The Big Free Book of Success

The Big Free Book of Success 17 Inspiring Examples of People Who Dared Mighty Things (and Succeeded) by Bill Murphy Jr.

copyright 2016 Bill Murphy Jr. Free to redistribute for noncommercial use—but, please credit me and link to: www.billmurphyjr.com.

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Introduction Before we dive in, just three quick things: 1. This book is free. You’re welcome to share this book, pass it around, forward it, etc. Just please make sure you send the whole thing. 2. If you received this from someone else, you might want to make sure you have the most updated edition. How? By going to billmurphyjr.com and checking out the free downloads. 3. Got feedback? I welcome it. Send me a quick note at contact.billmurphyjr.com.

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Table of Contents 1. 5 Years Ago He Hated His Dead-End Job. Now He's a Billionaire 2. Mourn With Me the Greatest Entrepreneur of All Time 3. How an 8th Grade Dropout Founded a $5 Billion Company (the Origin Story of Dunkin’ Donuts) 4. How to Make $1 Million in a Single Year (Advice From 10 Successful People Who've Actually Done It) 5. How to Be on Vacation Every Day for the Rest of Your Life 6. 10 Things About 1995 That Kinda Put Launching Amazon in Perspective 7. 17 Inspiring Women Entrepreneurs Share Their Secrets for Success ! 3!

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8. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett All Had This Experience Long Before They Were Successful 9. Facebook and Twitter Turned Him Down. Now He's Worth $4 Billion 10. This Guy Makes More Money Playing Video Games Than a Top Quarterback in the NFL 11. How a Recovering Addict Who Hires Ex-Convicts Made $63 Million Last Year 12. 17 Extraordinarily Candid Observations From Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran 13. The Guy Who Did That Viral Shaving Video Now Has a Company Worth $615 Million 14. 11 Inspiring People Who Followed Their Passions and Found Amazing Success 15. 7 Leadership Lessons From the SEALs !

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Commander Who Got bin Laden 16. Be Humble When You're Changing the World 17. Meet the Uber Driver Who Built a $2 Billion Company

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~1~ 5 Years Ago He Hated His Dead-End Job. Now He’s a Billionaire. Most people miss the most important part of how Ryan Graves joined the 'three comma club.' A little over five years ago, Ryan Graves was stuck in a dead-end job. Now he's a billionaire. Here's how it happened--and how his story can inspire you to make great changes in your life. The old job. It wasn't terrible, really--it wasn't as if he were outside in the rain or carrying heaving objects !

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all day, or toiling in a coal mine. Graves was three years out of college, working as a database administrator for GE Health Care, probably making about $109,000 a year (if the data at GlassDoor is accurate). Still, it was "unglamorous" work, he later recalled according to Daily Finance. "The corporate career--20 years in the same company--was not really my thing. I can't be the GE guy." The fortunate tweet. If the name Ryan Graves sounds familiar, you probably know the most famous part of his story. In 2010, Travis Kalanick, who had just co-founded a company called

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UberCab, tweeted that he was looking for people join his team: Looking 4 entrepreneurial product mgr/bizdev killer 4 a location based service.. prelaunch, BIG equity, big peeps involved-ANY TIPS?? -- travis kalanick (@travisk) January 6, 2010 Graves replied: heres a tip. email me :) graves.ryan[at]gmail.com

It worked. Graves joined Uber as its first nonfounder employee--in fact, as its first CEO, although he's since stepped aside for Kalanick. (He's now senior vice president of global operations.) More important, perhaps, he's a billionaire. !

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What happened in between. Of course, there's more to the story. The short version is that while still working at GE, Graves decided in 2009 to apply for a job at Foursquare. As Daily Finance explained: He spent hours each week cold-calling bars around his adopted home of Chicago, explaining the benefits of Foursquare, showing business owners how the app worked, and encouraging them to sign up. And he didn't even work for Foursquare. That's the kicker: Foursquare didn't actually hire him. It turned him down--and yet he didn't let the rejection faze him. Instead, as the story goes, he simply faked working there, and signed up 30 businesses to the company, and then "emailed that list of !

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new customers to people connected with Foursquare, including investors." It's not who you know... Foursquare ultimately brought Graves onboard officially. (According to Daily Finance, he was hired outright, but on his LinkedIn profile, Graves says he was a business development intern at the company from October 2009 to January 2010.)

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~2~ Mourn With Me the Greatest Entrepreneur of All Time Rest in peace Gary Dahl, the man who convinced Americans to pay $4 a piece for pet rocks. The year was... well, we are informed only that it was sometime in the "mid-'70s." A man named Gary Dahl was spending a heady night in a Northern California bar. The drinkers' talk turned to pets, and Dahl, a !

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freelance copywriter ("that's another word for broke," he later quipped) shared that he had taken in the easiest, best pet of all time. He had found a pet that didn't need to be fed, never needed to be walked, never needed to be cleaned up after: a rock. With such a feat of "bibulous inspiration," as the New York Times described it, Dahl, who died recently at the age of 78, came up with what would become an icon of the decade. As Inc. put it in 1994: The fad broke in October 1975 and was dead as a stone the next February, giving Dahl an Andy Warhol-like five months in the spotlight. He had to give away tens of thousands of unsold Pet Rocks. !

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Yet, for a few months, for $3.95 (about $17.87 today), you could be the proud owner of a "smooth Mexican beach stone," accompanied by 36 pages of careful instructions, according to the Times. The genius was in the packaging. Each Pet Rock came in a cardboard carrying case, complete with air holes, tenderly nestled on a bed of excelsior. Mr. Dahl's droll masterstroke was his accompanying manual on the care, feeding and house training of Pet Rocks. "If, when you remove the rock from its box it appears to be excited, place it on some old newspapers," the manual read. "The rock will know what the paper is for and will require no

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further instruction. It will remain on the paper until you remove it." Pet Rocks hit the marketplace in time for Christmas 1975. They were soon featured on The Tonight Show and in a blizzard of newspaper articles. In a matter of months, some 1.5 million rocks were sold. Dahl became a millionaire almost overnight, and although his star faded within months and he wound up mired in litigation with his investors, his entrepreneurial exploits weren't quite finished. He later launched an "Original Sand Breeding Kit," along with "Red China Dirt," which was described as "a plan to smuggle mainland China into the United, one cubic centimeter at a time." He even wrote the book, Advertising for Dummies. !

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But he never achieved the same level of success as he had with the Pet Rock. As the Times summarized: Though the rock made him wealthy, it also made him wary, for he was besieged ever after by hordes of would-be inventors, seeking his advice on the next big thing. "There's a bizarre lunatic fringe who feel I owe them a living," Mr. Dahl told The Associated Press in 1988. "Sometimes I look back and wonder if my life wouldn't have been simpler if I hadn't done it." So, rest in peace Mr. Dahl. And for the rest of us, think about this rock star entrepreneur of rocks the next time you're wondering if you have it in you to launch a business, to found a !

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new venture, and to pursue your dreams. Perhaps you can't squeeze blood from a stone-but at least one man showed how to turn it into money.

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~3~ How an 8th Grade Dropout Founded a $5 Billion Company (the Origin Story of Dunkin’ Donuts) If you grew up in New England (as I did), I’m willing to bet I know which coffee-shop chain you prefer. In fact, it’s not even close. Starbucks might be ubiquitous across the United States, but Dunkin’ Donuts, which got its start in 1950 at a store at 543 Southern !

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Artery in Quincy, Massachusetts (which has some pretty good reviews on Yelp, by the way), is the regional winner. After acquisitions and expansions that turned it into a true icon in parts of the country, the publicly traded, 65-year-old company (now officially called Dunkin’ Brands Group) has 11,000 units and a market capitalization north of $5 billion. All of which makes the fact that its founder never finished junior high school all the more amazing. Here are six fascinating things about Dunkin’ Donuts and its founder, William Rosenberg, that you probably didn’t know.

