
resilient. Upon her release from prison in 2005, she launched a
highly publicized comeback, including a return to daytime TV with

44 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

The Martha Stewart Show, which ran until last year; a new (but shortlived) primetime show, The Apprentice: Martha Stewart; a business
book, The Martha Rules; and expansion of her product line. By 2012,
she regained her position as chairman of her company.
Speaking generally, in an exclusive interview after her cooking
demonstration, I ask how shes able to bounce back after setbacks.
She chuckles. Believe it or not, Im even-keeled about stuff like that.
I multitask. Im always thinking while Im doing stuff and you just
get through the hard part, she says. I try to compartmentalize and
proceed as if there is some nice area just around the corner.
Born in 1941, Martha Helen Kostyra was the second of six
children born to Polish-American professionals (her father was
a salesman, her mother a teacher) who imparted strong Catholic
sensibilities and a strict work ethic. Growing up in Nutley, N.J.,
Stewart learned from her father how to garden and use tools, and
her mother taught her to cook and sew. And all on her own she
discovered she had an artistic gift and an entrepreneurial bent.
I always had a mind for business, Stewart tells me. It was just
taking what I loved and turning it into a career.
Yale Business School professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld says that, in
itself, is noteworthy. Many people see forks in the road between
false paradoxes like art versus business, designing versus building,
media images versus tangible products, but not Martha Stewart.
She has found a path to blend aesthetics, communications and
commerce while also bringing the world more beauty and spirit.
Stewart tries to boil it down further, as she explains how
straightforward it can be to build a mega-organization around
ones passions.
Its just that I centered on a subject matterlivingthat
I could really excel in, she says. We started a new genre of
business, the lifestyle business, and it has continued to grow in
importance and volume. We certainly have had an effect on the
American home and I think weve elevated the subject of homemaking and home-keeping to a level much more respected and
beautiful than ever before.
Stewarts career couldve taken a different path. As a teenager,
she modeled to help pay for college, appearing in a Lifebuoy
deodorant soap commercial. She also posed for print ads that
included Tareyton cigarettes famous Id Rather Fight Than
Switch campaign. As a student at Barnard College, she met her
future husband, Andrew Stewart, then a Yale law student. They
married in 1961, and she took a year off from college, returning to
graduate with a double major in history and architectural history.
In 1968, three years after giving birth to their daughter, she
became a stockbroker but gave that up in 1972 when the family

I always had

David Yellen/Corbis Outline

a mind for business,

Stewart says. It was just
taking what I loved and
turning it into a career.

moved to tony Westport, Conn. Instead of following the traditional

stay-at-home-mom route, she undertook the massive renovation
of an 1805 farmhouse, capturing the attention of her well-heeled
neighbors (the house would later become the model for the set of
Martha Stewart Living). She then parlayed her domestic skills into a
catering business she ran from the basement.
When talking about her thought process for dealing with
problems, she recalls a catering job for Paul Newman and Joanne
Woodward. She wowed them with her idea for an exotic Moroccan

buffet, complete with a recipe adapted from one she picked up on

her travels.
But as she prepared the fl aky-crust squab-and-chicken pies
that day, she got momentarily distracted and the pies sides
burned. She didnt have time to re-create the dish, so she improvised. Rather than serving individual pies, she cut them up,
tossed the bad sections and served the perfect parts in wedges,
as if that was how she originally envisioned the presentation. No
one was the wiser.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

45

Do
Not
Scramble

Theres a process for almost any obstacle, Stewart says in her

conversational, matter-of-fact tone. What you are going through
may not be pleasant, and some obstacles might be more difficult to
solve, but you work through it step by step.
What began with the home-based catering business began
to morph with publication of her 1982 book, Entertaining. Then
came more books, newspaper columns and magazine articles,
TV specials and guest appearances, her own products, her own
shows and her own magazines. In 1997 she created Martha Stewart
Living Omnimedia (MSLO) to bring all the assets of her brandin
publishing, broadcasting, e-commerce and merchandisingunder
one umbrella. In 1999, she took the company public on the New
York Stock Exchange.
Although Stewart has always maintained that she cornered
an underserved market, others might say she succeeded in
spite of her timing. After all, crafting and making a comfortable
home werent exactly at the top of the post-feminist-movement
to-dolist.
There was a time in the 80s and 90s when the idea of being
a housewife meant you werent living up to your potential, says
IMDb TV Editor Melanie McFarland, who nonetheless became
hooked on Stewarts TV shows, books and magazines. The
cool thing about Martha is that she navigated both worlds and

married them so she not only honors and celebrates keeping a

home, she founded a highly successful corporation.
Stewart acknowledges in our interview that hospitality fell
out of favor. We went back to work, and tried to work friends
and family into our lives, and we didnt know how to balance
it all. And, of course, thats where Martha Stewart comes in:
People need to realize they need to learn how to balance the job
with their lives. I hope we will all live better-balanced lives and
beproductive.
Today she continues to generate business ideas like a winning
Vegas slot machine, always thinking about how she can put an
entrepreneurial spin on any interest she may have. She tells the
group of reporters that she and daughter Alexis, 47, are collaborating
on a childrens business. My greatest personal accomplishment, of
course, is my daughter and her two beautiful children. Thats what
its all about, she says.
Im crazy about my grandchildren, and I spend probably what a
lot of you may think is an inordinate amount of time with them. But
babies are another business, so Im learning everything I can about
babies again.
Stewart says when she fi rst launched her products, she wanted
the merchandise to be well-made yet affordably priced. So we
did our first merchandise at Kmart, which was a great store

Martha Stewart Timeline

JANUARY 2013

1997
Martha Stewart
Everyday bed,
bath and paint
collections launch
exclusively at
Kmart. The line
expands over
the years to
include a variety
ofproducts.

1999
Martha Stewart
Living Omnimedia
goes public on
the New York
Stock Exchange.

2003
MSLO publishes
the rst Everyday
Food magazine,
and also
launches the
Martha Stewart
furniture line
withBernhardt.

Diane Bondareff/AP Images for Staples

Random House

46 SUCCESS

1992
Martha Stewart
Living TV debuts
as a weekly
half-hour
syndicatedshow.

Henry Ray Abrams/AFP/Getty Images

1990
Martha Stewart
Living preview
issue is published
in the winter and
launched in 1991.

Susan Wood/Getty Images

1982
Martha Stewart
publishes her
rst book,
Entertaining,
now in its
30thprinting.

2004
MSLO acquires
Body+Soul
magazine,
now called
Whole Living.

2005
Everyday Food
airs on PBS.
Martha Stewart
Living Radio
launches on
Sirius Satellite
Radio. The
Martha Stewart
Show airs on
NBC. Stewart
publishes The
Martha Rules.

Brands, materials
for paper crafting
and scrapbooking
at Michaels
stores, area rugs
with Safavieh,
carpet tiles with
Flor, and ham, the
rst in a series of
food products, at
Costco Wholesale
warehouses.

2008
MSLO acquires
the Emeril
Lagasse franchise,
including TV
programming,
cookbooks,
Internet, licensed
kitchen products
and food products.
MSLO and
1800owers.
com create a

2009
MSLO launches
a multiplatform
pets initiative,
including a blog
by Stewarts
French bulldogs,
Francesca and
Sharkey, called
The Daily Wag.
Marthas followers
on Twitter hit
1million.

new co-branded
owers program.
The book Martha
Stewarts
Cooking School
debuts on the
New York Times
BestsellerList.

2012
Martha Stewarts
Cooking School
airs on PBS.
MSLO announces
plans to extend
content online
as well as an
e-commerce
site in 2013a
joint venture with
JCPenney.

PR NewsFoto/AP Photo

2007
The Martha
Stewart Collection
launches
exclusively at
Macys. MSLO
ventures into
other product
lines, including
Martha Stewartbranded lighting
with Generation

Chris Gordon/Corbis

Martha Stewarts
Homekeeping
Handbook.

Erik Lesser/Corbis

2006
MSLO and KB
Home unveil a
community near
Raleigh, N.C., with
home designs
inspired by
Stewarts homes
in New York and
Maine. Clarkson
Potter publishes
the best-selling

In a statement, MSLO President and CEO Lisa Gersh said the

actions were designed to cut costs and position the company for
growth. We are transitioning our content operations to digital,
mobile and video platforms that feature lower fi xed costs and
align with evolving consumer preferences for how and where
they engage with our content. We are seeing some encouraging
early results, particularly in video.
In September, the company announced new partnerships to
extend its content online. MSLO will develop an e-commerce
site in 2013 in a joint venture w ith JCPenney, programs
featuring Stewart and other MSLO talents such as Emeril
Lagasse will be available on streaming services Hulu and Hulu
Plus, with AOL On Network distributing shorter video clips.
Digital media company Fullscreen will work to boost Stewart on
YouTube, where you can already fi nd a variety of Stewart clips.
The company is expanding across multiple platforms in response
to demands from consumers who view media on an increasing
number of screens, Gersh says. Were connecting with audiences
who are hungry for do-it-yourself guidance with our expertise, she
says. We want to provide the most relevant, high-quality answers
to their questions about a range of lifestyle subjects: from how to
cook your Thanksgiving turkey and decorate for the holidays to
planting bulbs for your garden and advice on home decor.

Erik Lesser/Corbis

when I joined them in 1987. Then we transferred over to Macys,

making beautiful merchandise. So we have been up and down the
retail pyramid and will continue to do so.
Stewarts brands are ubiquitous, including her Staples officeorganizing products, the Martha Stewart Living collection at
The Home Depot and even pet supplies at PetSmart. For crafters,
theres now a Martha Stewart Craft Studio app for the iPad. She
mentioned to the reporters at the cooking event that it was free.
Later it was pointed out that it actually costs $4.99.
Well, it was free to the first 400,000 people, but definitely worth
the $4.99, she said, moving on to the next subject.
The companys merchandising division continued to do
comparatively well through the third quarter of 2012, showing
a 7 percent gain with revenues of $13.2 million. But this wasnt
enough to offset sizable losses in MSLOs publishing and broadcasting divisions, which brought total third-quarter earnings
to $43.5 million, down almost 17 percent from the same time
last year. The losses prompted MSLO to announce plans to sell
Whole Living magazine, scale back publication of Everyday Food
from 10 to five issues a year delivered as a supplement to Martha
Stewart Living, and to lay off 70 of its roughly 600 staff members.
The cutbacks will leave the company with just two magazines:
its fl agship publication and Martha StewartWeddings.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

47

48 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013
Gregory Bull/AP Photo

Patrick McMullan/AP Photo

Louis Lanzano/AP Photo

Evan Agostini/AP Photo

Do
Not
Scramble

Clockwise from top left: The 1805 farmhouse in Connecticut that she
renovated, which became the model for the set of her TV show; Stewart
and daughter Alexis; broadcasting on Sirius Satellite Radio; at home with
equine friends.

