Tag Archives: Self-help

Surprising Lessons from the Greatest Self-Made Business Icons

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BUSINESS BRILLIANT

SEVEN PRINCIPLES TO SHINE WITH BRILLIANCE

Personal finance guru Suze Orman advises millions of her fans on the importance of rigorous saving as the path to great wealth. The problem, according to Lewis Schiff, author of Business Brilliant, is that Orman didn’t become very wealthy by saving more; she became wealthy by making more. (For example, Schiff describes how Orman dipped into her retirement fund to buy a $7,500 Cartier watch.) Schiff insists that saving your way to wealth is a myth — one of many myths about becoming wealthy that he targets in his book. Schiff, author of two previous books on wealth creation, developed the seven principles in Business Brilliant from two national in-depth surveys he commissioned that looked at the habits and attitudes of two groups: middle-class respondents and self-made millionaires who rose from the ranks of the middle class — in other words, those who got very rich, and those who didn’t.

While there was an overlap in some of the responses, it is in those responses that didn’t overlap between the two groups that revealed the differences between those who aspire to be wealthy and those who actually achieve great wealth. In many cases, middle-class respondents were mistaken about the best path to financial success. On the issue of saving, for example, Schiff found that self-made millionaires placed more emphasis on income than on saving. Thus, one of Schiff’s principles for creating wealth is to save less and earn more.

Follow the Money

Another mistaken notion of those who haven’t become rich is the oft-repeated notion that “if you do what you love, the money will follow.” The self-made millionaires in Schiff’s surveys disagree. Yes, it’s important to do what you love; but it’s equally important to follow the money rather than waiting for the money to magically flow in. For example, Guy Laliberté, the visionary founder of Cirque du Soleil, never forgot that access to funding was the key to achieving his vision. Laliberté is quoted as saying, “I always said that if Cirque makes it big, it will be because it succeeds at marrying art and business.”

The remaining principles for creating great wealth are:

  • Imitate. Don’t Innovate. The true inventors aren’t the ones who make the big fortunes on their “big idea.” Just ask Gary Kildall, who invented the first operating software for personal computers.
  • Know-How Is Good. Know-Who Is Better. There’s a reason why the word entrepreneur is based on the French words, “between” and “to take.” Wealth comes from becoming the link between the right people.
  • Win-Win Is a Loser. For many of the wealthy, Win-Win is more Wimp-Win, with the win-win aficionado being the wimp.
  • Spread the Work, Spread the Wealth. Let others do the tasks they do better.
  • Nothing Succeeds Like Failure. Setbacks teach people what they do well.

Take the LEAP

In the last chapter of the book, Schiff addresses the question of whether successful entrepreneurship and wealth creation can be learned. This is a topic on which he has worked extensively, based on his research, and from which he developed four core action steps that those aspiring to be wealthy must take: Learning, Earning, Assistance and Persistence (LEAP).

The first step, learning, is to identify what you do best and focus on opportunities based on what you do best. The second step, earning, means that self-made millionaires “take on projects and make deals that maximize the dollar potential of those opportunities while limiting their downside risks.” Assistance is cultivating the right network of friends, associates and partners. Persistence involves learning from mistakes and trying again. But for Schiff, it also means never to procrastinate and making your own luck.

In the seven chapters that cover the seven principles, Schiff offers compelling evidence of why much of the common wisdom on creating wealth is mistaken. For these thoughts alone, the book is worth reading. In the final chapter of this insightful and inspiring book, Schiff helps his readers take their mindset on wealth and begin the journey toward their own goals.

Work/Life Balance in a Crazy World

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Back several years ago, work/life balance was a popular topic in books and articles. But as the economy crashed, most people went into survival mode and any thought of balance went out the window. Now that the economy is beginning to settle down, it’s probably a healthy thing to again consider where you’re at in that balance.

Our senior editor Andrew Clancy just completed an interview with Gail Cummings, a life coach, attorney and mother, on this challenge of work/life balance. One of his questions centered around how you evaluate your own situation. Cummings replied with several key points to consider.

  1.  Assess where you are – does your life feel like it’s balanced?
  2. Set realistic goals – focus on the greatest challenges first.
  3. Listen to your body – there are physical symptoms when we’re out of balance.
  4. Find a coach – having a coach is a gift to your well-being, and they will help to hold you accountable to your goals.
  5. Account for change – because things change so rapidly, be prepared to adjust goals along the way.

Cummings quoted one of her clients with a helpful reminder to us all: “A wall can only be strong if you build it one brick at a time.” Don’t expect immediate results but work for the long-term.

If you’d like to see the full interview which is part of our Executive Insights series, subscribe to our Premium subscription. You might also want to read some of our individual book summaries and reviews on the topic:

 Life Matters by A. Roger & Rebecca Merrill

The Age of Speed by Vince Poscente

The Seven-Day Weekend by Ricardo Semler

A More Valued Success by Paul Spitale

Are You Addicted to Urgency?