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1. He was an 8th grade dropout. Rosenberg was a child of the Depression. When his father’s grocery store went out of business, he left school to work–shining shoes, shoveling snow, and ultimately becoming a full-time messenger for Western Union, making $22 per week. Some of his first entrepreneurial exploits involved buying blocks of ice and carrying them to a local racetrack, where he’d sell chips for 10 cents on hot days. Afterward, he rose from delivery boy to national sales manager at a company that sold ice cream from refrigerated trucks.

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2. He built his own catering-truck business from the ground up. You know those mobile food trucks that are all the rage? Right after World War II, Rosenberg took $1,500 in profits he’d made from buying war bonds, borrowed an additional $3,500 from his family, and launched a company that delivered food to workers at construction sites and factories around Boston. Because of postwar scarcity, he couldn’t buy enough trucks, so he “created his own catering vehicles,” according to an article that ran in the Los Angeles Times after his death in 2002, “with sides that rose to reveal sandwiches and snacks stocked on stainless steel shelves, a prototype for today’s mobile catering vans.”

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3. His restaurant wasn’t called Dunkin’ Donuts at first. The shop was launched as “Open Kettle,” but two years into its history, when it was selling more coffee and donuts than anything else, Rosenberg “put his executives in a room with a tape recorder and told them to brainstorm,” according to the Times article. “He later credited his architect with the trademark ‘Dunkin’ Donuts.’” 4. He was disarmingly self-deprecating. Rosenberg often said he was “too dumb to make things complicated,” but added that he knew how to hire good people and was willing to take their considered advice. As an example, the Times said that when he wrote his autobiography in 2001, he wanted to call !

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it Worth the Trip after Dunkin’ Donuts’ 1970s slogan. However, the publisher wanted to use a more modern slogan as the basis for the title, Time to Make the Donuts. “Call it whatever you want,” Rosenberg reportedly replied, “if it will sell more copies.” 5. He also revolutionized franchising. Dunkin’ Donuts expanded pretty quickly with six stores in five years, and Rosenberg started to offer franchises in other cities, following the example of restaurateur Howard Johnson. This was a couple of years before giants like KFC and McDonald’s got into the franchise game, when “franchising was so disreputable…that it was borderline illegal in some states, and no company mentioning ‘franchise’ could be

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advertised in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times,” according to the Los Angeles Times. About five years later, Rosenberg started the International Franchise Association, which has now grown to include more than 800 franchisors and over 30,000 franchisees. 6. He followed his Dunkin’ Donuts success with something completely different. In 1971, Rosenberg was diagnosed with cancer, and he decided to step back from the company in favor of his son. He moved to New Hampshire, where he bought a farm and began to raise standard-breed horses (the horses used in harness racing). Despite having no background in horses or farming, he was so successful that he ultimately became the largest breeder in New England. !

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Ultimately, he donated his farm to the University of New Hampshire, and became involved in philanthropy, primarily benefiting hospitals.

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~4~ How to Make $1 Million in a Single Year (Advice From 10 Successful People Who've Actually Done It) I haven't reached this milestone (yet), so I reached out to people who have. Here's their advice. A million dollars ain’t what it used to be, but it’s still pretty good money--especially if we’re

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talking about annual income, as opposed to net worth. So, how do you get to that milestone? Since I haven’t done it myself (yet), I reached out to a group of people who actually have made at least $1 million a year. (Hint: If you didn’t inherit a fortune, it’s all about entrepreneurship.) Here’s their advice. (Got something to add? Let me know.) 1. Love your customers. Tim Nguyen, co-founder and CEO of BeSmartee: “Everything you do should center on your customers. Taking a vacation? Ask yourself how that will affect your customers. … !

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Thinking about revising your employee incentive programs? Consider how that will affect your customers. Don’t worry about the sale, and definitely don’t focus on the money. Focus on your customers.” 2. Solidify your foundation. Margot Micallef, founder and CEO of Gabriella’s Kitchen: “A good foundation [includes] a network of investors … or a strong relationship with a banker or institutional lender. … In any situation where I have enjoyed significant returns, it has been based on a foundation built years earlier.” 3. Focus on culture. Steve Starr of StarrDesign: !

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“If you get the culture right, the money will come. After buying out my partner, our design firm spent the past two years transforming our approach, process, and firm personality. We increased our gross revenue, while driving our net revenue up by 15 percent to more than $2 million. … In any business, it’s essential to define and keep sight of what inspires your team. Nearly every group begins with passion-and holding on to that passion is vital to success.” 4. Focus on product and metrics. Simon Slade, CEO and co-founder of Affilorama: “My best advice for joining the million-dollarearnings club is to create an awesome product and then continue its growth. Pick a single, !

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straightforward metric, such as sales units or revenue, and aim to beat yesterday’s total every day. This growth strategy is both sustainable and manageable.” 5. Understand other stakeholders’ fears. Ted Leonhardt, career and negotiation expert: “Yes, I have made a million or more a year. … I did it by understanding the interpersonal issues that drive all social groups, helping my clients reduce their fear, [and] helping people achieve their goals. My one piece of advice is to truly understand the fear that accompanies spending of large sums, and know how to reduce that fear for your clients.”

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6. Be persistent. Ajay Prasad of GMR Transcription: “Succeeding in business will be harder, cost more, and take longer than you planned. My advice for success is persistence.” 7. Hustle. Heidi Burkhart, president of Dane Professional Consulting Group: “At 21, I got into commercial real estate brokerage in NYC … My first three years I was hustling, working 24/7, and surviving on peanuts … Fourth quarter of my third year, I finally started closing deals. Ever since, my income has consistently been in the six figures, with many 12-month periods producing more than $1 million. … I credit all this, though, to

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the initial hustle that is now forever embedded in my system.” 8. Grow things organically. Romy Taormina, “Nausea Relief Chief” at Psi Bands: “There's no overnight success here. I have led our company organically, and this has kept us in business and allowed us to exceed the $1 million threshold. Case in point: The Psi Bands team pitched our first retailer using a prototype. We landed that account--400 Long's Drugs stores--and garnered a coveted spot in Oprah's O magazine as an "O Pick.” The associated credibility gave me a great sales opener, and I was able to land more accounts.”

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9. Build personal relationships. Andrew Royce Bauer, CEO of Royce: Royce is able to make more than $6 million a year by maintaining personal relationships with every single one of our customers. We are a company built on human interaction with our end user … a small amount of really good customers that we truly treat like family rather than trying to be the business that serves everyone.” 10. Stay focused on the ultimate goal. Zach Halmstad, co-founder and partner of JAMF Software: My best advice is to stay focused on where you want to be, and not on what could go wrong along the way. … 99 percent of the things that you worry about never happen. It's the things !

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that you don't worry about that actually happen. This has stuck with me.”

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~5~ How to Be on Vacation Every Day for the Rest of Your Life (Really) Yes, it's true that Americans take really halfassed vacations. Here's the unexpected upside. Bear with me--I think I've figured this out. I wish I'd done so years ago, but better late than never. (Hint: It involves entrepreneurship.) Recently, I asked hundreds of entrepreneurs, CEOs, and other leaders for their best tips on !

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taking great vacations. The result, "17 Habits of Highly Effective People Who Take Really Amazing Vacations," seems to have struck a nerve, since it's been shared more than 14,000 times. A lot of the advice was about staying productive while you're away--things like finding a "vacation office," or coming home on a Saturday to get ready for the workweek. I won’t rehash it all; you can go back and check it out if you like. But honestly, writing the whole thing made me a little bit depressed. Are we really this horrible at relaxing? Then, I heard from a reader named Karena de Souza--and something she told me changed my thinking entirely. !