By keeping the brand fresh, Stewart has engaged with a new

generation of consumers and fans. Among them is actress Kat
Dennings, who plays a budding entrepreneur on CBSs 2 Broke
Girls. A longtime reader of Martha Stewart Living, Dennings was
thrilled to work with Stewart last season in an episode in which
her character, Max, has a hilarious impromptu meeting in a
bathroom with Stewart, who plays herself.
Shes smart, regal and hilarious. Shes a legend and a powerhouse and shes been a resource for me in how to organize and
how to live a beautiful life, Dennings says. Meeting her was the
ultimate Max dream, and I was honored just to be around her.
Shes a powerful businesswoman who has a wealth of knowledge
and is respectful of others. She came from humble beginnings and
isnt stuck-up.
While Stewarts lifestyle embodies the American Dreamand then
someshe says the thriftiness learned as a child remains with her.
Her primary residence is Cantitoe Corners, a 153-acre estate in
Bedford, N.Y., where she entertains in the elegant mansion amid
manicured gardens. The property is also home to her Friesian
horses, three miniature donkeys, French bulldogs Francesca
and Sharkey (who have their own blog), Chow Chow dogs and
Himalayan cats. Naturally she also has three hayfields to feed
the livestock. Among her other homes are Skylandsher Maine
summer homean East Hampton Victorian home; and a New
Yorkapartment.
Stewart appreciates quality but insists shes not a spendthrift.
Id rather splurge on things that I can use well into the future than
anything else. I am not a consumer of throwaway stuff.
Growing up, Stewarts family used fresh ingredients, often out of their
own garden. Stewart calls her parents the original organic people.
My dad grew everything and had six kids. We ate very well
and very healthily, and very few of us have cavities, and we have
good skin. I think its all about the upbringing. No junk food, no
soda. Anathema.
She does admit to one indulgence shared with a friend whose
father worked for Pepsi. Every now and then we had a Pepsi with
whipped cream in it, she grins mischievously. Delicious.
But those stolen moments were rare for Stewart. We never opened a
can or a box or a bottle in our house unless it was a milk bottle. Never
ate fast food. I proudly can tell you that Ive eaten one Burger King and
I think maybe two McDonalds, and today I ate an In-N-Out Burger,
Stewart says. It was OK. It was not my favorite kind of food. I would
much rather have a salad or sushi or something like that.
Perhaps because of the way she was brought up, she pushes aside
the idea that the nations current economic troubles should hinder
people who want to pursue their own entrepreneurialdreams.

Things dont come to a halt because there is a recession. Some of

the most innovative things occur during hard times, she says. You
just have to get busy and try to move on.
She says she fi nds strength in the success stories of others. I
think about my friend [TV producer] Mark Burnett, and how he
tries things and if they dont work, he moves on. Maybe some ideas
work, maybe some others dont. But once [you get something that
works], it gets easier each time.
If theres a secret Stewart can share about how to face down
any fears in moving toward your goals, it is one thats surprisingly
simple. Its all about preparation. You must prepare, make sure
what you are talking about before you do a presentation. Its part
of the job to be prepared. Preparation makes people more comfortable. After a while its a habit to prepare. You cant wing it unless
you are a comic or an actor.
In typical Stewart fashion, on the day of her media presentation, she left nothing to chance. Her preparation was perfect, from
her early morning trip to the local Santa Monica Farmers Market
to pick up fresh herbs to bringing eggs from her Bedford farm
chickens to make the omelets. No mere Rhode Island Reds for
Stewart. Her 200 hens are the more exotic Marans, a French breed
that lays chocolate-colored eggs, and the Araucana, which pops out
blue eggs.
At the farmers market today, they were $6 a dozen. Six dollars,
says Stewart to her audience, playfully adding, it costs me about
$20 a dozen to have them at home.
Even her most ardent fans might think of Stewart as being unapproachable, but in fact she has an affable charm in person. Stewart
may exude an aura of perfection, but shes quick to note that she
has dealt with her own imperfect performances.
And she just keeps moving forward, always thinking, always
striving to stay engaged. I try something new every day, whether a
new recipe or tying a bow. Its very important that you deal with the
best people, the most creative, clever and intelligent people. I want
to be with people who will teach me things.
Shes also an avid reader of newspapersat least three a day
and books. She also enjoys watching movies. She says her curiosity
has contributed significantly to her success. But more than that is
her state of mind.
Im a strong, healthy woman who doesnt get stressed about
things, Stewart says. I have a lot to do and I cant let things distract
me. And Im an optimist. S
Contributing editor Susan Young is a California-based writer and former
president of the Television Critics Association. Her last cover feature for
SUCCESS was about producer Mark Burnett.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

49

50 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

hether your numbers

werent what you wanted
them to be in 2012 or set a new
standard, its time to sit down and
get busy planning to make 2013
your best sales year of all time.
The following four big ideas will
guide you in building a plan to
put up your biggest numbers ever,
starting Jan. 1.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

51

Who Are Your Dream Clients?

Begin by targeting your dream clients. Most of us spend
too much time chasing opportunities that arent significant
enough to make a difference in our sales results. The top
20 percent of salespeople have one thing in common: They
win the biggest and best clients. In 2013, you are going to
begin your sales efforts by selecting higher-value targets.
You do that by focusing on where you can make a difference
for these clients, which will make a difference in your
salesresults.
Your dream clients are the clients for whom you can do
breathtaking, jaw-dropping, earth-shattering work. You
know these people. Youve probably wanted to win them for
a long time. So lets get started:
Who can help you produce massively better results?
What clients have you longed to win but never gotten any
traction on? Make a list.
This list of dream clients is your sweet spot. Its where
you can create the most value and where you have the
greatest opportunity to grow your business.
Wh ich of t he s e d re a m prosp ect s b elongs on t he
list because of what it says about you as a salesperson
orentrepreneur?
Some clients come with marquee value. Not only do they
provide you with the opportunity to do your best work,
they also make a statement about who you are as salesperson or entrepreneur. Winning these prospects proves to
others that you are a value creator. These guys deserve your
best efforts.

To your list, add the names of the contacts you need to

break into your dream client accounts. Identify the people
with the titles or roles indicating they deal with the business challenges you can help to solve. This is where the
action is. You gain access to your dream clients through
keystakeholders.
This is the list you are going to use to make 2013 your
best-ever sales year.
Its likely that you havent won these dream clients in
the past for two reasons. First, the clients already have a
partner. They have someone who sells them what you sell,
and its almost certain they have deep relationships with
those partners. Theyre difficult to win, and it takes a lot
of time and effort. Which brings us to the second reason
you havent yet won these clients: You havent focused on
nurturing the relationships you need.

Pl ay the Long Game: Build Your

Nurturing Pl an
One key to making selling easy is to create value before
claiming any. This is counterintuitive to salespeople. Were
used to creating value and claiming it in a single transaction: We get an order, and we send an invoice. But if you
want to establish relationships with your dream clients, you
have to create value before you claim it.
In one of the businesses I own, the contacts within my
dream client companies have issues with human resources,
new legislation around labor, and getting the most of their
human capital dollars. My team built a plan to send them
value-creating emails and white papers that gave them a

This is the list you are

going to use to make 2013
your best-ever sales year.
52 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

A Model Sales Week

Heres how to fill out your calendar for serious sales results.
M O N D AY

T U E S D AY

W E D N E S D AY

T H U R S D AY

F R I D AY

8:00 AM

Monday Morning
Meeting

9:00 AM

Prospecting

Prospecting

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

Prospecting

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

10:00 AM

Prospecting

Prospecting

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

Prospecting

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

11:00 AM

Prospecting

Prospecting

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

1:00 PM

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

2:00 PM

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

3:00 PM

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

Weekly One-on-One
Meeting

12:00 NOON

4:00 PM

deep dive into changes they could make to produce better

results nowwhether they used our services or not. We
didnt pitch or ask for an appointment.
Our dream prospects responded at first by politely
thanking us for the information. But over the course of six
months, these same contacts started to reach out to us to
help them with their challenges, to invite us to compete
for their business, and often to give us orders. This create
value before claiming value approach has resulted in
millions of dollars of new revenue for my company.
For three years I have written and posted daily to The
Sales Blog. I have given away countless ideas that salespeople can use to produce better results. One day a consultant friend called to tell me what a mistake I was making.
He said: You dont understand how this game works. You

Face-to-Face
Sales Calls

Prospecting

Nurture Your
Dream Clients

Weekly Team
Sales Huddle

are giving away your intellectual property. Youre doing this

wrong. You have to charge people for giving them ideas. I
listened politely as he berated me. When he was fi nished,
he asked: And by the way, how are you getting all of those
clients and speaking gigs? The world has changed, and my
friend is operating on the rules of a time long past.
If you want to win your dream clients, you are going to
have to spend time nurturing relationships. You have to
pursue them over time, playing the long game.
Your dream clients need help. They want to move their
business forward and produce better results. When you
give them actionable ideas they can use to produce those
better results, you make a deposit in that relationship. You
become known as someone with the insights and ideas
they need.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

53

Opening Is the New Closing

Over the past couple of decades, the business environment has gone through radical changes. Three of these changes
have had a dramatic impact on how we sell.

First, globalization has made all of us worldwide competitors. There are more of us jockeying for our
prospective clients business, and its more difficult to tell us apart.
Second, weve suffered through a decade that began and ended with two major recessions. As companies
focused on cutting costs to survive the downturns, purchasing departments and chief financial officers rose in
power, and we in sales have been forced to sell to buyers whose firstand sometimes onlyconcern is price.
Finally, the Internet has shifted the balance of power between buyers and sellers, giving buyers access to
more information and more choices.

The cold, hard truth is that business is more difficult than ever.
If your request for an appointment suggests you want to learn a little bit about your prospect and his or her
company, youre toast. If you want to get your pinkie toe in the door, you need to do these three things:
Offer an outstanding value proposition. When you
ask for an appointment, say something like this: I have
two ideas that are helping our clients similar to you
produce better results in this area. Id like to share them
with you. Even if you never work with us, Im going to
leave you with some ideas you can use to produce better
results in your businessnow.
To be known as a value creator. You do this by
sending your dream clients actionable ideas they can
use now. You focus on how you can help them produce
better results. You nurture relationships.

Start sending your dream prospects case studies that

tell how you helped a comparable client overcome a challenge they are likely facing. Send them white papers that
provide them with insights and ideas they can use to
produce better results, whether or not they hire you to
help them. When you fi nd a magazine article or a web
post that provides insight they can benefit from, send
it. Enclose a personal note explaining why you believe
the idea is important and why your prospect should be
thinking about it. The ideas that can help your dream
clients move their business forward belong in what I call
your nurture toolkit. To build it:
1. Make a list of 12 tools you can use to connect with your
dream clients once a month over the course of 2013 (white
papers, TED Talks videos, newspaper articles, etc.).

54 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Respect others time. Nobody has time to waste

anymore, and you have to acknowledge that issue
and show empathy for it. So lead with the following:
L i sten, I k now your t i me i s i mpor t a nt, a nd I
promise I wont waste one single minute of a halfhour appointment.
The mo s t d i f f ic u lt com m it me nt to ga i n i s t he
commitment for the opportunity to explore working
together. Opening is the new closing. Making an
effort to improve your ability to open will produce
outsized results.

2. Map out an hour a week to send out items from your

nurture toolkit. Make sure all of the contacts at all your
dream companies receive a nurture tooland a personal
noteeachmonth.

