The Education of Millionaires - Michael Ellsberg [106]
Danielle held “Fire Starter Groups” in sixteen cities to help teach budding entrepreneurs to start the fires of their own creativity. “I held groups in pole-dancing studios and in boardrooms. Whatever it takes! I did hundreds of one-on-one sessions to develop fresh teaching material.” She then parlayed this material into an e-program, “The Fire Starter Sessions,” which grossed $170,000 in the first year.
She currently charges $1,000 for a one-hour consulting session, and you’ll have to wait several months if you want to book one. She’s just sold her next book project, based on the Fire Starter Sessions, to Random House for a quarter of a million dollars. I bet a lot of people who got accepted to grad school—rather than rejected, as she was—would envy that. Let’s face it. A little line on your resume saying you went to grad school doesn’t have much personality. A thriving, high-traffic blog, oozing with personality and brilliance, a full $1,000 per hour consulting practice, an online e-course, and a book deal with Random House does.
Much of the success of the people in this chapter—from Marian Schembari to Maria Andros to Robert Scoble to Danielle LaPorte—stems from their fearlessness in cultivating and expressing their original, authentic personal brand.
Of course, in order to express your originality, you have to be original—and it’s an oxymoron to teach someone to be original. But one thing that helps is removing from your mind the decades of programming we’ve received in school to play it safe, conform, fit in, stick to the crowd, don’t stand out. That’s a ticket straight to the purgatory of the center of a foot-high resume stack, right where most recent college grads end up. I hope the stories in this chapter have provided inspiration and examples of how to escape the stack—indeed, how to escape the tyranny of the entire resume format—and make your presence known.
SUCCESS SKILL #7
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MIND-SET VERSUS THE EMPLOYEE MIND-SET
Become the Author of Your Own Life
Ten years ago, Hal Elrod was driving home on the freeway to Fresno, California, with his girlfriend, after speaking at a motivational conference related to his work. A budding public speaker, he had just received the first standing ovation of his life, and he was thrilled. In fact, he was so excited by his triumph that he wanted to call his mother and father and share the news with them. But he looked down at his clock and saw that it was 11:34 P.M. He remembered thinking he didn’t want to wake them.
That was the last thought he remembered for two weeks.
He woke up from a coma in the hospital six days later, though he has no recollection of the week following the coma either.
That night, a man had been hanging out at a bar near where Hal spoke, drinking. He’d only had a few beers, but he was intoxicated enough that, when he entered the highway, the man didn’t realize he was entering on the off ramp.
The man “merged” right, into what he thought was the slow lane, not realizing that he was now driving at 70 miles per hour headlong into the fast lane of oncoming traffic. Straight toward Hal.
Hal’s two-door Mustang collided with the man’s Chevy truck head-on, each going 70 miles per hour, with no brakes before impact.
Hal’s airbag engaged, protecting him from the initial impact. But the worst was still to come.
The Mustang spun out, ending up perpendicular to the road, with Hal’s door facing oncoming traffic. The car behind Hal’s didn’t even have time to brake before hitting Hal’s door directly.
Hal’s femur