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About a decade ago, de Souza and her husband and their kids set off on journey around the world--a trip that lasted a full year. They weren't independently wealthy; they pulled this off despite facing all of the same kinds of challenges that most normal people would face. I'll save all of the particulars for another column. (Let me know if you'd like me to write about it.) More important for now was an insight. Since Americans are almost never totally unplugged and not working, even on vacation, that means, ironically, that it's a lot easier than you might think to be on an American-style vacation almost every day of your life. Here's how:

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1. Find your happiness. That this isn't just an academic exercise for me. A few years ago, I almost chucked it all and moved to the beach in Spain. I was divorced, I had no kids, and I was running a ghostwriting business that provided a nice income and was 100 percent mobile. My plan involved buying a condo in St. Pete Beach, Florida (no state income tax), and renting a former co-worker's apartment in a Mediterranean town called Altea, about midway between Barcelona and Gibraltar. Then, I went to my college reunion, got back together with a woman I'd dated in my early 20s--and was engaged within four months. (Best decision I ever made.) It might have been great to live on the beach in Spain for a while, !

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but I realized that wasn't truly what was going to make me happy.

So, before you set out, take the lot of time to evaluate your goals, and figure out what truly makes you happy. Do you want to travel? To go hiking and rock climbing every day? To be able to participate in high culture and treat yourself to world-class art? Be sure you can answer: Where do you really want to go on this journey? Your answers will affect everything else. 2. Embrace your passions. I don't just mean "follow your passions" no matter what. That's horrible, horrible advice. Instead, figure out what it is that you truly !

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love, and make this vacation lifestyle part of your quest to find a way to make it possible. I know this sounds a little philosophical at the outset, but it's important. If what you're truly passionate about is building software, for example, or playing violin, or U.S. politics, that clearly will affect where you decide to go and what you decide to do. For that matter, if you are a parent--or if you really hope to have kids--of course you need to keep their well-being in mind as well. It's not impossible to pull this off, however; remember. de Souza and her husband had three children while they spent a year traveling. 3. Structure your income. Now we get to the real grit of this exercise. I'm assuming that you will need to earn money to !

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survive. However, even if you can land a job wherever you decide to travel to, it sort of defeats the purpose if you have to spend all of your time working. So, you have to find a way to become your own boss, and to do so with a largely virtual business that requires, at the absolute most, a 40-hour work week. There's probably nobody who has done more to explain how to do this than Tim Ferriss, in his book (and blog) The Four Hour Work Week. As of January of this year, he says he's collected more than a thousand case studies of people pulling it off. (He calls these businesses "muses," by the way.) I hope this doesn't sound like a compromise-keep in mind, it's the realization that most Americans are working during their measly !

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two weeks (if they're lucky) of vacation a year anyway that makes this possible. In my case, I couldn't have even considered doing this were it not for my business, ProGhostwriters. 4. Evaluate your expectations. If your idea of a vacation requires lounging for weeks at the Four Seasons Bora Bora, I'm not sure we can really help you here. But if you can manage your expectations--and your expenses-it's very possible to pull off. This can mean traveling places during off-peak times, staying in rooms and apartments you find on Airbnb--or even couch surfing or renting locally as opposed to hotels. Of course, it also means learning to shop and eat like a local, no matter whether you're spending time in Phuket or Panama City Beach, Florida. !

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Bottom line: The whole thing is much more possible if you can live like a vacationer but not spend like a tourist. 5. Establish routines. I really wanted to write this column without including phrases like "be reasonable," but the truth is, to live a vacation-style lifestyle over the long term, you really do need to be reasonable. Part of that involves setting up routines, and sticking to them. Maybe you should even figure out the "vacation office" thing that the company president in my other article was talking about. A perpetual vacation doesn't mean perpetual debauchery and lack of structure. (Don't worry--it will still be a heck of a lot more fun than working like a drone.) Knowing that you !

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have to work for two or three hours every morning on your "muse," for example, is part of what will make the whole thing possible. 6. Maintain connectivity. I mean this in three ways: First, it's about making sure you maintain connections with friends and family back home. Trust me, this is important. Next, it's about making sure you maintain and increase connectivity with people who will help you grow, both professionally and personally. We all know older people who retire, spend a few years maybe chasing a little white ball all over a golf course, and then seem to deteriorate quickly. You don't want to follow their example. !

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Finally, it's about making sure you have sufficient digital infrastructure. I once had a guy who was living this sort of life working for me. He was a great guy, but it was a nightmare trying to do phone calls with him when he was always on a crappy cell phone in some noisy cafe.

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~6~ 10 Things About 1995 That Kinda Put Launching Amazon in Perspective The pet rock was still a somewhat recent memory, and a webcam of a coffee pot was still kind of a big deal. Let's just admit it. Back in the mid-1990s, most of us who were alive at the time hardly knew what the Internet was. Oh, there were exceptions, but for most Americans, it was !

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limited. Maybe we used email for work; maybe we had pay-by-the-hour dial-up service with AOL at home. Maybe we read in dead-tree media about this weird network of computers that would change our lives. It all still seemed like the future. Heck, until September 1995, you could still register domain names for free. That's the environment in which Jeff Bezos launched Amazon, 20 years ago, after giving up a lucrative Wall Street job and heading to Washington State. No matter what you think of his company and how it changed the world, it took a special kind of vision to be able to see what the world would look like in the future, back when most people were still rooted in a 20th-century, analog mindset. Here

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are 10 observations about the mid-1990s that will put it further in perspective. 1. On a timeline, Amazon's debut was closer in time to the Pet Rock than it is to the present day. Yes, the mid-1990s seem like quite a while ago, but I have to admit this little thought exercise blew me away. The Pet Rock (whose inventor I consider the greatest entrepreneur of all time) made its debut in October 1975-in other words, 19 years and nine months before the launch of Amazon, which is now 20 years old. 2. When you won an auction on eBay, you had to mail a check. Technically, eBay didn't launch until September 1995, but set that aside. There were !

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no fast, secure ways to send money over the Internet at the time. So when buyers won auctions, they literally had to write a paper check, mail it to the seller, then wait for the check to clear before they got their stuff. 3. Not only was there no Google, there was barely a Yahoo. Yahoo had launched the year before, but it had only recently shed its original name, Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web. Granted, that sounds like a joke now, but it's legitimate. The site was a hierarchical list of websites, as opposed to a search engine.

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4. A webcam photo of a coffeepot was still a big draw. I had an internship around this time in the (tiny) computer-assisted litigation department of a major company. I remember a colleague who was considered the most tech-savvy among us predicting that the Internet would be remembered as a fad on which nobody was ever able to find useful information. Exhibit No. 1 was this website dedicated to hosting a 24-hour-a-day image of a coffee machine in an office in England. 6. MTV's website was owned by a former employee. In 1993, MTV reportedly had little interest in the Internet. So one of its VJs (this was back when MTV actually played music videos) !

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asked for permission to create a website on his own using the mtv.com domain. Around the time Bezos launched Amazon, MTV was still suing its former employee, trying to get its domain name back. 7. Big-time spam was about a year old. There had been smaller incidents before, but around the time Bezos was setting up shop in Washington State, two Arizona lawyers had come up with an innovative idea: sending unsolicited messages to thousands of Usenet groups, advertising their services in helping clients with the "green card lottery." By 1995, they'd been written up in The New York Times, and they had just authored a book together titled How to Make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway. !