Blocking Time: Design Your Model

Sales Week
Now lets get down to brass tacks. If you are going to have your
best sales year ever (and you are!), managing your time is crucial.
More accurately, you are going to have to manage yourself.
One of the most effective ways to achieve the outcomes you
need is to plan your week ahead of time. A model sales weeka
standard calendar you follow each weekis a great tool for
ensuring you take action. There are three things that must make
it onto your modelcalendar.

New opportunities are the lifeblood of a salespersons results. Without new opportunities,
you cant make your sales goals. Take a calendar and carve
out three blocks of time between Monday and Friday devoted
exclusively to prospecting. Make these blocks two to three
hours each, so you can get into the rhythm of making calls.
If you want to make it easier to get this most important sales
work done, schedule these blocks first thing in the morning,
before the world starts making demands of you.

TIME FOR PROSPECTI NG :

Your coldest opportunities are the

ones you want the most. The reason you spent all that time
developing a list of dream clients and a nurture toolkit is so
you can warm themup.

TIME FOR NURTURING:

Add a one-hour block of time for nurturing to your model

sales week. Use this time to systematically send ideas and
remind people that you are a value creator. A few months
of this, and you will fi nd your dream prospects much more
receptive to your calls.
TIME FOR FACE-TO-FACE SALES CALLS: Your calendar offers
the clearest picture of your future results. If your calendar is
full of sales calls, your future is all but guaranteed. Block at
least a third of your time for face-to-face sales calls and fi ll
those blocks each week. You have the greatest opportunity
to create valueand the greatest chance of winning your
dream clientwhen you are sitting face to face with them.
You also have to spend time with the clients who are paying
the bills and keeping the lights on now. Dont leave them off
of your calendar.

Youve identified your dream clients, youve built a plan to

nurture them and youve designed the perfect model week to
make 2013 your best sales year ever. But no plan is complete
without working on your single most important asset and
resource: you!

Personal Development: Sharpen the Saw

Why should your dream prospect choose you? What makes
you different in a way that makes a difference for them?
You are your only real asset for producing results.
Making 2013 your best sales year ever means making you
the best-ever version of yourself. From week to week and
from month to month, you have to continuously improve.
Here are three areas of personal development that

TIME BREAKDOWN FOR AN IDEAL Week

ACTIVITY

T O TA L

P E R C E N TA G E

Prospecting

9 hours

22.5

Sales Calls

14 hours

35

Nurturing

1 hour

2.5

Time Remaining

16 hours

40

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

55

pay dividends when it comes to producing breakthrough

salesresults:
BECOME A SALES ATHLETE : As a salesperson and entrepreneur, you are running and gunning to get things done. Its
easy to care about everything and everyone around you
while neglecting your own needs. Making 2013 your best
sales year ever is going to require you to have the energy
and capacity to do your best work.

To keep your energy level high, make time for daily

exercise. Even 30 minutes a day will make the difference
in your capacity for work. Carve a half-hour into your
day for exercise. You also need to fuel your body with
healthy food to maintain your energy level throughout
the day. And make some time to decompress, whether
its yoga, meditation or spending time alone recovering
your energy.
What do diet, stress reduction and exercise have to do
with sales? Everything! You are the asset that produces
your sales results, and the more energy and focus you bring
to that work, the better yourresults.
Making 2013 your best sales year ever
means continuously fi nding new ideas. It means innovating.
New ideas and innovations are found through horizontal
thinking, taking an idea from one domain and moving it to
another, or linking up things in new ways. Some gas station
owner saw a convenience store and decided to put the two
together and the rest is entrepreneurialhistory.

H IT TH E BOOK S :

There are countless great business books and magazines

you can read to fi nd new ideas to apply to your business.
Nonfiction books of all kinds can help spark your thinking.

56 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Make time each week to fuel your mind by reading books

and magazines. Keep a journal of ideas that you can use to
improve your sales game and your clients results.
DO THE COURSEWORK : The fastest way to have your sales
results flat-line is to stop learning. There are some areas you
know you need to improve if you are going to produce breakthrough sales results. Maybe you need to improve your public
speaking skills. Maybe you need to develop better presentation
skills, the kind that will make your dream clients sit up and
take notice. Or perhaps you need to learn more about financial
models so you can calculate and prove your dream clients
return on investment when they buy from you. Whatever it
is, you can learn it. Sign up to take courses that can help you
produce even greater results. Strapped for time? There are
countless webinars that you can download and listen to while
you drive to work or exercise. As a salesperson and entrepreneur, you are never done learning.

This is the foundation of your plan for 2013. You target

your dream clients. You nurture the relationships you need
to create an opportunity. You build a model sales week to
spend time on your biggest sales priorities. And then you
work on the most important asset you will ever have for
producing the results you want: you.
Follow this plan, and 2013 will rock! S

Anthony Iannarino is author of The Sales Blog:

Adventures in the New Art of Sales and Sales
Management (TheSalesBlog.com). This is his
first article for SUCCESS.

Three Truths for

Highly-Paid Experts
By Brendon Burchard, #1 New York Times bestselling
author of The Millionaire Messenger

1. Who you are, what you know, and the advice

you have for others has greater importance and
market value than you ever dreamed.
2. You are here to make a difference. The best way
to do that is to use your knowledge and
experience (on any topic, in any industry) to
help others succeed.
3. You can get paid for sharing advice and howto information that helps others succeed, and in
the process you can build a lucrative business and
a profoundly meaningful life.
If any of this sounds unbelievable, then its probably
because youve never heard of the highly-profitable
experts industry.
The experts industry is a community of people who
share their advice and knowledge with the world and
get paid for it. These are people who have packaged
their successes, research, or life story into advice for
others and thus have become experts on a given
topic. They teach others how to live a better life or run
a better business. They create content and courses
online, along with coaching programs and live events,
and they offer them to the public for high prices.

You are SMARTER,

more experienced,
and more helpful
than youre being
paid for. Its time
to monetize what
you know online.
Meet Brendon. He
has less life and
work experience
than you do. Hes a
pretty simple guy
from Montana, but
hes figured out how
to monetize what he
knows online. Brendon works from home
and has made over $10,000,000 in sales
from his video courses, books, events, and
online programs. He doesnt have a fancy
office or big team. He just puts stuff online.
Millions of people are searching for good
advice on how to live a better life or run a
better business. Why not put yourself in
front of them? Why not monetize who you
are and what you know?

In my case, I have books, DVDs, audio programs,

online video courses, seminars, and coaching
programs. I teach and coach people on how to succeed
more in their lives and careers. I do this from home and
I make millions of dollars doing it. Id like to show you
how. Check out my free videos here:

Your advice and wisdom is valuable, even

if you dont know it yet. Your message can
make a difference. Let us prove it. Go here:

http://www.ExpertsAcademy.com/success

http://www.ExpertsAcademy.com /success

Monetize your wisdom and experience online. FREE video training here:

www.ExpertsAcademy.com/success

58 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

TO
Teach

HIS

OWN
A transcontinental tutoring session
with his cousin set Sal Khan on
course to alter education forever.

Photo courtesy of Khan Academy

by Roger Brooks
From his tiny office above a San Francisco teahouse,
Sal Khan is teaching me calculus. He hunches over a
computer screen, talking and drawing figures on a pad.
The numbers and symbols appear on the screen as he
explains them. His T-shirt is ratty, his feet bare, and a
three-day beard peppers his face.
I sit in the dark with the screen illuminating my face,
which I scrunch in concentration and confusion. Im
shirtless and shoeless; only an old pair of gym shorts
covers me. My hair is in corkscrews from constantly
twirling it as I try to understand the basic derivatives and
integrals that dance on the screen.
Together, were not exactly poster children for the
perfect teacher-student experience. But Khan is teaching
me the way hes taught millions of othersquick, simplified tutorials scheduled on my timethe way thats made
him the talk of the education world and won him praise
(and investment) from parents such as Bill and Melinda
Gates and forward-thinking organizations like Google.
The fact weve never met, or that his lesson was
recorded for mass consumption in California long before

I sat down at my desk in Dallas, doesnt seem to matter at

all. His methods and success are igniting a new discussion
on the mechanisms of education, how we learn, and what
our schools will look like in 20 years.
Those are heady questions, but all Khan seems to want
to do is teachanything, to anyone.
It wasnt always that way. In 2004, Khan was using
his Harvard and MIT education as a successful hedge
fund analyst in Boston. Back home in New Orleans, his
cousin Nadia was struggling to earn placement in her
schools advanced math track, so Khan began to tutor her
by phone. Soon other family members wanted lessons.
By 2006, Khan was posting YouTube videos, working
through concepts and problems while he explained
the key learning points. It didnt take long for complete
strangers to find and use his lessons.
The videos and software, it was very intellectually
rewarding to work on that stuff, Khan says. It became
even more rewarding when I got feedback from my
cousins and then people all over the world who said they
were benefiting from it.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

59

60 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Photos courtesy of Khan Academy

By 2009, the former math club chair was hooked

on teaching. He began working on his instructional
videos more and more as grander ideas took hold. Its
where my mind was all the time, Khan recalls when we
spoke by phone. I thought it would be irresponsible
to continue in my other career. The real constraint
behind taking the plunge was: Can I support my family
doing this? It seemed like there was an opportunity to
do something really good, but I had never seen anyone
make a career doing what I was about to do. That was
the scary part; it was a bit of a leap into the unknown.
That leap included leaving his lucrative hedge fund
job and living off his life savings for nine months while
he developed the Khan Academyan online classroom
filled with instructional videos, step-by-step examples
and practice problems. Feedback supplied by the
program makes it readily apparent which students are
struggling and where, so teachers and parents can help
them through rough patches and get them on the same
level as kids progressing more quickly. Everyone learns
at his own pace on the site. And everyone learns for free.
Khan survived on advertising and earned enough
donations to keep the academy afloat until it could
get in front of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
and later Google, each entity donating several million
dollars to the cause. Suddenly Khan had the resources
to take an organized product to the masses.
Pioneers like Sal Khan are already showing how
effective online tools can be, Bill Gates wrote in his
annual foundation letter. His website continues to
grow its library of short instructional videos on topics
from basic arithmetic to complicated subjects like
biology and physics. The videos are a tremendous
resource for students of any age.
Ive used Khan Academy with my kids, Gates
told Time. Im amazed at the breadth of Sals subject
expertise and his ability to make complicated topics
understandable. Sal Khan is a true education pioneer.
He started by posting a math lesson, but his impact on
education might truly be incalculable.
Gates has since doubled down his support of Khan,
and additional multimillion-dollar pledges keep rolling
into the nonprofits coffers.
When we got more press, more lettersall of
these things kept validating it, Khan says. We
were heading in the right direction, and it gave me
the confidence to run it. Once we started getting
some funding, it was pretty incredible. Of course,
Bill Gates changed things. We had traction pre-Bill
Gates, but he just took it to another level of this

global awareness. And its continued from there in the press. Its just continued
to snowball.
More and more teachers are supplementing lesson plans with the Khan Academy.
Currently, at least 10,000 teachers use the programs rich collection of video lessons
and practice problems. As students complete problems, a virtual goldmine of data
becomes available to them and their teachers, parents or coaches.
Public or private, we need problem-solvers and good ideas in education, says
Andrea Hodge, executive director of the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program at
Rice University. Sal gives a glimpse of what is possible when we are purposeful about
applying our talents, knowledge and skills to enrich the lives of others. Im contacted
every week by MBAs, educators and parents who want to enhance education. I hope
they see Kahn Academy and say Hey, I can do that! Heck, I hope they do better.

