Archive for the 'success story' Category
November 4, 2008
I haven’t written about politics on my blog for a variety of reasons but mostly because I think everyone has a right to their own opinion and my blog is primarily about business and parenting…not politics.
However, given that a historic, unprecedented event has just happened in our lifetime, I felt compelled to write this post. I am SO excited that Barack Obama was elected to be the next president of the United States! Not just because I agree with much of his political philosophy, but also because he’s brown, has brains, and has the potential to heal wounds created throughout the world.
If you are someone who has not grown up with brown skin, this might not make sense to you but in my opinion this is a huge affirmation of the American dream. My uncle, a geography professor, was turned away from a restaurant while visiting Virginia New Mexico because of the color of his skin. When I was 8 or 9 years old, a blonde little boy turned to me in the walkways outside my elementary school and yelled at me calling me the ‘n’ word. I had never heard that word before, yet I felt the hate emanating from this young boy, and I still remember the fear I felt standing there all alone wondering why this boy hated me so much.
I’m not even Black (I’m South Asian), but I (and other members of my family) were lumped into the non-White category. When I lived in West Texas, the difference was even more pronounced. I grew up self conscious of my skin color and even now I have moments where I wonder if I truly fit in…despite being married to a White man! Women and Black men have had to consistently work twice as hard and be twice as good to be recognized at the same level as White men in this country.
Time will tell if Obama was the right pick, but the fact that he was picked in this country in 2008 means to me that we’ve reached a turning point in our history. People who are not White and not even men (thanks to Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin) now have a living breathing example of how it can be done.
Obama, to me, epitomizes working hard (no riding daddy’s coattails), focusing on education, prioritizing family values, and taking a thoughtful analytic (that man is smart!) approach before acting. As an added bonus, he appears to know how to speak proper English! 
Not only has he broken color barriers, he has broken social media barriers. He has run the biggest, first, and most effective political campaign that has ever been run (oh what money can buy)! By his campaign’s avid use of twitter, YouTube, blogs, MySpace, email campaigns, etc., he has single handedly affirmed an entire new industry and demonstrated how using the Internet and social media can have a huge impact on the success of campaigns, businesses, and causes. If there was any doubt by individuals and big companies as to the efficacy of social media, it has now been shattered!
I was 3 when I came to the United States with my parents, and we landed in Pennsylvania. I was 21 when I became a naturalized citizen in New Mexico. I am now many years older, live in Texas, and tonight I saw the window of opportunity open wider for my light brown kids…
God Bless America!
September 27, 2008
I co-write articles for university alumni magazines with my fabulous writing partner Pam Losefsky. You can also see more of our write-ups on the article page of this blog. The last article that we did for the Self Starter series for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, is on Kirby Allison (gif). Kirby is a recent graduate and the founder of The Hanger Project. He built the business nights and weekends in school and even after graduating while he held a day job!
Sadly, interviewing these interesting entrepreneurs and writing about them with Pam was one of the things I had to remove from my very full plate of things to do. Both Pam and I took on other commitments ranging from my day job and her additional writing work, that we decided we couldn’t continue to do it and do it well. We’ve been doing articles for The Alcalde for over 3 years now and we really enjoyed working with each other and the editor, Avrel Seale. Life is full of hard decisions and this was one of them. Who knows, we might write for them again when it works for all of our schedules…
I’ll do full posts on past articles we’ve written that I haven’t done one for yet…so keep an eye out for those. An image of Kirby’s article is below and an interesting highlight from his article follows.
“Last fall a confluence of opportunities - a complimentary product review in the Wall Street Journal and a major order from a luxury men’s store in Guatemala - propelled the popularity of Allison’s hangers. He found himself scrambling to air-freight new inventory to meet the Christmas demand. His little side project had become The Hanger Project, a recognized leader in premium hangers.”
August 17, 2008
I co-write articles for university alumni magazines with my fabulous writing partner Pam Losefsky. You can also see more of our write-ups on the article page of this blog.