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8. One of the world's top news websites had been built for $120. The website for the British magazine The Economist had been launched by one of the magazine's correspondents, with the budget coming out of his own pocket. His motivation: embarrassment in admitting to other tech aficionados that his magazine had no online presence. Still, by the end of 1994, America Online named it one of the world's 10 best news sites. 9. Politicians had just joined the party. The White House's website had gone online just the previous year. I won't even spoil it for you except to say it looks like something a modern-day fourth grader would be mortified to create; you should check it out. Meanwhile, !

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the 1996 Clinton and Dole campaigns were the first to have websites; they're still archived here and here. 10. The first banner ads were pretty recent. They were on Hotwired (described in Time magazine at the time as "the sassy online sister of [the magazine] Wired]," and they advertised things like Zima alcoholic beverages, 1-800-Collect, and Club Med. Things were so nascent that as Wired reported in 2010, the ad agency buying the ads ran into an obvious but unexpected problem: "It had to create websites for its clients, who weren't even sure that interacting online was a good idea-or that the ads were even legal."

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~7~ 17 Inspiring Women Entrepreneurs Share Their Secrets for Success Think there aren't enough inspiring women entrepreneurs? You'd better listen to these amazing founders. Successful entrepreneurs are usually inspired by other successful entrepreneurs. That means that if people don't have great role models-especially role models in whom they can see themselves--they're at a big disadvantage. ! 53!

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That's among the biggest challenges facing women who want to start new ventures. So, here are key quotes from 17 amazingly successful women entrepreneurs. Which do you find most inspiring? (Know some other women I should have featured? Let me know here.) 1. Sara Blakely Founder of Spanx, youngest self-made female billionaire in America "It's important to be willing to make mistakes. The worst thing that can happen is you become memorable."

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2. Shelia Lirio Marcelo Founder of Care.com "I think in terms of evolutions, not revolutions. Failure is not part of my vocabulary." 3. Wendy Kopp Founder of Teach for America "Change is not always a process of improvement. Sometimes it's a process of invention. When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he didn't start by trying to improve the candle. He decided that he wanted better light and went from there." 4. Clara Barton Founder of American Red Cross "I may sometimes be willing to teach for

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nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay." 5. Martha Stewart Founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia "My new motto is: When you're through changing, you're through." 6. Anita Roddick Founder of The Body Shop "If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just." 7. Tory Burch Chairman, CEO, and Designer of Tory Burch LLC. "I think you can have it all. You just have to know it's going to work."

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8. Arianna Huffington Founder of The Huffington Post "Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it, the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me." 9. J.K. Rowling Author "It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all--in which case, you fail by default." 10. Diane Von Furstenberg Designer, Founder of DvF "I wanted to be an independent woman, a woman who could pay for her bills, a woman who could run her own life--and I became that woman." !

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11. Angie Hicks Co-founder of Angie's List "I'm going to be the one to make the donuts. I don't consider myself a big risk-taker. I was presented an opportunity by someone I had a lot of respect for, and I took it." 12. Madam C.J. Walker Early 20th century hair and beauty entrepreneur "I am not merely satisfied in making money for myself, for I am endeavoring to provide employment for hundreds of women of my race.... I want to say to every Negro woman present, don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!"

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13. Elizabeth Arden Founder of Elizabeth Arden Inc. cosmetics "Dear, never forget one little point. It's my business. You just work here." 14. Coco Chanel Founder of Chanel "May my legend prosper and thrive. I wish it a long and happy life." 15. Estee Lauder Founder of Estee Lauder Companies "I didn't get where I am by thinking about it or dreaming it. I got there by doing it." 16. Debbi Fields Founder of Mrs. Fields Bakeries "Good enough never is." 17. Rashmi Sinha !

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Founder of SlideShare "I think it is going to be hard to trace a specific event that made me want to be an entrepreneur. I like independence. I like to build things. Being an entrepreneur allows me to do both."

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~8~ Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett All Had This Experience Long Before They Were Successful Hint: It wasn't just that they spent time becoming experts in their fields. If news reports are right, something like 75 percent of today's college and high school students won't do something this summer that !

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I once thought was second-nature. They won't be getting summer jobs. This might be a bad trend--with kids missing out by not working at real jobs during the summer (as opposed to career-track internships and enrichment camps). If that isn't enough reason to reconsider summer plans however, there's another. Some of the most successful people we admire in leadership and entrepreneurship followed the summer-jobs path.

Here's how 10 of the most amazing entrepreneurs--including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Jeff Bezos--spent their spare time and summer vacations. (Bottom line up front: They worked.) !

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1. Bill Gates It won't surprise you to know that Gates had a summer job as a programmer for defense contractor TRW, but he also spent a summer working as a congressional page in Washington. This isn't exactly a glamorous job, and it wouldn't seem to have much to do with starting Microsoft. However, it could have sparked an interest in public policy that led him to launch the Gates Foundation. 2. Warren Buffett Long before he was a professional investor, Buffett spent his spare time working as a salesman, running a paper route, selling chewing gum and bottles of soda door to door, and detailing cars. According to reports, when

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he filed his first tax return in 1944, he deducted the cost of the bike he'd used on his routes. 3. Michael Bloomberg This might be my favorite entry on this list. Before he started a gigantic media company and was elected mayor of New York City, Bloomberg paid his way through Johns Hopkins University by working as a parking lot attendant. 4. Thomas Edison What is it about selling candy--not just Buffett, but Edison, too? He didn't exactly come from money, and it was long before perfecting the light bulb or starting the company that would eventually become General Electric, but Edison

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first made money by selling newspapers and candy on a train. 5. Daymond John Back to more modern-day entrepreneurs, the founder of FUBU spent his summers in high school as a foot messenger, "delivering packages all over the city," he explained in an interview. "At age 16, it helped broaden my horizons and introduce me to completely new parts of the world that were right in my backyard." 6. Michael Dell You probably know that Dell founded his namesake computer company out of his dorm room at the University of Texas at Austin, but his first job? Washing dishes at a Chinese !

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restaurant. He also sold newspapers, and reportedly made enough money to launch his computer company. 7. Henry Ford As a child, Ford's father gave him a pocket watch, which he took apart and reassembled, thus developing both his interest in machines and his reputation as someone who could work on them. He was expected to take over the family farm, but instead became an apprentice to a machinist. 8. Andrew Carnegie Carnegie was born in Scotland and moved with his family as a child to Pennsylvania, but they never had much money. He went to work at 14 as a "bobbin boy" in a cotton mill, where !

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his job was to work six days a week changing thread spools on dangerous, fast-moving machinery. 9. Alexander Ljung Speaking of dangerous work, I love this story about the founder of SoundCloud, Ljung, who said in an interview that he worked two summers during school at a construction site, "assisting with fitting ventilation systems." Besides being surprised at how early construction workers start their days, he said the experience taught him that "any system can always be improved." 10. Jeff Bezos Bezos, according to one report, spent summers when he was growing up living and working !

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on his grandparents' ranch in south Texas, "laying pipe, vaccinating cattle, and fixing windmills."

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~9~ Facebook and Twitter Turned Him Down. Now He's Worth $4 Billion Remember this story if you ever don't get a job you really, really want. First off, I love this kind of story. Let's go back in time to 2009. Brian Acton was an accomplished programmer who'd checked the box with stints at both Apple and Yahoo. !

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Now he was looking for work--and he was coming up short. His Twitter feed tells the tale.

Then, three months later: Acton had been the 44th employee at Yahoo, but he'd lost millions of his dot-com fortune when the bubble burst in 2000. Despite the bright-sided nature of his Tweets, the 37-yearold didn't know what was next. He toyed with a startup idea, but it wasn't going anywhere. And as Marc Cenedella-founder of The Ladders, and more recently, Knowzen--wrote on Medium a few !

