What Self-Made Billionaires Do Best

What Self-Made Billionaires Do Best.

They don’t just generate results. They produce breakthroughs.

Post by John Sviokla and Mitch Cohen

Lynda Rae Harris was in her 20s and the owner of a Los Angeles–based ad agency when she met her second husband, Stewart Resnick. He was an entrepreneur who had built a successful janitorial business from scratch after his father won an industrial floor scrubber in a contest. Together, the couple made their first joint acquisition—of the floral wire service company Teleflora—in 1979. They followed it with acquisitions of agricultural land in California, and of the Franklin Mint, all chosen because of Stewart’s penchant for service businesses with repeat customers.

But even the most loyal customers need a reason to keep coming back, and Lynda was always looking for new ways to draw them—seeing and creating what they needed long before they knew they needed it. For example, she came up with the “gift within a gift” concept of packaging Teleflora flower deliveries in a reusable planter or vase. Lynda also redesigned the Franklin Mint’s traditional product set of commemorative coins and stamps to include collectible dolls, including porcelain Scarlett O’Hara and Princess Diana dolls that earned millions.

To make the most of their agricultural assets, Lynda sold the masses on the virtually unknown pomegranate fruit by packaging it as an antioxidant-rich juice drink now known as POM Wonderful. She also rebranded clementines—a sweet orange–mandarin orange hybrid fruit—as “Cuties” and marketed them to time-strapped parents with the slogan “Peel It Yourself.”

Stewart has an eye for purchasing viable businesses with high financial potential. He knows how to make them perform. Lynda can transcend their perceived limits with innovative product ideas and focused marketing. She knows how to produce entirely new business lines, time and again. Together, their ability to perform and produce has made the Resnicks billionaire.

Self-made billionaires are distinguished from the average business leader in one respect. It’s the way they look at the world. Their unusual perspective allows them to turn good ideas into great businesses. We found that most self-made billionaires practice five habits of mind as they apply to ideas, time, action, risk, and leadership. These five habits can be summed up with the word produce. To produce, in our lexicon, is to look beyond an existing business or market to envision something new, develop the often divergent resources necessary to make it real, and sell it to customers who didn’t even know they wanted it. Producers see unmet demand or potential for disruption and meet it head-on. They do this not once or twice, but throughout their careers. If they suffer professionally, it’s because producing is difficult to measure, and sometimes it’s difficult to spot.

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9 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier

Happiness is the only true measure of personal success. Making other people happy is the highest expression of success, but it's almost impossible to make others happy if you're not happy yourself.

With that in mind, here are nine small changes that you can make to your daily routine that, if you're like most people, will immediately increase the amount of happiness in your life:

1. Start each day with expectation.
2. Take time to plan and prioritize.
3. Give a gift to everyone you meet.
4. Deflect partisan conversations.
5. Assume people have good intentions.
6. Eat high quality food slowly.
7. Let go of your results.
8. Turn off "background" TV.
9. End each day with gratitude.

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17 Rules Successful Companies Use to Attract and Keep Top Talent

This book is about developing outstanding employees and getting them to stay. It’s about building a workforce that’s truly engaged, committed, aligned with strategy, and capable of incredible performance.

Simply put, it’s about optimizing the #1 factor associated with outsmarting, outhustling, and outexecuting your competition: your people.

You’ll learn exactly what great companies do differently when it comes to managing their people. And you’ll learn how to apply those lessons in virtually every aspect of your organization: from resourcing and compensation to leadership development, culture, and beyond.

Want people who care, engage, work hard, support your strategies, and deliver results? Start right here.

The 17 Rules Are:

Rule #1: Understand why employee comw and why they stay

Rule #2: Play “Win-Win” with Your Employees (and Allow Them to Be All They Can Be for Self and Company)

Rule #3: Cultivate Leadership, Not Management, and Know the Difference!

Rule #4: Provide Ample and Appropriate Resources

Rule #5: Demand Contribution; Be Worthy of Receiving It

Rule #6: Applaud Effort; Reward Contribution

Rule #7: Cheerlead; The “Magic” of M&Ms

Rule #8: Build a Workplace on a Foundation of Respect

Rule #9: Cultivate the Risk-Trust Dynamic

Rule #10: Make Room for Fun in the Workplace (Nurture Lightheartedness/Levity)

Rule #11: Create Opportunities for Employee “Alignment” with Vision, Values, and Mission

Rule #12: Understand Human Capital

Rule #13: Treat Employees as “Volunteers”

Rule #14: Know Your Culture

Rule #15: Understand the Nature of Change and Prepare Your Employees to Embrace It

Rule #16: Cultivate Organizational Ethics; Demand and Reward Ethical Behavior

Rule #17: The Last and Overarching Rule: Tell the Truth! (and a Few Action Items to Grow On)

Author: David Russo

The A to Z of toxic emotions: A magical new book reveals the feelings that ruin our lives and how to conquer them

Artist and writer Matthew Johnstone won world­wide acclaim after turning his experiences of battling depression into a ­poignant and humorous illustrated guide, I Had A Black Dog.

Now Mathew and his lifelong friend and writer James Kerr have produced an equally enchanting and enlightening book, The Alphabet Of the Human Heart, chronicling the negative emotions that can hold us back in
life ... and how you can ­conquer them.

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The A to Z of joy: A magical new book reveals how to feel happier every day

A brilliant new book by the acclaimed illustrator Matthew Johnstone and his lifelong friend James Kerr charts the A to Z of human emotions. Yesterday, they chronicled the emotions that ruin lives. Today, they present the ways to make your spirits soar.

Have a look at it

World's Best Motivational Videos

One of the great challenges in selling, and indeed in business in general, is keeping yourself motivated. I’ve learned over the years that many top performers use motivational books and tapes to keep themselves in the right attitude for success.

However, I believe that motivational videos are even more effective because they communicate through both your eyes and your ears. Here are the ten best motivational videos of all time, in my opinion. Nine are serious; one is funny. Watch all ten and I guarantee that you’ll be massively more motivated to succeed than you were before you started.

-- By Geoffrey James

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