Sal

Clockwise from top:

founder Sal Khan and the
Khan Academy team. He
introduces the program
to students at Egan Junior
High School in Los Altos,
Calif. Khan receives his
diploma from President
Bill Clinton at MITs
graduation in 1998.

Khan is a
true education pioneer.
He started by posting a
math lesson, but his
impact on education
might truly be
incalculable.
Bill Gates

Along with global awareness comes scrutiny. Even with thousands of teachers
embracing the academys concepts, there are just as many warning Khans methods
wont revolutionize education or radically change a kids abilities.
There is no panacea for education, says Lisa Van Gemert, a former teacher and
principal who now leads the Gifted Youth program for American Mensa and trains
thousands of teachers on the best methods for working with the most talented
students. This will not solve what is wrong with education, and the course of it is
likely very similar to antibioticseventually you will see Khan-resistant strains of
students. With or without this, kids will still fail to achieve if there is not involvement from parents, good nutrition, adequate sleep, and if they dont step away from
too much recreational technology.
For his part, Khan agrees. Sometimes we get these hyperbolic headlines. Were
not a silver bullet. We are in a very nascent stage. Were part of the future of education,
but we arent by ourselves going to be able to move mountains.
To do that, you need foot soldierspeople on the ground to make sure the operation is moving smoothly. To test how well the program and the classroom can work
together, the academy and San Francisco area schools flip classes. In the evenings,
students are lectured and learn concepts at home through the Khan Academy. When
the bell rings in the morning, teachers can look at the data provided by the program to
see where students are struggling, who is missing which types of questions, even how
long they spent on the videos and when they stopped or rewound the footage.
Instead of the traditional lecture, where one teacher talks to 30 students who may
or may not fully absorb the lesson, these flipped classes feature students working
together to master concepts taught online the night before while the teacher moves
around the room to talk to kids and offer additional help. Interaction and discussion
become the new norms.
If all of that sounds radical, its because it is. The age-old model of education was
born from the industrial revolution. The goal was to churn out skilled workers, and
kids were pushed through the system like widgets.
America is not going to go back to being a low-wage manufacturing country,
Google chairman Eric Schmidt told 60 Minutes last spring. Were going to be a
country of advanced manufacturing, sophisticated services, global brandsall of
those require higher-order reasoning skills, which might be better taught using the
Khan Academy approach.
Khan aims to challenge accepted norms in education, wondering whether it makes
sense to shuttle students from one subject to another every 50 minutes or even to
separate them by age.
The classroom of the past, the apprenticeship of the past, was not done that way,
Khan says. How can we look at the tools at our disposal to move to a self-paced

learning model, one that helps spur creativity and

multiple ways of learning?
Khans innovative methods and approachable style
have skeptics and believers alike flocking to his site.
Its 3,000-plus videos have been
on
viewed more than 175 million
times, and students complete
Take a crash course
an average of 2 million
in the Khan Academy
problems a day. Radical or
not, people are learning at
SUCCESS.com/
Khans feet.
Khan
Hes friendly, engaging
and has a tran sferable
ays
confidence, Van Gemert says.
Theres a can-do feeling that comes with the whole
setup. How hard could something be that he can
explain in 10 minutes?
He may be able to explain something in 10 minutes,
but that doesnt mean I can learn it. Back in the darkness of my office, Khans voice floats out of the speakers,
illustrating how easy calculus is when I break it down
properly. I remind myself how Khan says everyone
learns at his own pace. Youre not stupid because you
forgot your calculus, Khan told me. Im smart enough
to know my weakness lies in numbers.
Khan himself has bigger challenges than teaching
me math. He wants to broaden the scope of his academys content, get it into poor countries and find a way
to bring his ideas to the physical classrooma place he
firmly believes in, despite what some think. Whether
that means creating his own schools or partnering
with progressive districts remains unclear. Either way,
Khans happy to have found his calling in a tiny office
above a teashop.
Im not wealthy; there is no money distorting me,
Khan explains. Through this adventure, Ive had
access to people I viewed as almost demigods, these
surreal figures, and now theyre real people in my life.
And thats been pretty tremendous. But I view that as
a blessing. My life passion is coming out of me. My
biggest fear is Khan Academy, for whatever reason,
isnt able to deliver on its mission. We have such a ripe
opportunity, and all the tools seem to be there.
Those last two sentences pop in my brain as I
shut down my browser, defeated by calculus for
another evening. Luckily, Khan is reaching far better
students than this 30 something writer in an old pair
of gym shorts. S
Roger Brooks is a writer, editor and avid runner in Dallas. His
most recent article for SUCCESS was A 3-Foot Giant in the
December 2012 issue.

SUCCESS

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52+
w

ere ruled by habits. We do things the same old

way because its comfortable. But the risk in
staying rmly inside our comfort zones is that it
creates psychological barriers that can lead to real
limitations, says author and speaker Denis Waitley, who has advised
Olympic athletes on how to gain a mental edge. Because we havent done
anything dynamic in a long time, we begin to think we cant, he explains.
But, hey: Its the new year. Fifty-two weeks stretch out ahead of us,
offering plenty of opportunity to pencil into the calendar new ways to
grow and test ourselves, to try something big or start small.
Below are 52-plus ideas that will help boost creativity, add zest to
life and amp up your brainpower. After all, says William J. Hall, M.D.,
director of The Center for Healthy Aging at University of Rochester
Medical Center, When you start something new, particularly in the
creative area, its just like a whack on the side of the head to your brain.

62 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Ways to Get
Out of Your
Comfort Zone
by Sally Deneen

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63

3
1

Go from fearful to stunt pilot. Shy and

fearful as a kid, Cecilia Aragon was 11 when she learned to
bicycle, and when she climbed a ladder, her fear of heights
made her break into a sweat. What I kind of realized was
that if I was going to do anything, I had to expand my
comfort zone pretty dramatically. I started doing that, says
Aragon, whose fear-smashing breakthrough came as a grad
student when she rode in a four-seater Piper Archer plane
and a friend handed her the controls. She marveled as she
steered the plane (with the friends help) over the Golden
Gate Bridge and
California coast
and upon their
landing, she signed
up for pilot classes.
I was in heaven.
Despite her
5-foot-2 frame
requiring a booster
seat in typical
planes, she became
an aerobatic
pilot so good at
low-altitude loops
Aragon ready for takeoff
and spins that
she won trophies and competed in the World Aerobatic
Championships. I feel the fear; its just that I use it. I use it
to make my flying sharper rather than paralyze me.
A bonus side effect: Completing her doctorate and
applying for a university academic position didnt seem
scary compared to flying headlong toward the ground and
potentially ending up in a fireball. She went on to work for
NASA and heads the Scientific Collaboration and Creativity
Lab at the University of Washington.

64 SUCCESS

Read a book a month; consider Moonwalking

with Einstein, which follows author Joshua Foers
quest to improve his memory for the U.S. Memory
Championship. Reading will increase your vocabulary,
help you express goals, open your mind to new ideas
and perspectives, and studies show lifelong brainstimulating activities like reading could help stave off
Alzheimers disease.

JANUARY 2013

Unplug tech gadgets for No-Tech

Sundays. Digital life columnist Monica Guzman
found it difficult. I can behave like quite the tech
addict, admits Guzman, who writes for Geekwire
and The Seattle Times. Practically speaking,
shutting everything offthe phone, the laptop,
the iPadwhen the familiar cycle of questions still
ran in my head: Whats in my email? Whats going
on on Twitter and Facebook?was excruciating.
Emotionally, it was easy. A part of me had wanted,
for months, to get really, truly disconnected, even if
just for a while.
Guzman recommends the practice, though it may
not be as refreshing and important for others as it
was for me. I think it depends on how sucked in you
feel to your digital life, and how confident you are
that you have control over it.

4-6
Not a techie? Download an app or
learn a new computer program that
has you daunted. Try it. You may surprise
yourself. If youre always using PowerPoint,
find an alternate program to use instead. (See
Punch Up Your Presentations at SUCCESS.com/
PunchUp.)

7-11
Find a new hobby associated with
physical movement, such as painting,
dancing, learning a musical
instrument, perfecting your voice or
learning to type. Neurons that fire together
grow together; there seems to be some kind of
connection between thinking great thoughts
and doing something with your feet, mouth or
body, Hall says. These types of things have a real
blunting effect on more serious disorders, such as
Alzheimers disease, the physician adds.

12
13

Learn to tango. I would think that

everyone in Argentina ought to live to 1,000,
Hall jokes, thanks to the physical movement,
creativity and degree of learning involved.

Find a role model who overcame big

hurdles to do what you want to do. A
70-year-old woman once told stunt pilot Aragon that shed
love to learn to fly, but thought she was too old. Aragon
replied: Theres an 85-year-old aerobatic pilot having a
great time of it and she learned when she was older than
you. The point: Getting out of your comfort zone is easier if
you know of someone who has paved the way.

16

Brush your teeth while standing

on one leg. It gets you to balance,
says SUCCESS contributing editor Mike
Roizen, M.D., who is the Cleveland Clinics
chief wellness officer and co-author with
Mehmet Oz, M.D., of the best-selling YOU
series of books. Make sure to do it in a safe
environment where you wont fall (not on a
slippery tile floor).

17
Get intentionally lost and try to
nd your way back using maps.

14-15

Do it when youve got some extra time,

Roizen says. He avoids using a GPS as a
matter of routine. The only time I really
turn that on is when Im totally lost.

Create a major concrete goal requiring many

incremental ones, such as running your rst
marathon while training to climb
Denali (Alaskas Mount McKinley).
Witness what San Francisco-based
venture capital investor and triathlete
Gordon Ritter is doing. By getting
Ritter and team scaling
Aconcagua.
out of his comfort zone, he
clears his mind of the details
of everyday life, fostering new
ideas and aha moments. We
sort of trip through life doing
whats right in front of us,
says Ritter, a cloud investor,
entrepreneur and founder/general
partner of Emergence Capital who
previously rowed crew while at
Princeton and summited Aconcagua in
the Andes.
Most people look at mountains and
think: Theres no way I can do that. These mountains are so
ominous, but he says climbing drives home the lesson that a
mountain is one big slope that requires putting one foot in front
of anotherjust like accomplishing big goals in business can be,
metaphoricallyspeaking.
Ritters training regimen also includes strapping on a backpack and
getting on the Stairmaster set for high resistance for an hour and a
half. He also plans to tie a tractor tire to his waist and drag it around.
I continue to find ways to get out of my comfort zone, he says. If you
go too long without pushing boundaries, you do get stale.

18-19
Get creative: Try a new recipe. Take
an art class. When confronted with a problem,
dont stress out; think creatively about how
to solve it. There isnt just one specific type
of creative person, says researcher Nicholas
Turiano, and you can become more creative
just by trying new things. Keeping the brain
healthy may be one of the most important aspects
of aging successfullya fact shown by creative
persons living longer in our study, says Turiano,
who is a National Research Service Award
postdoctoral fellow at the University of Rochester
Medical Centers psychiatry department. His
study, published in June in the Journal of Aging
and Health, found a link between a longer life and
creative thinking and openness. It is likely that
those individuals high in creativity maintain the
integrity of their neural networks even into old
age. And since the brain is the powerhouse or
command center for all functions in the body,
there is defi nitely an advantage to continually
exercise the brainwhich is a hallmark of those
high in creativity.