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days ago, Acton.....was feeling a bit washed up. His 11 years as an early employee at Yahoo! was now two years in the past. He'd bounced from job to job in Silicon Valley's startup land, and now he'd been turned down by both Facebook and, as he tweeted a few months prior, Twitter. It's kind of scary to be pushing 40 and feel like you're being pushed out the door. But the most beautiful thing about Brian is the good grace and optimism with which he handled his rejection -- "It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life's next adventure." The hurt radiates from those 140 characters. And also a strength of character. The happy ending? Acton went to work with an engineer named Jan Koum, with whom he'd !

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been friends for years, since the two had worked for Yahoo together. Acton got "the grand title of 'co-founder' and no salary for his efforts," as Cenedella points out--and the two became co-founders of WhatsApp. But he joined on in November 2009--three months after his Facebook interview. They launched officially in January 2010. Four years later, Facebook bought their company for $19 billion. Acton's take? An estimated $3 billion at the time--now closer to $4 billion. People noticed these tweets a couple of years ago, but I somehow missed them until Cenedella's recent article.

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By the way, I'd be remiss not to repeat briefly the story of the other WhatsApp founder, Koum. He immigrated to the U.S. from Ukraine at age 16, worked at a grocery store, and eventually dropped out of San Jose State University before working at Yahoo. His stake in WhatsApp was even greater than Acton's. As my colleague Larry Kim wrote: "Koum signed the papers for Facebook's acquisition of his company on the steps of the same welfare office he used to frequent for food stamps." How's that for a happy ending?

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~10~ This Guy Makes More Money Playing Video Games Than a Top Quarterback in the NFL The members of Forbes list of the top YouTube stars are almost all under 30, all independent, and they made as much as $12 million last year. This is one of those stories where you start asking yourself, what have I done with my life? !

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Forbes is out with another list of the wealthiest people. This time it's the top-earning YouTube stars, and the number-1 guy on the list is a Swedish 25-year-old who made $12 million last year "all for providing expletive-heavy commentary as he plays video games," the magazine said. (Because like, advertising and stuff.) To put that number in perspective, future Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady, who won last year's Super Bowl with the New England Patriots, has a three-year contract worth $27 million--so, $9 million a year. It's quite impressive; a decade ago there was almost no way that people like the ones on this list could have achieved this level of fame and fortune. (Even if they were talented, it would have been impossible to build a following like !

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theirs--to say nothing of monetizing it.) Here are the top 10 according to Forbes: 1. Felix Kjellberg (aka PewDiePie): $12 million Plays video games, swears a lot, makes videos. He's "notoriously private, rarely granting interviews, doing conferences or visiting the Los Angeles YouTube studios," Forbes reports. 2. (2-way tie) Benny and Rafi Fine (aka Fine Brothers): Fine Brothers: $8.5 million Among other things, their first success was a video series in which they "film[ed] people watching over-the-top videos from the likes of PewDiePie." 2. (2-way tie) Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla (aka Smosh): $8.5 million !

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Childhood friends and comedians, Hecox and Padilla "got famous for live-action skits based on Pokémon games. ... Their first fulllength movie [with the creative title, "Smosh: The Movie"], came out in July." 4. Lindsey Stirling: $6 million And now for something completely different: Stirling dances, plays the violin, and shoots music videos. Record labels turned her down back in 2007. Explains Forbes: "Now they are begging to sign her, but too late--she doesn't need them anymore." 5. (2-way tie) Olajide Olatunji (aka KSI): $4.5 million He's British, he's a YouTube star with 11 million followers, he's a "videogame commentator," according to Forbes, and he !

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released a hip-hop single in the UK earlier this year. 5. (2-way tie) Rhett McLaughlin and Charles Lincoln Neal III (Rhett & Link): $4.5 million College classmates at North Carolina State University, they're also veterans of corporate America. Says Forbes: "Nearly half of their earnings come from sponsored deals--they've shot sponsored clips for their channels for such brands as Gillette, Wendy's and Toyota." 7. Michelle Phan: $3 million A makeup artist with a giant following, Phan is seeking to evolve past YouTube and "reinvests most of the money from her projects-- including her cosmetics line and ipsy, a monthly makeup-subscription service-right back into her business." !

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8 (3-way tie) Rosanna Pansino: $2.5 million A bubbly chef and baker, her first cookbook, The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook, is coming out next month. 8. (3-way tie) Roman Atwood: $2.5 million He does prank videos, like a recent one in which he supposedly tricked his girlfriend into thinking he'd accidentally killed their 3-yearold son. 8. (3-way tie) Lilly Singh (aka IISuperwomanII): $2.5 million Singh is a singer and comedian "who leans heavily on her ethnic background (her parents immigrated to Canada from India)."

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~11~ How a Recovering Addict Who Hires ExConvicts Made $63 Million Last Year Then again, he was stabbed in a drunken fight just after launching his company, so there was really nowhere to go but up. Rick Roussin says his computer supply company, California-based Coast to Coast, did $63 million in revenue last year. That's quite a !

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feat considering the condition he was when he started it 30 years ago. He was a ravenous alcoholic and cocaine addict back then, and he got stabbed in a drunken fight just after launching. He even-Wait, I'll just get out of the way let him explain: "Drugs and alcohol were my life. What I mean by that was I was doing cocaine on a daily basis, drinking on a daily basis, and if I couldn't afford cocaine I was doing whatever other drugs I could find. I was strictly a party animal... I'd drink until I puked."

Roussin was a good salesperson, he told me one recent evening, but he couldn't keep a job. He launched his firm selling printer ribbons from his living room at age 24 because he !

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couldn't follow rules well enough to stay employed anywhere else. "I was fired for the third time in September 1985, and started my company, but nothing really good happened until ... I basically hit rock bottom," he continued. "It was Halloween 1985 and I got stabbed in a gang fight, fighting over a keg of beer in Culver City." Right, okay. Stabbed. Roussin was rushed to the UCLA Trauma Center, where he underwent surgery for a lacerated liver and diaphragm. With no health insurance, he spent 10 days in the county hospital.

"It still took another six weeks before I realized I had to do something about my alcohol problem,' Roussin said. Finally, he wound up !

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going to Alcoholics Anonymous, where he attended 90 meetings in 90 days. "It's amazing how fast your life can change. Even being seven days sober, I hired my first employee in March 1986. Actually he hired himself--it was someone I met in a meeting," he said. That's been a theme ever since, as Roussin said he's made it a priority to hire recovering addicts and ex-convicts. While he's quick to point out that not all of his employees fit this description, he said seven of his top 10 sales producers are members of 12-step programs, and many other employees have served time in prison--and now have 450 years of combined sobriety to their credit.

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His firm now has 240 employees. It focuses on selling ink and toner products to small and medium-sized businesses, along with some government clients like the U.S. Air Force. "We're like the second chance company. If somebody's coming out of prison and they have some sobriety, we're probably going to be willing to give them a chance," Roussin said. "Most of their convictions and time was around drugs, and if somebody cleans up their life, we're probably going to give them an opportunity." Besides the moral aspect, the fact that few other employers are willing to take a chance on addicts and ex-convicts means that if you can identify people who have truly changed, you can recruit extremely loyal employees, he said. !

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"They're mostly good people, they just had a flaw. If they engage in a solution they can become very productive people and members of society," Roussin said. "Most of them have a lot of energy and a lot of drive, and if you can channel that into something positive, they're extraordinary employees." Anything else? Besides sobriety, Roussin said one of the major ingredients of his success was that for decades, he's listened to recordings of motivational speakers for 30 minutes each day. "Early on my favorite was Zig Ziglar. It'd be great if you can include this quote in your article: 'You can have everything.’”