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Are you addicted to urgency? While this may seem like a malady of the 21st century, Stephen R. Covey wrote about it back in 1996 in his book First Things First, and his work was inspired by The Tyranny of the Urgent by Charles Hummel published back in 1967. But certainly this addiction to the call of the urgent has become more potent with the advent of the smartphone.

Now we can receive calls and email wherever we are, day or night, not to mention accessing Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In and a vast array of apps that keep us up on the weather, news and sports. Our latest hit of information is never more than a click away.

In our recent interview with Elise Roma, general manager for the North East for Franklin Covey, she talked about a new seminar that they have launched called The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity. Roma makes the observation that the number one reason people give for not managing their time wisely is that they have no time – sort of the Catch 22 of the business world.

Roma offered several suggestions to “cure” our urgency addiction:

  1. Since we’re inundated with technology, we need to make it work for us. Having all your sources of information on one device reduces the pressure. When everything is synched to one device, you aren’t missing a vital piece of information you need to do your job efficiently.
  2. Plan you time at the beginning of each week, without technology. Turn away from your computer and other distractions while planning your week. And always leave space in your schedule for the unexpected.
  3. Self-renewal is essential. The Franklin Covey program suggests five sources of renewal: Move, Eat, Sleep, Relax and Connect. While these may seem obvious, doing them is still a challenge for busy executives. Exercise, regular healthy meals, adequate sleep, time for relaxation, and connecting with family, friends, church or other groups can mean survival.
  4. Productivity is not about doing more stuff, but achieving the goals that are important to your job and the success of the company. Many times we need to do less stuff in order to achieve what’s really important in our business and our life.

If you would like to hear the complete interview with Elise Roma, subscribe to the Premium Edition of Soundview Executive Book Summaries, which includes monthly video interviews with top executives speaking to the important topics of our day.

Anyone Can Be Charismatic

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Charisma – a special quality of leadership that captures the popular imagination and inspires allegiance and devotion.

Do you know someone who has charisma? It’s easy to recognize isn’t it? A person with charisma is someone you want to be around, someone who makes you feel good, inspired, motivated to make more of yourself. This is why people with charisma make good leaders. They can “rally the troops” and move people to get things done.

A man who stands out in my memory visited our church a few times. When he spoke, his voice demanded your attention, his humble manner earned your immediate trust, and his words evoked authority. When he talked to individuals they listened attentively and he could say even the most difficult things with acceptance.

What about yourself? Do you have charisma? Perhaps you think that you’re either born with it or you’re not, so why try to gain charisma. Deiric McCann would disagree. In his book, Leadership Charisma, McCann makes the case that anyone can have charisma if they know how to pursue it. And he backs up his claim with research from over 40,000 leaders worldwide.

To learn firsthand about McCann’s findings, we’ve invited him to our next Soundview Live webinar, Becoming a Charismatic Leader, on August 24th. He will present his four-step Charisma Model which promises to make you a more charismatic leader.

This is what Brad Sugars, chairman of ActionCoach says about Deiric McCann’s work:

“Leadership Charisma looks at a style of leadership long presumed to be unattainable for most people not ‘naturally’ born ‘charismatic’ … and gives people real, tangible, and quantifiable tools and behaviors they can immediately use to increase their personal effectiveness. This is one of the few resources I know that delves deeply into why this style of leadership is so effective, how it can be used and applied by anyone, and how it can be implemented in any organization. If you are looking for a resource that will help you passionately share a vision and purpose – and enlist others to help you make that happen – this book is for you.”

Quite a ringing endorsement isn’t it? So why not join us next week to see for yourself. And after you hear McCann speak, come on back to this post and leave your comments about his claims.

Book Review: Resonate

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When it comes to giving a presentation, most speakers are headed in the wrong direction. According to author and CEO of Duarte Design, Inc. Nancy Duarte, too many speakers put the focus of their presentations on themselves rather than on the audience. In her book Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences, now available as a Soundview Executive Book Summary, Duarte reminds readers that the best presentations are stories where the audience stars as the hero.

Resonate provides one of the best methods ever to appear in a business book for creating a memorable presentation. It is the result of two years of intense research and work by Duarte. The core of the book’s philosophy, that presentations are stories that should take an audience to a destination, required Duarte to do extensive research into mythology, philosophy and psychology. Duarte wanted the book to be representative of a great presentation. This resulted in a book that is structured with great precision and reads with perfect pacing.

Duarte methodically rolls out the secrets to apply elements of storytelling, cinema and mythology to presentations. The purpose of each segment of Resonate leads to the ultimate goal of helping presenters establish a deeper connection with the audience.

If you visit Soundview online at Summary.com, you’ll see two unique opportunities to learn more from Nancy Duarte. First, you can pick up a copy of the summary of Resonate that’s now available.

You can also sign up to join Soundview next Wednesday, March 16 at Noon (Eastern) when Nancy Duarte is the guest on the next Soundview Live Webinar. She will deliver “Creating Presentations that Persuade.” Don’t forget, Soundview subscribers can attend Soundview Live for FREE. Visit Summary.com and sign-up today!