Successful people realize true success is not always outcome based. This truth is not one you will find in most success manuals. It runs counter to what the world says about success. But I believe it may be the most important of the success truths. True success is the determination to do the right thing— no matter what the cost. And realize, it is very…

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Do you dread change? Most of us do. However, one difference between succeeders and failures is that succeeders learn to embrace healthy change. It actually invigorates them. When you boil it all down, most of us resist change for three reasons: 1. Fear of the unknown. It amazes me how people will sometimes live endlessly in a painful situation simply because they’re afraid of trying…

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In 1977, Bonnie and I opened our advertising agency. Those first years were tough. We worked lots of seventy and ninety hour weeks. It was typical for me to start early in the morning catching up on paperwork, then to spend most of the day visiting clients and prospects. Since we didn’t yet have an art department, a copywriter, or even a staff media buyer,…

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Perfectionism is the great killer of the good. Successful people learn to roll with the punches. People who insist on things going their way in every case (Plan A) will be continually frustrated and feel like failures. If Plan A equals happiness, you will be unhappy about 90 percent of the time, and frightened of becoming unhappy the other 10 percent. Learning to embrace change…

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It’s human nature to desire success without effort. But unless you have a big inheritance (or, a mask and a gun), that probably won’t happen. The ancient biblical proverb says, “The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.” Following are three ideas you may find helpful: 1) The most successful people put out the most effort. While the…

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“Great, so, what does that mean?” you ask. 
Do you remember that kid in grade school who could write equally well with either her right or left hand? She was said to be ambidextrous. In a similar way, most successful people learn to work from both their right and left-brains. We’re told that there are two groups of people: right-brained thinkers (those who are primarily…

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I started my advertising agency, in part, because I didn’t want to work for someone else. It wasn’t arrogance that led me to this. It was conviction. As I surveyed the advertising agency world, I wasn’t impressed. Agencies seemed too focused on winning awards and padding expense accounts, and woefully disinterested in their clients’ true needs. Also, there was the morality thing. I didn’t like…

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There are some fictions that we probably can live with. But there are some that, if we believe them, will ruin our lives. The advertising world expends a lot of effort and money trying to convince us that we “can have it all.” But the fact is, you can’t have it all. No one can have it all. Having it all is a fiction that…

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As I discuss in my book, Fast-Forward Leadership, there are essentially two leadership models. The first is power-driven leadership. This is where a person with power leads through fear and intimidation. At its worst, this is a slave master who abuses a slave. More often today, it’s a boss who is more focused on his own career than he is on the greater good of…

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This has been a tough learning curve for me. Like so many other leadership and motivational speakers, I have stood before many audiences and said, “The longest 15” trip in the world is from our heads to our hearts.” I believed it. That’s why I said it. After all, it had always been true in my experience. In my world, the facts (or mind) led….

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