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~12~ 17 Extraordinarily Candid Observations From Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran Ever wondered which of her fellow Sharks she'd like to sleep with, or what she thinks are the silly ways entrepreneurs waste money? Here's your chance to find out. Barbara Corcoran of Shark Tank would totally sleep with her fellow Shark Mark Cuban. !

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There, did I get your attention? It worked on Reddit, too, where Corcoran recently did an impressively candid and interesting "Ask Me Anything" feature. Sure, she gave some interesting, straightforward advice about starting a business or getting the Sharks to invest on Shark Tank, but that was only after setting the tone. A Redditor called SirT6 asked Corcoran, 66, about her relationship with fellow Sharks Mark Cuban, Kevin O'Leary, Daymond John, and Robert Herjavec--basically asking her to play the KFM game. Maybe you remember this from high school; he asked her which Shark she'd want to kill, which she'd want to marry, which she'd want to do business with, and which she'd want to--well, I try to keep this

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column PG-13 at the worst, so let's paraphrase and say, sleep with. Corcoran picked up the gauntlet. "Sleep with Mark Cuban any day--and do business between the sheets," she answered. "From what he looks like in a suit, I'm sure I wouldn't be disappointed. Like everybody else, I'd like to kill Kevin on a daily basis for all the right reasons. ... Did I get off topic?" "Damn, you're like one of those awesome ladies in movies where some punk teenager says some type of crude or sexual remark but you retort with a witty reply and leave him speechless," a Redditor replied. (There were actually a lot of replies like that.) Before I go any further, a little quick exposition on Shark Tank. I'm sort of obsessed with the !

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show, to the point that I studied every single pitch made during the first five seasons. And I know that Corcoran and her fellow Sharks have their public personas down pat. Still, here are 17 extraordinarily candid observations and revelations from Corcoran's AMA: 1. On how she got the first $1,000 she needed to start her real estate business ... "Easy. A guy walked into the diner, while I was waitressing, gave me a ride home that night ... and the rest is history." 2. On what she'd do differently if she were starting over today... "I would have slept with my boyfriend sooner rather than waiting six months. I could have

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gotten my hands on that $1,000 earlier and been off and running." 3. On how she feels about entrepreneurs who are clearly on the show only for the publicity, and not because they seriously want the Sharks as investors... "That stuff happens all the time, and it never bothers me. Put yourself in their shoes: A producer calls and says, 'How'd you like to be on primetime TV with eight million people watching you?' Who in their right mind would say no?" 4. On how much she knows about Shark Tank contestants ahead of time ... "Every time the doors open, I say to myself, 'I wonder what we have here...?' We don't know a thing until they step into the tank." !

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5. On the biggest mistakes that small businesses make ... "Pissing away money on patents and PR. The right dance steps are: 1) make the product, 2) get some sales, 3) make the big guys envy you, and only then get a patent. But what gets in the way of all young business is self-doubt. The little poisonous voice inside all of us that whispers 'don't go there.' You can't do it. Don't take the chance.' It took me 20 years to kill that voice and set myself free." 6. On how many deals actually get done on the show, and how long she plans to stick around on it ... This one was interesting to me in light of my analysis of Shark Tank contestants. The short version is that the "deal or no deal" !

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percentage, so to speak, was very close to 50 percent. However, we don't know how many entrepreneurs apply to be on the show to begin with, or what percentage of agreed-upon deals on the show actually close after due diligence and additional negotiations. Anyway, Corcoran gave some data on that second question: "Roughly 65% get closed." 7. On how to know whether you're in her good graces as an entrepreneur once she's invested in you ... "I work diligently with every business, but the minute I spot an unsuccessful entrepreneur in my lot, I turn his photo upside down in my office to remind me not to spend anymore time with him. So I always have room for a new, great entrepreneur." !

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8. On her best and worst investments on the show ... "I won't even mention my least successful, because they're suing me for outing them last time! But clearly, my most successful are Cousins Maine Lobster. Because they're making me the most money, they're the smartest guys in the bunch and they're damn good looking. Even better, they have the common decency to airbrush photos of us together--my face only--before they send them to me." (Murphy notes: A little sleuthing, and I think I've got the "least successful" deal she mentioned, from a 2012 interview: "My worst was investing in a fast-talking cowboy selling

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exercise equipment who needed to lose 50 pounds. Instead, he lost my $50,000.") 9. On what books you should read before becoming an entrepreneur ... "You shouldn't be reading any books before venturing out. Get out there now and then read them as you're working. Still, the best business book I've ever read is How to Win Friends and Influence People. Nothing better." 10. On the deal she wishes she'd made but didn't from Shark Tank ... "Notehall took my offer, and then the two young guys shopped it around for a larger offer. And they sold the company, by year-end, for $10 million. I regret not stuffing both of them in my luggage until the deal got signed."

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11. On her academic and educational background ... "I achieved impressive straight D's in high school," Corcoran said in her introduction, adding later, "The great thing about being a stupid student is you have the whole damn day to daydream. And daydreaming, about who you want to be, is a heck of a lot more useful than a rock-solid business plan." 12. On what happens to your life when you become independently wealthy ... "Wealth complicates things. I'm not really sure who my real friends are now ... and so I keep my original circle small. When I cashed out on my business, everybody I knew suddenly had a $10,000 problem. But I'm not giving the money back." !

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13. On her morning routine ... "I have a genius kid on my team who helps me with all of the businesses. But the real key to doing a lot at once, and doing it well, is figuring out every morning what your priorities for the day really are, as there are very few. The items I attend to first are the ones that answer well to the query, How dramatically would this affect my business?" 14. On the No. 1 personality trait that stops people from being successful ... "Fear. The fear of failure. The real question is ... what makes you fearful of failing? It's usually lack of self-esteem (or your parents did a number on you)."

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15. On what you should invest in if you had $10,000 lying around ... "That's a ridiculous question. The only thing worth investing in is yourself. And so the real question is ... what do you feel passionate about? Is there an angle you could work that would make you some money?" 16. On her first experience as an entrepreneur My first business failed miserably. It was a flower of the week club, for only $3.95 a week. I would later build my very successful real estate business. Ironically, the guy who put me out of my first flower business was none other than a real estate broker. He owed me 47 weeks of flowers for both him and his mom--at $3.95 a week! I had a cash flow problem and went under." !

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17. On the most important thing she looks for when evaluating a business, after sales and profit ... "The head of the company has to be able to sell. You need a salesman at the helm. Because if he can't sell the product or service, who can?"

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~13~ That Viral Shaving Video Guy Now Has a Firm Worth $615 Million This story starts with a funny but low-budget YouTube video, starring and produced by a digital marketing guy who spent his off-hours taking comedy classes. It ends (for now anyway) with more than half a billion dollars.

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Maybe you remember the video, “Our Blades are F**** Great,” which went viral to the tune of something like 19 million views on YouTube in 2012. It introduced Dollar Shave Club to the world, and got a lot of press for both its tone and success. Offering a subscription service for razors (starting, as the name suggests, at $1 per month), the then-tiny startup that Mike Dubin had launched with his life savings of $35,000 wound up with 12,000 orders overnight. Now, three years later, it’s a real company and then some, after closing a $75 million round of financing (the company’s fifth), which valued Dollar Shave Club at $615 million. With this round, the company’s taken a total of $150 million in funding. !

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According to The Wall Street Journal: The company’s high valuation is the result of fast revenue growth. Sales were $65 million in 2014, triple the prior year’s figure. This year the company hopes to do better than $140 million, Dubin said. However, Dollar Shave Club is not yet profitable, Dubin said. While the viral video helped the company make a name for itself, last year the company turned to more expensive television ads to attract new customers. “We have two million members that get a shipment every month or every other month,” Dubin said in the same interview. “Men’s grooming is exploding, and we think we have a role to play.” The company’s success or failure will turn on whether its cost of acquiring customers goes up or down, one investor told the Journal, !