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27

20-23
Live in prime time rather than
watching in prime time, says
Waitley, who limits his TV viewing
to an hour daily. Look at how you spend
your time: Wasting time and procrastination
practically define the comfort zoneyou really
dont want to get out of the easy chair because it
feels good, Waitley says, and television provides
a fantasy escape. Instead, search out ethnic
restaurants, tackle a do-it-yourself home
improvement project or reconnect with an
old friend by phone.

24

Change up your daily routines, like reading the paper

and checking email and Facebook in the morning, says

Waitley, author of 16 books: Ive

written them while most people
are watching television. Try to
schedule uninterrupted blocks of
time to do your best work. Dont
just write 20 words a week, or
itll never get done. Act as if its
a term paper or an exam. You
must treat it like that if youre
ever going to get it done.

66 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Waitley, who saves those activities for the evening and instead launches
into the days most important tasks. Im basically a morning person, so I
try to jump into what I really love in the mornings and sort of ease down
and in the evenings relax, he says. Most people waste the fi rst few hours
of theday.

30-31
Otto Stadler/Corbis

Get close. We love our families, but its easy to let day-to-day
busy-ness come between us. Your
teens may even prefer it that way.
Schedule time for activities that
would foster conversationtake a
hike, build something together.
And make sure to schedule a date
night with your spouse.

Heath Eskalyo hed one day compete in the Ironman

triathlon, Id look at them like they were crazy.
Never a swimmer (his mom was too nervous), he got a
coach who worked with him, and over the past several
years he has built his way up from shorter-distance
triathlons to the Ironman, which requires a 2.4-mile
swim, a 112-mile bike ride and running a 26.2-mile
marathon with no break in between. The mad event
starts with some 1,500 people jumping into the ocean
at the same time. Its a washing machine. Youre going
to be kicked, punched, elbowed, says Eskalyo, 44, a
trial lawyer and shareholder with Kelley Kronenberg
in Fort Lauderdale. Finishing the event requires
endurance and willpowerand brings Eskalyo a rare
sense of accomplishment that drives him to go after
bigger goals.

28-29

Write a book with

the time saved by not
watching TV. So advises

25-26

Train for a triathlon even if you never

were a swimmer. Ten years ago, if someone told

Take an improv class or ceramics

class. Philadelphia-based career strategy
consultant Cathy Goodwin started both classes
to learn new skills, not realizing how hard
they would be. But she says the experiences
have been greatjust make sure to seek out
supportive instructors or colleagues. Realize that
while youre learning, your confidence will be
lower. If you just dont have talent for something,
you can be frustrated for a very long time, she
says. Ive never been good with my hands and
my ceramic objects still look like something most
people could do in third grade. Her ceramic
sneakers, however, were a huge breakthrough.

Find 12 more ways

to get out of a rut

Watch a TV show in
another language. Dont
do it when youre stressed, but
when you have the time to enjoy
the brain-building it will foster,
Roizen says.

Ditto for playing with tougher golfers,

bowlers or tennis players. If we only
golf with high scorers and bowl with
low-scoring friends, were destined to
remain mediocre, Waitley says.

Daniel Koebe/Corbis

33

32

SUCCESS.com/

ComfortZone
Get over your
intimidation and
hang with people
more successful than you.

36
Kesner, flying through the
air with the greatest of ease

Make friends with people

outside your industry. Hanging

34
Hate eating
eea
sh as a kid?
Try it aagain. Or try another
new healthy
heallth food to broaden your
diet. I n
nev
never used to love fi sh,
says Roizen,
Roizze who acquired a taste
in his 30s
30
0s and now regularly eats
salmon and
aan trout.

35
Take a trapeze class. Somew
Somewhat
wha fearful of heights, Kathy
Kesner never pictured herself buying a Groupon for a trapeze
class. But the Seattle woman was in the
th
he mood for a challenge, and
began her new hobby by climbing a wobbly,
wo
w
skinny trapeze
ladder. She was so scared the first time
tim
me that she couldnt even
hear the commands of her Emerald City
Cit Trapeze Art instructor.
C
But soon she was amazing herself by following
fo
instructions such
as ready (bend your knees), hep (let
(le go and jump), and
mastering her first trick: the knee han
ng
hang.
Trapeze classes
T
l
h
help
l the
th mind
i d and
d muscles;
m
by turning around
and doing quick maneuvers, it builds memory, Roizen says.
Its really uplifting just to get over that fear a little bit, says
Kesner, who works in the pre-press industry. Its a buzz, a real
adrenaline rush. Everyone should give it a try.

out with someone whose work is

completely different from yours offers a
great opportunity to learn about new
things, get a different perspective and
increase your circle of influence.

37
Power nap. Napping may seem
outside the comfort zone if no one else
at work does it, but it brings dividends:
20 minutes boosts alertness, 30 minutes
helps you feel physically recovered and
50 minutes heightens creativity, says
Michael Breus, Ph.D., sleep expert and
author of The Sleep Doctors Diet Plan.

38
Talk on the phone while
walking on a treadmill.
When talking on the phone like this,
I can go 3.3 mph at two degrees,
Roizen says. He can write while
walking at about 1.7 mph, and he can
read at about 1.9.

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67

39-43
Give! Volunteer at a local school
or nonprot or do other good
deeds. Share a batch of brownies
with your neighbors. Hold the door for
someone, let another driver proceed
ahead of you, make bouquets from your
garden for co-workers. Giving induces feelgood endorphins.

45-49
Climb a mountain. Steven McCraney lives almost at sea
level in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., but the real estate developer
is on a quest to climb The Seven Summits, the highest peaks of
seven continents. He already scaled Africas Mount Kilimanjaro
and recently trudged to the top of Aconcagua in Argentina, the
Western Hemispheres highest mountain at nearly 23,000 feet.
Forty-two people started the 24-day trek, but near-hurricaneforce winds and temperatures of 30 degrees below zero near
the top proved too much for many. Just three guides and three
climbers reached the peak, including McCraney, 52, a climber
for only five years. You feel pretty humbled and small when you
look around and youre at the highest point in the Andes. It was
just a great life experience, he says.
His training routine generally included a one-hour spinning class four days a week and an hour of running before or
afterward, plus swimming laps as his departure neared. He also
trained with a team of guys who met a couple of times a week
to climb the steps of his 20-story office buildingadding a
backpack and 10 additional pounds each week until each eventually carried 50 to 60 pounds. McCraney hopes hes inspiring
his three daughters to explore life to the fullest. I think its
important to show them that not only are some things possible
but everythings possible.

Try karate. Lee Lasris normally goes for

low-risk, low-impact sports such as tennis,
golf and bowling, but, at age 60, he wanted
more excitement and switched to GoJu
Karate. A surgeon friend was taking a class
and had dropped weight and looked great.
I said, Thats for me, says Lasris, a lawyer
in Davie, Fla. Hes suffered a broken rib and
broken toe (twice). But he looks forward to
the twice-a-week class, which starts with
calisthenics and involves putting on gloves
to spar. I feel like Im in better shape today
than 10 years ago, says Lasris, who is now
62 and hopes to get his black belt by age 70.
Were having a great deal of fun. I love the
confidence it gives me.

68 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

50
Try The Nap-a-Latte. Drained by a 60-hour-plus
workweek? Sleep expert Breus often recommends this: Drink
quickly a small cold cup of drip coffee (its high in caffeine),
then nap for 20 to 25 minutes. Youll get enough ZZZs to lower
your sleep drive before the caffeine kicks in. You are good for
about four hours, Breus says. (Dont do it within eight hours
of bedtime, or you could have trouble sleeping.)

Francis Mike Kopala/Corbis

44

And Another

16 IDEAS

for Overachievers!
You know Sudoku and
crossword puzzles help keep the
brains neural networks active, but it may
be even more helpful to continually try
new thingsa language, even
software code or calculus
if you never studied it. Its really the
variety that might be the most beneficial
for brain health, per se, Turiano says.
He notes that research at Washington
University in St. Louis found that older
adults who did puzzles (an activity
that they hadnt done before the study)
appeared to become more open to new
experiences as a result.
Fly a kite. Rollerskate.
Go kayaking. Reject the act your
age adage. Some older folks who hadnt
bicycled in decades joined a program to
train for a mini-triathlon in eight short
weeks. If youre in a funk about aging,
think more about the possibilities and
reject the assumptions, advises Hall, who
served as medical adviser for the Triumph
Classic mini-triathlon. He remembers
asking class members whether they rollerskated. People laughed. Why are you
laughing? he asked. Acting your age is
pernicious, he explains; its loaded with

51

powerful prohibitory assumptions.

a
Before you know it, youve
yoouve
conned yourself in a
boxyou need to use
see it
or lose it when it comes
m to
mes
physical and mentalabilities.
a
abilities.
Schedule se
several
everal
months of comfort
zonem
mfort
busting activities.
ties. Deborah
Sharp of Fort Lauderdale,
rddale, Fla., did
that for her 50th birthday
thhday year.
She calls it her Half-Year
f-Year of
Living Dangerously, as
a she
tried something every
ryy month
from January through
terried
ghh June that terried
her, including an acting exercise
onstage, a flying lesson and
fl amenco dancing in the traditional
outt while in a crowded room. (Of her
dancing skills, she says, I have trouble
doing the bunny hop.) Karaoke
singing also proved challenging.
She chose Johnny Cashs Ring of Fire
because thats what it felt like to stand
up on karaoke night at her brothers busy
bar. Im Lutheran. We dont make a lot
of big hand gestures and dance in public.
One drunk guy gave me a high-ve and
everyone else kind of looked away, and it

Become a mentor. An executive can

mentor a mid-level businessperson, but a
college freshman also can mentor a seasoned
professional. Everyone has something to
offerand to learn. Stunt pilot Aragon says
mentoring gives you confidence, makes you feel
good and puts you in contact with other people
who can become your mentors. Its what I call
organic networking, she says.

52

Lesson
learned?
was done. Les
s
Youre never tooo in a rut to climb
out at least for 20 minutes.
m
So what was
w her sixth
dangerous
feat?
da
n
Walking
away
W
W
from
fr
o a good job
as a newspaper
correspondent
corre
es
to become
be
e
mysterya mys
s
bookauthor.
booka
u
college
Work toward a c
degree, even if ititss your ssecond or
degree
fourth. Allan Stewart of Australia became
the worlds oldest university graduate
in May by obtaining a masters degree
in clinical science from Southern Cross
University at age 97. He beat his own world
record, according to news reports and
WorldRecordAcademy.com, having earned a
law degree at age 91.
Play pingpong with the
non-dominant hand. Try it if you
always play with the same opponent or with
someone who plays poorly, Roizen says. Or
play with a tougher opponent.

Hate to give presentations? Join

Toastmasters.
In the end, remember: Keep your mind open to
change all of the time, Dale Carnegie advises. Welcome
it. Court it. It is only by examining and re-examining
your opinions and ideas that you can progress. S
Contributing Editor Sally Deneen tries to stay out of a rut
from her base in Seattle.