Our most recent article for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, is on Bart Knaggs (gif). Bart is the founder of Capital Sports and Entertainment which brings us the annual, highly popular Austin City Limits Festival. Here is an interesting quote from his interview:
“There are ways you want to manage opportunities, but mitigating risk, I think takes you down the wrong path.” Instead of thinking that you might lose so you’d better prepare for the crash, Knaggs says you must believe you’re going to take off, so you’ll only prepare to fly. “You have to commit 100 percent to powering the engines and getting up to speed. You have to rally your people, you just have to know you’re going to fly.”
Bart has two kids. After getting his undergraduate degree, he became a competitive cyclist - “a form of self-employment in which the sacrifice is monumental and the payoff only accrues to an elite few.”
One more article in the Self-Starter series will be coming out soon, so sign up for free email updates and you won’t miss it!
July 26, 2008
I co-write articles for university alumni magazines with my fabulous writing partner Pam Losefsky. You can also see more of our write-ups on the article page!
One of our latest articles for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, is on Gay Gaddis. Gay is the founder of T3 - The Think Tank, the largest women-owned advertising agency in the US!
Here is a thought provoking quote from Gay’s interview:
“You get knocked down a couple times and your confidence gets busted and you draw back a little bit,” she says, “but you have to allow yourself the mistakes and the rejection and not let them eat you up.”
I agree with Gay that many entrepreneurs give up is when they let their mistakes eat them up instead of learning from them and moving forward. I struggle with limiting thoughts often.
Gay has 3 kids and came from a long line of entrepreneurs so she saw the reality of how it is to build a business. She started helping her mother with her kindergarten program when she was 13 years old after her father died!
There are more articles to come, so sign up for free email updates to get them right in your inbox!
April 10, 2008
Liz’s assistant approached me a few weeks ago about doing a guest post on my blog. She sent me a copy of her book The MavHERick Mind
, which I mentioned in my Psychology of Entrepreneurship post. It’s a really quick and easy read and a great reminder of how/why our thoughts get in the way of our success! One quote from a famous person that she included in her book that made me really smile was “If it is once again one against forty-eight, then I am very sorry for the forty-eight.” by Margaret Thatcher.
An Inside Look at a Little Known Secret to Success
By: Liz Pabon, The Branding Maven
During a recent interview, I was asked if women find it easier (or harder) to model the branding principles I teach. While my answer may not come as a surprise to you, identifying where you fit within the continuum may.
Here’s how I replied…
The fascinating thing about it all is that women are known to wear their hearts on their sleeves, are more generous, and are generally an open book. Yet, in business many women have been led to believe they must hide behind a role…the role of “business woman.”
What do I mean by hide?
Let me explain…
You see it’s quite a challenge to be your most authentic self when you turn who you are at your inner most core “on” or “off” depending on your circumstances. Yet, that’s exactly what many women do.
When we’re with friends we play the role of “trusted friend” always listening, offering sage advice or just being…silly.
When we’re with family, we play the role of “mother,” “wife,” “daughter,” “sister.” It’s then that we exhibit all the behaviors and place (sometimes unrealistic) expectations on ourselves associated with those roles.
Now you may be thinking to yourself, I’m 100% authentic 100% of the time.
It’s funny how we are sometimes asleep to the subtle shifts in our behavior brought on by the situation we’re in.
Here’s what I observed in the interview I mentioned earlier…
During my interview we had a short break. And on this break the host and I gabbed about shoes, lipstick and where we planned to vacation this summer. As soon as we got the cue that we were back on the air, her voice tone and demeanor did an about face and she was now playing the role of “show host.”
Was she being phony in her role as show host? No. But she turned off the delightful, engaging part of her and replaced it with a more formal, conservative persona. Had her listeners been introduced to the woman I connected with during the break, her listening audience numbers would grow like wild fire!
What’s the result of all this mask wearing and role swapping?
Living with a tiresome sense of having to compartmentalize yourself instead of enjoying life in a wonderful stream of simply being. Where the personal and the professional flow naturally and effortlessly as one.
It’s a rule of good branding to remain consistent. Showing your market two faces can lead to disaster. Showing your market what you think they want to see can also prove ineffective.
Business today has gotten very personal. What this means is giving (and showing) your audience more of who you are and what you’ve got.
That’s a little known secret to success.