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which reported that Dollar Shave Club burns through “low single-digit millions” of dollars each month. Its customers pay an average of $7 per month for mail-order razors, blades, and other products. Dubin started as a page at NBC in New York City after graduating from college, and had worked in news writing and production for MSNBC. He took comedy classes at Upright Citizens Brigade (whose alumni include actors and comedians like Amy Poehler and Tina Fey), and moved on to digital marketing at Time Inc. There, he did marketing efforts for big companies like Gatorade, Nike, and Nintendo, and video marketing campaigns for Ford, Capital One-and Gillette, which he now competes with.

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“I’ve never worked for an agency, but I’ve always created content,” Dubin said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. He and co-founder Mark Levine, who had a background in manufacturing, met at a party in late 2010. They started talking about shaving-how much it cost, all the “technology breakthroughs” that big companies kept talking about, but that they thought nobody really needed-and decided to team up. The original video was a big part of their pitch to investors, even before it was unveiled on YouTube. Venture capitalists wanted to see a strong business model and a bold vision, he said in the same interview. “I think once they saw that video, they understood that I was a guy who understood brand and marketing and

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how to speak with a clear voice about our core offer.” It paid off-and now Dollar Shave Club will need its big war chest, as it faces fierce competition from older and much more established competitors in its battle to “own the men’s bathroom”-like Procter & Gamble’s Gillette (which launched its own “Gillette Shave Club”), Schick-and a newer entry to the market, Harry’s (launched by the founder of Warby Parker).

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~14~ 11 Inspiring People Who Followed Their Passions and Found Amazing Success Should you follow the market or follow your passions in launching a new venture? I was looking for inspiration when I began this column--trying to find examples of extremely successful entrepreneurs who had founded their companies while they were working for someone else. !

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It turns out these stories are fewer and farther between than many moonlighting, wanna-be entrepreneurs would like to believe. (Got some good examples that I should feature in a future column? Let me know.) That said, there is no shortage of people who took their passions--the things they would and often did do for free--and turned them into wildly successful new ventures. Here are 11 such people who pursued their passions with faith that fortune would follow. 1. Brandon Stanton Stanton arrived in New York from Chicago in 2010. A self-taught photographer who had just wound up his short-lived bond-trading career, he had the goal of photographing 10,000 people on New York City streets. His !

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photoblog was basically ignored for the first year, but then it took off. Now, Humans of New York is massively popular, and Stanton has parlayed his success into two book deals. 2. Jim Koch A Harvard Business School graduate and consultant with Boston Consulting Company, Koch took the Austrian beer recipe that had been in his family for generations and used it to launch Samuel Adams (Boston Beer Company). With Budweiser, Coors, and Miller now owned by foreign companies, Boston Beer Company is now the largest American brewery. 3. Al "Bubba" Baker Baker, a Pro Bowl defensive end in the NFL, always loved food--especially barbecue-!

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and told me in an interview that he was "always cooking" on his days off. After retirement, he launched a successful barbecue restaurant, and patented a way to debone spare ribs. He then convinced investor Daymond John to invest in his company in an episode of Shark Tank. 4. Chris Michel A former Naval Flight Officer, Michel attended Harvard Business School and then launched Military.com, one of the first social networks in America, and Affinity Labs, both of which he ultimately sold to Monster Worldwide. (I wrote about Michel in my 2010 book, The Intelligent Entrepreneur.) 5. Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss !

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Business school classmates Hyman and Fleiss turned their passion for fashion into Rent the Runway, which now has five brick-and-mortar stores and offers over 50,000 designer dresses for rent. 6. Yvon Chouinard An avid climber, Chouinard bought a secondhand forge and began to make his own equipment. Ultimately he founded Patagonia, a manufacturer of high-end outdoor clothing that did $600 million in sales in 2013. 7. Debbi Fields Fields was only 20 years old when she started selling homemade chocolate cookies--a tiny business that she and her husband, Rands Fields, ultimately grew into Mrs. Fields, which !

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now has and 390 locations around the United States and 4,000 employees. 8. Wendy Kopp Kopp turned her senior thesis at Princeton University into Teach for America, a $229million-a-year nonprofit organization that places graduates from some of America's top colleges and universities as teachers in challenged public schools. 9. Bill Gates Right, he created Microsoft. Long before that, however, he was an amateur programmer who was passionate enough about computers that in the eighth grade, he managed to get excused from math class to design things like early video games. !

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10. Kevin Plank A football player at the University of Maryland, Plank designed shirts that could wick away sweat, and convinced his former teammates who went on to play professionally to try his product and share it with their teammates. The company that resulted, Under Armour, had $2.3 billion in revenue in 2013. 11. Walt Disney What did Disney spend his time doing while growing up? Well, working--but also drawing, from an early age. He was pretty young when he sold his first drawing (of a neighbor's horse). Disney launched several unsuccessful animation companies before coming up with Mickey Mouse in 1928.

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~15~ 7 Leadership Lessons From the SEALs Commander Who Got bin Laden You're probably not leading troops on a special forces raid. But the principles espoused by elite military units can help you become a better leader. Five years ago, U.S. Navy SEALs staged a daring raid into Pakistan, where they caught and killed the world's most-wanted terrorist. ! 112!

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The mission to get Osama bin Laden was highly dangerous, and it ranks among the boldest strikes in the history of U.S. special operations. The man who planned and commanded the raid, Admiral William McRaven, is a veteran leader who served at every level of the SEALs and who literally wrote the book on special operations. (He's also the kind of leader who took the time to reply to a 6-year-old boy who sent him a letter asking if a Navy SEAL is quieter than a ninja.) Recently, McRaven gave a speech at West Point about the top lessons of his 36-year military career. You can click here to read his entire address, but you'll find some of his key points about truly great leadership below. You're probably not sending your team on a !

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dangerous and deadly mission, but McRaven's advice about what it takes to lead troops in battle is equally valid in business and in almost any other aspect of life. 1. It's about people Let's face it: There are so many bad leaders in the world--for the simple reason that good leadership is really hard. It's about having clear goals and a plan to reach them, but it's also about the constant ebb and flow of human relationships. Don't underestimate the scope of that challenge. "Nothing--nothing--is more daunting, more frustrating, more complex, than trying to lead men and women in tough times," McRaven said. "Those officers that do it well earn your !

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respect, because doing it poorly is commonplace." 2. Challenge your team Think of the leaders you've truly respected most in your life. Did they let you slack off and do whatever you wanted, or did they press you to achieve more than you believed possible? McRaven told the cadets in his audience that if they want to lead their troops well, they need to push them. "Taking care of soldiers is not about coddling them," McRaven told the cadets. "It is about challenging them--establishing a standard of excellence and holding them accountable for reaching it....You had better be up to the task, because I have learned that they expect you to !

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be good....[They] expect you to hold them to high standards." 3. Learn from failure Everybody screws up, and everybody falls short, but the best leaders learn to fail effectively. What does that mean? It means things such as acknowledging your failures, learning from them, and moving on quickly. (Click here to see how one business leader encourages his team to share their failures publicly.) "Nothing so steels you for battle like failure," McRaven told the cadets. "No officer I watched got it right every time. But the great ones know that when they fail, they must pick themselves up, learn from their mistakes and move on.... If

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you can't stomach failure, then you will never be a great leader." 4. Take smart risks Nice people can play it safe, but great leaders can't. Your team needs to know that you're dedicated to moving forward and helping them achieve goals that are bigger than any of them. That also means taking smart risks and being willing to do so in support of the greater good. "The greatest risk is not on the battlefield but in standing up for what's right," McRaven told the cadets, adding, "The truly great officers know that real victory is achieved when men and women of character take professional risks and challenge the weak-kneed, the faint of heart, the indecisive, or the bullies." !