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69

Fearing
the
Worst
Confronted by extreme danger, your
brain turns primal, shifting from one
survival tactic to another which is how
Sue Groves battled a mountain lion and
lived to talk about it.

by Jeff Wise

SSUCCESS
SU
UCCES
CCES
CC
ES S
ESS

JANUARY
JJAN
AN
NU
UA
UAR
ARY 2
AR
ARY
2013
20
201
01
0
13

71
71

Fearing
the
Worst

Sue Groves, a 25-year-old hydrologist, parked her

truck beside the dirt road that ran next to a creek
in Colorados Mancos River Valley. It was early on
a crisp December morning, and the winter sun cut
a shadow across the rim of the canyon.
It would be hours yet, she thought
with a shiver, before its warmth touched
the frost-whitened vegetation along the
creekbank.
Groves job was to study water quality
for the Southern Ute American Indian
tribe, whose reservation lies across 1,000
square miles of the rugged, dry canyon
land of southwestern Colorado, and she
had come to know the starkly beautiful
landscape well. A s Groves m ade her
way down the steep embankment, she
noticed chunks of ice drifting along in the
flow and felt grateful for the insulation
of her high waterproof boots. Reaching
the waters edge, she pulled out a tape
measure and a pocket voice recorder and
set about measuring the flow.
A rustling sound caught her attention.
Glancing up, Groves spotted a pair of eyes
looking down at her from the top of the
bank. It took a moment for her to make
out the shape of the tawny face and ears
against the mottled brownish-yellow of
the brush: a mountain lion! A native of
Michigan, Groves had never seen one of
these elusive animals before.

72 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Their eyes locked. And then the big

cat moved, slinking swiftly through the
vegetation and down the far creek bank
straight toward her. Groves sense of awe
gave way to a fl ash of concern: This is a
wild predator, she reminded herself. Best to
give it some room.
She began fording the stream, thinking
the cat wouldnt want to cross the icy water.
But as she clambered up the far bank, the
big cat plunged straight in. In seconds it
would be on the shore beside her. Groves
hurried back into the water, on a diagonal
course back to the far side. She hoped that
the large cat would just keep going and
disappear up the far bank.
But it didnt. Instead, once it reached
the far bank the mountain lion went back
into the water and headed straight for her.
Groves thought: Im in trouble.

n a matter of seconds, Sue Groves had

gone from a normal workday routine to
the parallel psychological dimension
that is a life-or-death crisis. The same
could happen to any of us. The mundane
drive to the grocery that swerves into a

blare of horns and crunching metal; the lazy

summer lakeside afternoon that turns into
a flailing underwater struggle; the peaceful
slumber that yields to the blaring of an
alarm and the smell of smoke.
In the blink of an eye, were fighting
for survival.
Terror is an intensely unpleasant state,
one we normally go to great lengths to
avoid. But as I write in my book Extreme
Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger,
our brains evolved over millions of years to
handle just this kind of situation.
When the threat needle is in the red, a
normally hidden set of skills surfaces. This
fear brain, as I call it, is like a little-seen
alternate personality. Its primitive and fast,
encoded with responses for a handful of
different kinds of threats. When the fear
brains responses align with the crisis at
hand and we follow its instincts, we can
become virtually superhuman.
In the first f lush of terror, the body
releases two powerful substances into the
body: cortisol and adrenaline. Cortisol
prepares the muscles for vigorous activity
by releasing their key fuel, glucose, into the

When panic is triggered, it overrides

the complex reasoning of the logical
mind and switches on a suite of

automaticbehaviors.
bloodstream. Adrenaline further prepares the body by revving up
the heart rate, constricting blood vessels and opening airways. In
the brain, a variant of adrenaline wipes out pain and fatigue and
focuses concentration on the threat at hand.
For Groves, this meant that all of her previous priorities were
upended. Expensive tape recorder? Didnt matter. She chucked it
at the oncoming mountain lion, and hurled some chunks of ice for
good measure, shouting as she kept up her steadyretreat.
Groves had studied enough predator behavior to know that if
she turned and ran, she might trigger an attack. As she felt her fear
rising, she struggled to keep control.

But still the animal kept on, pressing ever closer, and Groves felt
her panic spilling over. She broke. With all her might, she began to
run, her legs windmilling so hard that she ran right out of one of
her hip boots.

e tend to think of panic as a bad thing, as a loss of

control that inevitably leads to disaster. But in fact
panic evolved as a positive response to danger. A
primitive region called the midbrain plays a key role
in modulating different panic responses depending on the nature of
the threat at hand.

GRAPPLING WITH FEAR

Assess. Concrete, actionable information is a
powerful antidote to fear. So find out as much about your
situation as you can. (In the panic of a burning theater, few bother
to locate the nearest fire exit.) The more you know, the better
youll be able to respond and the less stress youll feel.

When faced with high stress and huge challenges,

your brain is looking out for your best interests
but youve got to give it a chance to gure out the
best response. For instance, if you unexpectedly
nd yourself in a life-or-death situation as
Sue Groves did, what you do in the rst few
seconds is crucial. At this point, fear oods
your nervous system with powerful hormones
and neurotransmitters that lend your body
extraordinary powers of strength, speed and
endurance. If channeled correctly, this response
can greatly increase your chances of appropriate
actionbut if not, it can present a danger in itself.
Here are a few tips on getting it right:

Keep perspective. If you feel your fear spiraling out of control,

force yourself to think about the situation in the most favorable
light. Psychologists call this technique positive self-talk. Upon
reflection youll often realize that you have more and better
options available than you realized.

Breathe. In the grip of a sudden crisis, you often feel a strong

impulse to react instinctively, but doing so can make the situation
worse. Unless a deadly outcome is truly just seconds away, take a
couple of breaths and collect your thoughts. Remember that under
duress, mistakes are easy to make and hard to undo.

Get angry. If there are no silver linings, fight fire with

fire. Nothing combats fear like a good head of steam. Fuel your
indignation by thinking about all that you stand to loseand do
battle with righteous fury.

Take positive action. The fear response revs up the heart

and dumps high-energy molecules (glucose) into the bloodstream,
preparing your body for vigorous action. Remaining inactive gives
that energy nowhere to go. Find something productive you can do
to improve your situation and carry it out vigorously.

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73

Fearing
the
Worst

When panic is triggered, it overrides the

complex reasoning of
the logical mind and
sw itches on a suite
of autom at ic b eh aviors. These can feel so
over whel m i ng a nd
so un-willedthat its
like being taken over
by an outside force.
These responses
evolved long ago, when
t he pr i m a r y t h r e at s
were physical
animal attacks, f lash
f loods and intertribal
warfare, for instance.
They arent desig ned
for complex situations
such as the ones you
fi nd in an airplane cockpit or a nuclear power station.
But as it happened, Sue Groves found herself in a type of peril
very much like the ones our ancient ancestors faced. In her case,
running away from a hungry mountain lion wasnt an irrational
response at all.
She ran fast, but the cat was faster. Closing the last few feet,
the hungry animal launched into the air. At that moment,
Groves foot slipped on an algae-slicked rock and she toppled
into the water. Her fall threw off the animals trajectory, and its
jaws landed on her head instead of her neck.
She felt the warmth of its mouth as its fangs sank into her scalp.
Together, human and cat tumbled into the churning, icy water.
In an instant, Groves midbrain switched gears. The panic
strategy that made sense while the cat was still a few yards away

74 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

was no longer viable.

I n s te ad, G rove s fe l l
into a response mode
called tonic immobility, better known as
playing possum. This
is an ancient behavioral
strategy thats designed
to fool a predator into
believing that its prey is
already dead and therefore not palatable.
A s G r o v e s lo ok e d
up at the light dancing
on the surface of the
w a t e r, t h e i n t e n s e
struggle of a moment
b efor e w a s r epl ac e d
with a kind of peaceful
acceptance. When your
times up, your times up,
she told herself. This is a pretty crappy way to go, but what are you
going to do?
Tonic immobility is a long-shot strategy. The only way it will work is
if it lulls an attacker into letting its guard down.
Fortunately it worked for Groves. The cougar released itsgrip.

nd again a switch tripped in her brain, and the will to

struggle was back in full force. Groves pushed herself
to the surface and ran as hard as she could, her mind so
overwhelmed by fear that the moments that followed are
permanently wiped from her mind.
The next thing Groves remembers was being on the creek bank,
lying on top of the mountain lion. She was pinning its shoulders
under the weight of her body and had shoved one arm as deeply

One of the many incredible powers that

the fear response unleashes is

imperviousness to pain.

into its mouth as she could. As long as she kept her arm down the
animals throat, Groves knew the big cat wouldnt be able to slash her
with its long teeth.
Somehow during her blackout, her midbrain had switched to
a fourth panic mode. Now every fiber of her being was geared up
tofight.
One of the many incredible powers that the fear response unleashes
is imperviousness to pain. Later, Groves would find cuts and bruises
all over her body, but at the time, she felt nothing. Instead, her
thoughts were 100 percent occupied by one idea: Kill or be killed.

Groves fear had transformed into fury. Come on, you want
some more? she screamed. She cursed and lunged at the animal.
It did nothing. It just stood there. Groves backed up a halfdozen yards to a spot where grazing cattle had cut a path up
through the brush up toward the road. Then she turned and ran
up the embankment to her truck. Groves kept expecting the cat to
come after her, to leap through the air and tackle her again.
But it didnt.
Groves jumped in her truck, threw it into gear, and high-tailed
it out of the canyon.

he sensation of pain returned later as she lay on her back in an

ambulanceas her bruised and bloodied arm began to swell.
Trackers returned to the site of the attack, located the
animal that had attacked Groves and shot it. The mountain lion was an 11- or 12-year-old female, an advanced age for the
species. Its teeth were worn down, and it weighed just 65 pounds,
far below the 100 to 120 pounds thats considered normal for a
healthy female. Its state of starvation must have made it reckless
enough to attack a prey as dangerous as a human being.
Today, Groves considers herself lucky to be alive. Apart from
the crucial moment when she blacked out, she remembers every
instant of that encounter vividly.
But she doesnt like to talk about it and rarely does. Revisiting
the attack makes it too real, brings back too many emotions. Still,
the one part of that day that Groves holds valuable is the insight
it gave her into her own resilience, into the powers of her own
fear mind, a part of herself shed never experienced until that day.
Its amazing when youre under that kind of stress, a life-ordeath situation, she says now. You do whatever you can to keep
yourself alive. S

one was the mental fog of panic that had gripped her just
a moment ago. Now she saw everything with crystalline
clarity, as if the world were moving in slow motion.
She became aware that she was wearing a fly-fishing
vest filled with all sorts of tools and implements for her water-quality
work. Among them was a type of scissors-like clamp called a hemostat, connected to the vest by a length of cord. Perhaps, she thought,
she could wrap the cord around the cats neck and strangle it.
But as she tried, the animal snapped at her. I remember looking at
my left hand, making sure all my fingers were there, because if they
werent I was going to pick them up and put them in my pocket,
Groves said years later. Its just crazy, the stuff that you think about.
Without pausing, Groves decided to use the hemostat itself as a
weapon. Brandishing it like a knife, she began savagely jamming
them into the beasts eye. Ive got to get to its brain to kill it, she
thought. As the metal prongs sank deep into the cougars eye, it let
out a horrible scream.
Although Groves worried that the injury might make the animal
even more vicious, she didnt hesitate. She kept stabbing and stabbing,
punching the hemostat deeply into the mountain lions eye.
At last she sensed that some of the fight had gone out of the
animal. Kicking off the remaining bootnow full of watershe
prepared to get off the mountain lion. It relaxed its grip on her arm
and let her go.