©Copyright 2008 Liz Pabon. All rights reserved.
About the author: Liz Pabon (aka: The Branding Maven) is a champion of women, shoe lover, award-winning author, and brand strategist. To learn more about Liz and her recent book, The MavHERickTM Mind, visit her at http://www.lizpabon.com/.
March 6, 2008
I co-write articles on the topic of success for university alumni magazines with my fabulous writing partner Pam Losefsky. Our latest article for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, is on Clay Nichols. Clay is a Michener Fellow at the Texas Center for Writers and Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at DadLabs, an Internet TV show featuring humor and advice on fatherhood.
Our goal with this endeavor was to get people thinking about what success means to them by reading stories on how others define success. Please click here to see more success profiles. Here is a thought provoking quote from the article:
“Leadership in a corporate context is very different from that in a family context. To me that’s painfully and brutally obvious, but I’ve run across many who don’t seem to recognize that distinction and the relationship with their families suffers irreparably.” He goes on to say “The time you spend with your kids is going to be as valuable to your ultimate success as the time you spend with your colleagues.”
You can’t manage relationships with friends and family the same way you manage relationships at work or manage your career. I fall victim to thinking it can be managed the same myself from time to time. They are two different things and as we’ve seen from observing people around us trying to fit a square peg in a round hole doesn’t usually turn out that well.
Stay tuned for a whole new series with the next edition of The Alcalde that will be called Self Starter. We will be interviewing exclusively entrepreneurs from The University of Texas at Austin. Hook ‘em Horns!
February 13, 2008
As some of you know, I co-write articles on the topic of success for university alumni magazines with my fabulous writing partner Pam Losefsky. Our latest article for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, is on Jim Nolen. Jim is a UT Distinguised Senior Lecturer of Finance and President of CFO Services. He is the recipient of numerous teaching awards.
Our goal with this endeavor was to get people thinking about what success means to them by reading stories on how others define success. Please click here to see more success profiles. One of the key things he said that resonated with me was:
“Thomas Edison said ‘I’ve never had a failure — I’ve found 10,000 things that didn’t work.’ It’s that mental attitude that really translates into success in the end — never thinking about failure, but saying instead, ‘I’m going to be successful. I may take a lot of detours, but I don’t have a problem with that.’”
It’s all in how we frame it, isn’t it? Life is one big university where we continue to learn and grow!
The editor has since asked us to focus on entrepreneurs for future articles and of course I am thrilled since I love meeting and talking with entrepreneurs! So after the next one, the series will be called Self Starter and we will be interviewing exclusively entrepreneurs from The University of Texas at Austin. Hook ‘em Horns!
November 22, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels to everyone!
As some of you know, I co-write articles on the topic of success for university alumni magazines with my fabulous writing partner Pam Losefsky. Our latest article for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, is on Leilah Powell, Government Relations Manager for Bexar County, Texas and former Assistant to the Mayor of San Antonio, Texas.
Our goal with this endeavor is to get people thinking about what success means to them by reading stories on how others define success. Please click here to see more success profiles.
August 31, 2007
As some of you may know, I co-write articles on the topic of success for university alumni magazines with my wonderful writing partner Pam Losefsky. Our latest article for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, is about Robb Lanum, a husband, father of two and a writer with published script credits to his name. Robb blogs at the Robblog. Our goal with this endeavor is to get people thinking about what success means to them by reading about how others define success. Click here to see additional articles we have written.
A correction: The Alcalde gave me credit for taking the picture of Robb, but I did not take it since I live in Austin, TX and he lives in sunny CA. We conducted the interview over the phone. His lovely and very talented wife, Michelle Campion, took it. 
July 10, 2007
As some of you may know, I co-write articles on the topic of success for alumni magazines with my wonderful writing partner Pam Losefsky. Our latest article for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, is about Marc Seriff, founding CTO of America Online. Our goal with this endeavor is to get people thinking about what success means to them by reading about how other people define success. Click here to see other articles we have written. We’d love to hear your thoughts…
I haven’t written about politics on my blog for a variety of reasons but mostly because I think everyone has a right to their own opinion and my blog is primarily about business and parenting…not politics.