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5. Be a good follower Can you tell the difference between a leader and a follower? Trick question, because all great leaders are called to be followers sometimes. Just because you're the person with "boss" in your title (or in McRaven's case, admiral's insignia on your military uniform) doesn't mean you will always have the smartest plan, the best knowledge, or the optimal way to lead in every situation. "Great officers are equally good at following as they are at leading," McRaven said. "Following is one of the most underrated aspects of leadership....I have seen many a good [military unit] underachieve, because someone...thought the commander was incompetent, and quietly worked to undermine his authority." !

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6. Work for the greater good Part of pushing people to be their best is to aim for worthy goals, and to ensure that they know that their accomplishments are what matter most--not their backgrounds or their personal idiosyncrasies. People want to be respected, and that requires leading them toward goals that are worthy of respect. "The great leaders in the Army never accept indifference or injustice, and they only judge their soldiers based on the merit of their work," McRaven said. "Nothing else is important." 7. Go toward the action When you're up against a deadline or facing a tough challenge, do the people you work with know instinctively that they'll find you in the thick of the fight--pitching in, working long ! 119!

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hours, and doing whatever is necessary to succeed? Or have you suggested somehow that "rank has its privileges," and that you're exempted from the least-enjoyable but essential tasks? "Move to where the action is the hottest," McRaven said. "Spend time with the soldiers being miserable, exhausted and scared. If you're a Black Hawk [helicopter] pilot or a tank commander, spend some time on the flight line or in the motor pool with the maintainers and the wrench-turners. Whatever position or branch you are in, find the toughest, most dangerous job in your unit and go do it."

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~16~ Be Humble When You're Changing the World How do you balance the humility of great leaders against the goals of great entrepreneurs? This is a column about the universe, the cofounder of AOL, the World War II movie, Band of Brothers. It's also a column about a key component of entrepreneurial leadership, humility. Bear with me, it will all make sense soon enough. !

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In the waning days of our honeymoon, my wife and I recently trekked to the top of Mauna Kea, a 13,803-foot mountain on the Big Island of Hawaii. Besides being one of the few places in Hawaii where a winter coat and hat come in handy, it also happens to be one of the best places to gaze up at stars. I was also drawn to Mauna Kea after reading that scientists estimate there are about70 sextillion stars in the known universe. (Another study suggests that number is lower, at 300 sextillion.) A sextillion is a 1 with 21 zeroes, so there's no good way to wrap our arms around those numbers other than, by way of comparison, to point out there are about 7 billion living humans. Even at the lower estimate of 70 sextillion, that's 1 trillion stars for each person. !

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Lessons in Humility It's a humbling thought, which led me to think of two people: AOL co-founder and venture capitalist Steve Case, and the late Maj. Dick Winters, who led the World War II airborne infantry company made famous in the book and film, Band of Brothers. In a recent interview, Case surprised me when he said the wrong way to pitch a business idea was to lack humility. Likewise, Winters' book preaches the importance of humility in leadership: "If you don't worry about who gets the credit, you get a lot more done," wrote the citizen soldier who led a fierce fight in Normandy. "Leaders should assume blame when the operation fails; when it succeeds, credit the men and women in your team. They do the lion's share of the work." !

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What About Big Ideas? Humility is a logical feeling when confronted by the scope of the universe. But how on Earth can one accomplish big goals while maintaining, as the dictionary puts it, "a modest or low view of one's importance"? The answer lies in the balance. Having mulled it all over while admiring one of the most beautiful sights on the planet, here's what I came up with. Humility Means Respecting Your Team If you don't respect the members of your team, you'd probably both be better off if they weren't part of it. Of course that means respecting their contributions and their individuality, but it also means respecting them by leading effectively. You need not only !

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a worthwhile goal, but also a plan to get there-otherwise, your people deserve better. Humility Means Respecting Your Customers On a related note, humility requires respecting-and listening to--the people whose problems you seek to solve. As Jon Burgstone and I wrote in Breakthrough Entrepreneurship, a worthwhile entrepreneurial venture must "solve an important customer problem and in some small way, improve the world." How you can identify those important customer problems without respecting and listening to your customers? Humility Means Being Daring Start the world's biggest Internet company? That's a worthwhile goal. Defeat the Nazis and liberate Europe? Obviously a mighty and worthwhile challenge. It's not surprising that !

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one component of successful entrepreneurship has something in common with leadership in all fields: Pick a problem worth solving and an objective worth your efforts. One could probably write a doctoral dissertation in philosophy on this paradox. But if you want to practice true humility, you have to reach for the stars. Fortunately, you've got at least 70 sextillion to choose from.

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~17~ Meet the Uber Driver Who Built a $2 Billion Company Paul English was a co-founder of Kayak.com and ran a $20 million incubator in Boston. So why's he driving for UberX?

You've heard about the guy who went from a dead-end job to incredible wealth in just five years because of Uber. This story is sort of the other way around. !

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If you're in Boston and you use UberX, keep an eye out for a driver named Paul behind the wheel of a Tesla S P85D (which retails for more than $100,000). That will be Paul English, the co-founder of Kayak, which was sold to the Priceline Group for what turned out to be about $2.1 billion in 2013. He's only driving part time--having picked up 26 customers since he started on October 31--and it's all about research for his new stealth-mode startup, which will focus on the travel industry. "We're rethinking how people book travel, from how they conceive travel, !

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who they get advice from, where to go, how much work it takes to book it," English told me this morning, in an interview before we each headed to our day jobs. "I always said even when we were at Kayak that we sucked less than other websites. I was trying to make it simple, but even with Kayak there was some work involved." His research goal with Uber? Mainly to learn what the rating experience feels like. "I wanted to study what it felt like as a driver, knowing that at the end of every ride, you were rated on a scale of 1 to 5," !

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English told me. "And the drivers rate [passengers] as well. ... [They're] trying to reward kindness. I think that's been really good." English co-founded Kayak in 2004. The company went public in 2012 and was acquired in 2013, after which English raised $20 million to start an incubator in Boston called Blade. In July, when his noncompete agreement with Priceline expired, he started to focus on this single idea. (English is also the chairman and cofounder of a nonprofit called Summits Education that runs 42 schools for 10,000 students in Haiti.) !

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He's given five stars to 25 passengers, but only one star to a single passenger who was abusive and angry, he said. Among his most memorable customers so far: •

An eighth-grade girl from China and her mother, who were looking at Boston-area high schools. ("She said, 'It's my life's dream to go to MIT,'" English said.)

•

A group of people he drove from a downtown nightclub to South Boston. ("They'd been drinking, and I can't replicate her Boston accent even though I have one, but she looked at the 17-inch screen and said, 'You must be a millionaire!'") !

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•

The only fare, out of 26, who figured out who he is. "When people ask me what I do [for a full-time job], I say I'm a programmer," said English. "I don't want to talk about me; I want to learn about them. But I picked up this couple about 25 years old, and one's showing an iPhone to the other, and then one of them goes: 'Are you Paul English?'" Perhaps the most surprising thing he's found, English told me, is that driving people around is actually kind of fun. He said he appreciates the fact that it gives him a chance to talk with people he would likely never run into otherwise. !

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"I wouldn't be surprised if I still do this a year from now," he said--maybe less often, but occasionally and for fun, as a continual learning experience. "In my day job, I'm a CEO. Life is different when you become a service person, and the customer becomes your boss."

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