Jeff Wise is a science writer and adventure journalist based in New York City,
where he lives with his wife and two young sons. He is the author of Extreme
Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger, from which this article is adapted.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

75

Beyond
Facebook and Twitter

So many social media sites so little time:

Participate on the right niche networks to grow your business.
by Jennifer Chang
76 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

or me, its a no-brainer. When visiting a new city,

I check into a hotel Ive researched thoroughly
on TripAdvisor, then digitally check into the
hotel using foursquare, before searching for a
3.5+ rated restaurant on Yelp for a quick bite.
Unwilling to take a chance on bedbugs or bad service, I
set up my entire experience of unfamiliar places based on
niche social media.

Whether youre social or not, your customers are already online

talking about yougood or bad. And if youre not familiar with any
of the SoLoMo (social, local, mobile) brands mentioned above, your
business may be missing out.
Niche social sites range from review-based apps to true social
networks specialized to ones industry. Unlike Facebook or Twitter
which have large, unwieldy audiencesniche social networks and
websites are inherently self-targeted. Mommy-and-me businesses
can better reach their audiences with Pinterest, whose users are 80
percent women, half of them moms. Nonprofits seeking donations
or other types of support can use Causes, whose visitors are less
likely to ignore a philanthropic plea than ones network on Facebook.
What niche social networks lack in monstrous numbers, they make
up for in concentrated engagement. Get small. Think big, is how
marketing expert Seth Godin sums it up in his best-selling book
Small Is the New Big. You can decide to own your niche, to go deep
instead of wide, Godin explains. If you build a list of people with
similar interests, this tribe of fellow travelers will support you as you
support them.
You dont, however, want to go too small, and you dont want
to waste time on a social network that doesnt serve your small
business. Here are some niche social media websites or apps that
could help your business improve everything from fan engagement to productivity.

Causes
Nonprofit organizations, rejoice! Since its founding in 2007, the
niche application Causes says it has inspired more than 170 million
people to help more than 500,000 unique causes. Create a petition
or pledge, raise money and manage email lists, all at no cost. Only
registered nonprofits are allowed to create a petition, but they can
feature it in any number of user-created causes. For example, a

petition created by Save School Music! was one of the top featured
actions under the education causescategory.
Being one of the largest applications on Facebook gives Causes a
solid reputation that encourages sharing and offers peace of mind
that donations will be securely processed.

You should be a user if... youre a local nonprofit, charitable

business or anyone looking to garner philanthropic support.
Available on... Causes.com
FYI... Even if youre not involved with a nonprofit organization,
Causes Birthday Wish tool is an easy way for concerned citizens
to rally friends to donate to a personalized fundraising page in
lieu of birthdaygifts.

43 Things
Goal-setting social network 43 Things takes personal development to an interactive level. Users list 43 goals or hopes, which are
then connected to other users goals with similar phrases or ideas.
Document your progress, explore others objectives and cheer them
on: 43 Things helps hold you accountable to your goals via healthy
peer pressure. For even more ways to be socially accountable, each
individual goal can be shared to Twitter, Facebook or email.
Its usefulness is best described in 43 Things own tagline:
Changing your life is hard. Doing it by yourself is harder.

You should be a user if... you want to include social media in

your personal development goals.
Available on... 43Things.com, Apple App Store
FYI... Want to complete a bucket list item or goal with a business partner, friend or family member? 43 Things allows you to
invite someone to join you on your goals. Everyone involved
in the goal can share updates and track each others progress.

Doximity
Doximity is a social network for health professionals. Although
most users are medical doctors, you can also find physicians assistants, dentists, nurse practitioners and chiropractors active in this

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

77

thriving online community. With more than 10 percent of U.S.

doctors on the network in just a year and growing, according to
Doximity, this site or app lets you find office numbers in seconds and
exchange ideas with colleagues. Users also receive a free digital fax
line so you can send and receive faxes from your smartphone and say
goodbye to cover sheets.
Unlike other professional networks, Doximity keeps privacy laws
in mind by using HIPAA-compliant messages so that healthcare
providers can discuss real patients.
You should be a user if... youre a healthcare professional
and/or own or operate a clinic or practice.
Available on... Doximity.com, Android market, Apple App Store
FYI... Users can earn honoraria from Doximity partners (like
big pharma or insurance companies) for research, second opinions or legal consulting, with an average rate of $500 an hour.
More than $100 million of honoraria was paid out during 2011
for physician input, Doximity says.

Pinterest
Undoubtedly the most talked-about niche social network today,
Pinterest allows users to pin photos or videos with click-through
links onto a board. You end up with curated and original pin
boards of anything from recipes and do-it-yourself tutorials to a
portfolio of nature photography. Its second only to Facebook in
social media referral traffic and has proved to be a valuable tool for
branding or traffic-building.
Even if your business isnt image-driven, anyone with a blog, a
company website or an e-commerce store can benefit from Pinterest.
You might see a better boost if your website or brand is associated
with any of the following: tutorials, recipes, gifts, interior design,
hobbies/leisure or fashion.
You should be a user if... youre looking to cultivate your
brand and build traffic to a blog, business or website or sell a
product or service with strong visual appeal.
Available on... Pinterest.com, Android market, Apple App Store
FYI... Dont forget to a) test your pins (theres nothing more
frustrating to followers than trying to follow a broken link) and
b) include a Remind me when this item is restocked option for
low-stock items on your e-commerce site. It offers a great way to
build your email list.

78 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Spiceworks
Called the Facebook for information technology professionals,
Spiceworks refers to itself as a free community of more than 2million
information technology professionals. Because almost all of its users
work for small to medium-size businesses, Spiceworks is a great
place to research product or service reviews, troubleshoot problems
and connect with fellow systems administrators. In comparison to
anonymous reviews on Google, reviews on Spiceworks have the
advantage of coming from those with IT expertise and a smallbusiness background.
Besides connections to other IT professionals, Spiceworks also offers
webinars, advice from product experts and future certifications.
You should be a user if... youre an IT professional, manager.
Small-business owners looking for quality IT input also benefit.
Available on... Spiceworks.com, Android market, Apple
AppStore
FYI... More than just a professional social network, Spiceworks
also has local meet-up capabilities and an eccentric IT humor
sectionknowing that its a network of IT professionals, you
can imagine howeccentric.

TripAdvisor
Although technically more of a user-generated website,
TripAdvisor is the self-proclaimed worlds largest social travel
network, and the website says more than 100 million travelers have
planned a trip with it. And with its 12-year reputation and impressive international presence, chances are youve tapped TripAdvisors
services to look up a tourist attraction or hotel.
Like Yelp, small businesses with review pages on TripAdvisor can
reply to ratings and reviews. TripAdvisor also has an integrated crossplatform experience that prioritizes your Facebook friendsreviews.

You should be a user if... youre in the tourism, hospitality or

food industry, or own a local business near a tourist attraction.
Available on... TripAdvisor.com, Android market, Apple
AppStore
FYI... Its good TripAdvisor etiquette for business owners to
reply to glowing comments by thanking consumers for their
patronage. And, as always, treat angry reviewers with care and
an abundance of apologies.

Yelp
This social networking-based reviews site reported an average of
about 78 million unique monthly visitors in the second quarter of
2012. Yelps users review anything from beauty salons to car repair
shops on a five-star scale, with cross-platform integration that allows
fans to export business check-ins to Facebook or Twitter and receive
special offers for doing so.
Business owners can claim their own businesss existing reviews
page to respond to negative reviews. Because users avoid businesses
rated less than three stars, Yelp can be a useful public relations
and marketing tool in addressing poor ratings and bad customer
service experiences. Siri, the iPhone assistant program, also uses
Yelp to provide local suggestions, making it a must in your social
media efforts.

You should be a user if... youre in the food, hospitality

or service industry, businesses with products or services
specific to their localeseclectic clothing boutiques in a citys
Bohemian district, for instance.
Available on... Yelp.com, Android market, Apple App Store
FYI... Dont hound fairly favorable reviewers for an extra star
if they happened to give your business three or four stars, and
never make excuses in response to a negative rant. Keep your
customer service basics in mindapologize and offer to make
it rightand your ratings should flourish. S

Jennifer Chang, who lives in the Dallas suburbs, is the content and social
media specialist for SUCCESS.com.

Turn the Page to Greater Success

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SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

79

Tech Tools

Gadgets to Help
Meet Your Goals
by TIM GIDEON

Be More Efficient

Heres a new idea: Rather than making

New Years resolutions you cant possibly
keep, find a gadget that will help you. Better
yet, use that great new tool to craft resolutions
youll want to keep! Whether your goal is
to get in better shape, lessen your negative
impact on the environment or just work and
live more efficiently, weve got the tech tools
to make it happen in 2013.

Samsung TecTiles
Ever wish you could change multiple settings on your phone instantly with the tap
of a button? Perhaps instead of a business card youd like to instantly send all of
your information to someones phone. Maybe you own a small shop and want a
more efcient way for people to log on to your Wi-Fi enter Samsung
TecTiles. These tiny stickers can be placed on a desk, wall, nightstand or fridge
after you assign a simple task to them using a free Samsung app. Users then
touch their (Samsung Android) phone to the TecTile, and just like that, theyve
logged on to your Wi-Fi or youve sent them your contact info or adjusted your
phones settings or you get the idea. $14.99 for ve stickers, free app
download, Samsung.com

Be Healthier

Gain a New Perspective

Leica M Monochrom
The dominance of the digital camera has resulted in a steady
decline in monochrome stills. Leica, however, aims to unleash
your inner Ansel Adams with the rst-ever black-and-whiteonly digital camera. The Monochrom M melds the grace of
color-free photography with the best of todays high-end
digital camera technology. The camera comes with an
exclusive print service, so you can view your shots on the
high-quality photographic papers they deserve. $7,950 at
adorama.com

80 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Fooducate
Trying to eat more healthily can be
complicatedfood labels and ads will
do their darnedest to convince you of a
products integrity, even if its not
necessarily the case. What if your
favorite can of soup is low in calories
but loaded with genetically modied
organisms?
Fooducatea free app available for
Apple and Android devicestakes the
guesswork out of the equation: Simply
scan the barcode on the soup can or TV
dinner, and all the info you need is
displayed on your phone, from calories
per serving to a letter grade that helps
you determine the overall health value of
what youre about to purchaseas well
as recipes designed for it. Free app
download from iTunes Store or
Google Play

Make
Some Noise

Paradigm Millenia CT Speaker System

Maybe being a better host is on your list of prioritiesor perhaps just nding a
better way to unwind at the end of the day. May we humbly suggest that upgrading
your sound system can have a profoundly positive effect on the quality of your leisure
time? The easy-to-set-up Paradigm Millenia CT sounds fantastic, whether youre
listening to your favorite music, watching a movie or having friends over for the
Super Bowl. Bonus: The Millenia CTs subwoofer sits
upright, like a PC tow
tower, making it easier to t into
rooms that lack available
availabl oor space
and its bass levels are
adjustable, from subtle to
booming. $699.95,
apple.com

Be Greener
SWITCH60 Liquid-Cooled

Lighten
Your
Load

LED Light Bulb

When Kermit said Its not easy being
green, he mightve been talking about the
hospital-like hue cast by energy-saving CFL
bulbs. Switch Bulb Co. is making being
green easier on the eyes (and wallet) with an
LED bulb that not only casts a lovely warm glow,
but is liquid-cooled to keep its temperature
downa huge breakthrough for LED lighting.
The SWITCH60 can be used with dimmers, is
bright instantly, lasts 25 percent longer than
most incandescent bulbs, and has a modern
look so you wont need to hunt for
lampshades to hide it. Available in early
2013 for $50$60 a bulb
bul

Co
ur t e
sy o
fA
ppl

Apple iPad mini

After years of speculation, Apple
nally shrank the iPad. The iPad mini
has styling similar to the latest iPhone
and dimensions that break new ground for
iOS devices. The screen is 7.9 inches
diagonally, but smaller dimensions are only
half the story. The mini weighs 0.7 pounds
thats signicantly lighter than the 1.5 pounds of
the iPad with Retina Display. And while that
0.8-pound difference may not sound like much,
your wrists and hands will notice immediately. Now
the only question is how to use the space you save in
your carry-on bag. $329 and up, apple.com

e In
c.

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

81

Resources On the Bookshelf

Growing Concerns

Turn to four experts to learn how to improve

yourself and your business.
by ERIN K. CASEY

f you want your life and your career to reach their full potential, starting the new
year off with the right advice can get you on your way. For instance, youll learn
to mold your vague goals and wishes for yourself into a solid plan for personal
growth that takes the process one step at a time. Ultimately youll become confident,
engaged and prepared for any obstacle that crops up.
To help you achieve your business and career objectives, two of this months books drill
into the nuances of online marketing and the requirements for building customer loyalty.
Youll find out how to earn your customers trust and become a messenger they turn to for
advice in various social media platforms. And youll learn to cultivate your customers so
they wouldnt dream of doing business with anyone else.
The savvy tips in these three books will set you on a course for great success in 2013 and
in years to come.

The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth

by John C. Maxwell
Center Street, 2012

Whether you are a business owner, church leader, executive or

stay-at-home parent, you probably dream of becoming and doing even
more with your life. The good news is you have untapped potential
that will empower you to achieve your dream. You simply need to
learn how to access it.
In his new book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, motivational
teacher John C. Maxwell shares insights from his lifetime of studying
personal growth. Maxwell says this is the final installment in his Laws
series, and while the other two books in this series focused on leadership and teamwork, he says it isnt necessary to have a leadership title
or be part of a team to benefit from this book. You just need to be a
person who wants to grow and become better than you are today.
Rather than reading his book all at once, Maxwell recommends
devoting a week to each chapter. Go through it intentionally to incorporate each law into your life day by day. (Intentionality, by the way,
is the first law in the book.) Other laws focus on personal development standards such as consistency and believing in yourself and
your potential. There are a few surprisesThe Law of the Rubber
Band, for instance, which explains why tension created by stretching
our limits is necessary, even if its uncomfortable. Its true that being

82 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

in your comfort zone may feel good, but it leads to mediocrity and,
therefore, dissatisfaction.
If youre ready to grow and fulfill your potential, youll want to add
this step-by-step guide to your success library.

Noteworthy Quote:
You cannot change your life until you change something you do
every day.

A few things youll learn:

How to create an environment conducive to growth
Why you must make tradeoffs if you want to keep learning

and growing
How and why to take time out to reflect on your life

The Impact Equation

by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
Portfolio/Penguin, 2012
One of every 11 people on the planet uses Facebook. Some people have as many as 10 social
media accounts. Thats a lot of tweeting, posting, blogging, Tumbling, Plus-ing and pinning to
keep up with. The question is, are these platforms effective as marketing tools? And if so, are
you using them correctly?
If youve ever posted something and waited days for a like or a comment, you know the
sinking feeling that accompanies the thoughts: Is anyone reading this stuff? Do people even
know Im here? In The Impact Equation: Are You Making Things Happen or Just Making Noise?
Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, who previously wrote the best-selling book Trust Agents,
explain why so many businesses and entrepreneurs fail at social media marketingand how
you can avoid following suit.

A few things youll learn:

Noteworthy Quote:
If youve delayed making something of your own or bringing
a long-lost idea to life for the first time, congratulations,
now is the time to do it. The barriers are lower than they
ever have been.

How and why to make your ideas stand out

How to create a platform for sharing your ideas
Why your message doesnt matter unless people trust you

The Commitment Engine

by John Jantsch
Portfolio/Penguin, 2012
In his latest book, John Jantschwho made a splash with his previous book, Duct
Tape Marketingshifts the focus from acquiring customers to keeping them long-term.
Commitment, Jantsch explains, is essential to any businesss success, but commitment goes
beyond youthe business ownerbeing invested in your company. It is perhaps even
more important that you are able to generate commitment for your ideas, your values, your
story, your products, and your way of doing and begin in all of the various groups of people
that make up your business ecosystem.
Generating such loyalty takes time, planning and work. You must be clear about who you
are and what you do, and then create a culture dedicated to your businesss vision. After those
requirements are met, you can build a community of devoted customers.

Noteworthy Quote:
Authenticity is simply the manifestation of what you truly
believe, the core values, and the basic identity of the leader
of the business.

A few things youll learn:

Why you must be absolutely clear about what your

business does better than the competition

Why its critical to stay connected and committed to
yourpassion
Why the process of planning is more important than the
plan you create

SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

83

SUCCESS Foundation

Taking Aim
at the Dropout Rate
SUCCESS for Teens partners with
Optimist International to turn young
livesaround.

John Laurents of Charlotte, N.C., has taken on a tremendous challenge: reducing the high school dropout rate,
which is estimated at more than a quarter of U.S. high
school students.
Theres a simple reason behind the considerable energy
Laurents expends on improving education. My message to
everyone is: If you dont have kids in school and you dont
think this is your problem, in the next 10 years when weve
got upward of 50 million kids who do not have a high school
diploma, youre going to be paying higher taxes. Youre
going to be dealing with the increased sociological issues that
go with 50 million kids who cant get jobs, he says.
Specifically, Laurents is shepherding an Optimist
International initiative, the Youth Empowerment Service
(YES), which brings SUCCESS Foundation materials to
schools all over the country. Laurents is immediate past president of the Charlotte Optimist Club. Through the Optimists,
there are grassroots efforts going on virtually everywhere to
keep kids in school.
Laurents surveyed participants attitudes before and after
the program to quantify the programs results. At one high
school, 104 students who were going through the motions
in classthey got Fs, put their heads down on their desks
and didnt turn in workwere introduced to the foundations SUCCESS for Teens program and later surveyed. We
turned 102 of them around with this program in one school,
Laurents says. So we know it works.
SUCCESS for Teens has a very important role in actually
motivating kids to learn more and do more, he says. Solving
the dropout problem is all about changing attitudes. It flips
a switch in the brain from I wont to I will and from I cant
to I can.
It has been three years since Laurents learned about the
SUCCESS Foundation program, which inspires teens through
its SUCCESS for Teens book. (The free book, full of teens own

84 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Ann M Norm

ent

by BETSY SIMNACHER

stories, teaches life lessons about topics ranging from

m ggoalsetting to resisting negative peer pressure.) During that time,
he has met with authors, administrators and professors around
the nation to discuss the dropout issue and SUCCESS for Teens.
Recently he connected with a Lawndale, N.C., middle
school student who won a regional Optimist oratorical contest.
He gave SUCCESS for Teens to her and to other speakers in the
contest. She has become his mustard seed, Laurents says,
because she has passed along the books message to 10,000 to
15,000 people. Her principal requested and received 1,000 of
the books from the SUCCESS Foundation, a teacher requested
500 more, and the books are being read by each students
siblings, parents and friends.
There are tens of millions of kids who need this, Laurents
says. Another critical need is for volunteers [for the YES initiative], especially young ones such as college students who can
use the SUCCESS for Teens facilitators guide to lead programs.
This has become my passion, Laurents says. The father
of four and grandfather of four is really concerned about the
world that our grandchildren are going to live in. Thanks
to Laurents and the SUCCESS Foundation, that world will
include better-educated adults. S
The SUCCESS Foundation (SUCCESSFoundation.org) needs your
tax-deductible contributions to expand its life-changing SUCCESS
for Teens program; SUCCESS magazine will publish feature stories
about donors if they wish. For details about the program, its many
giving levels and donor features in the magazine, contact Leah
McCann at LMcCann@SUCCESSFoundation.org or 940-497-9700.

SUCCESS Marketplace
Advertise here! 940-497-9961

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Resources Action Plan

Turn Your Knowledge into POWER

10 Actions You Can Take Right Now
LEARNING

EXPERIENCE

This morning,
schedule a
sports match
or sales-tactic
discussion with
someone who
has superior skills
so you can raise
your game.
(PAGE 62)

TAKE

A
CHANCE

Outline a dream
project on paper,
one in which
success will be
publicto goad
you toward
achieving it. Start
it right away.
(PAGE 28)

SHAKE

STRESS

Feeling tense?
Then take a few
seconds wherever
you are to jiggle
your arms and
legsdoing
so releases the
tension that
accompanies
stress.
(PAGE 18)

ITS

TIME!

ENTICE
CUSTOMERS
Figure out two
ways to add
value to your
product or
service. Begin
implementing
them today.

(PAGE 22)

SHOW

This afternoon,
go online to find
three trade shows
where you could
exhibit to grow
your business. Then
analyze each and
reserve a space at
the best one.
(PAGE 30)

FIND

AWAY

YOUR
ONLINE
NICHE

Explore
specialized social
media and sign
up this afternoon
with a promising
site. Observe a bit
at first and then
dive in to lure and
satisfy customers as
well as raise your
businesssprofile.

DONT
PANIC
Challenges
even crisescrop
up constantly. At
your next one,
take a breath,
assess and only
then take action.

(PAGE 76)

(PAGE 70)

AIM

HIGH

three motivational

Identify three
dream clients for
your business
and find out the
names of contacts
(stakeholders) at
each. Draw up
a game plan for
wooing them and
kick it off today.

books or pictures

(PAGE 50)

MAKE

IT
MEANINGFUL

Look at the walls of

FIRM

IT UP

tomorrow.

Many New
Years resolutions
about fitness fail
because of a lack
of commitment.
Look at your
calendar right now
and commit by
scheduling dates,
times and places
for all of January.

(PAGE 26)

(PAGE 14)

your office right now.

Are the objects that
surround you inspiring?
If not, make a list of

and bring them in

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88 SUCCESS

JANUARY 2013

Ask for the Gift That Will Help You

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MAGAZINE
OF SUCCESS
BY THE EDITORS

himself
(Ariely doesnt take
sometimes funny.
The
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research center is
Duke University
too seriously. His
Hindsight.)
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that research is conducted
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environments. From
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academia and finance
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better helps peopleelcome topercent
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clients or suppliers,
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THE (HONEST)
TRUTH ABOUT
DISHONESTY

The Secret Language

ofInuence

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