All You Can Eat Business Wisdom by TJFRPress

Praise for

Monday Morning Radio No one has done more over the past half-century to chronicle the culture and evolution of business journalism—and the experiences of we who practice it—than Pulitzer Prize-nominated reporter Dean Rotbart. As co-host (with his son Maxwell) of Monday Morning Radio, Dean continues to deliver media that matters to a large and loyal audience of small business owners and entrepreneurs who bank on the actionable insights shared by guests (I’m honestly proud to have been among them) on the podcast. Expect to be inspired and energized by the best of those insights while reading All You Can Eat Business Wisdom. — Alfred A. Edmond Jr.

Senior VP/Executive Editor, Black Enterprise

Monday Morning Radio has a sophisticated, thoughtful approach. It tackles meaty, important topics in a captivating and entertaining fashion. Dean and Maxwell are superb. — Gregory Zuckerman

Special Writer, The Wall Street Journal

As a small business owner, I look to Dean Rotbart for incredible interviews, deep insights, and entertaining interviews. Having been on the show myself, it’s like conversing with an old friend outside on the patio. Nothing pretentious. Totally relaxed. Always enlightening. I’ve recommended Monday Morning Radio to every entrepreneur and business owner I know. — Clay Stafford

Bestselling Author & Filmmaker, and Founder of Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference

I’ve known Dean for well over a decade and have had the pleasure of appearing on Monday Morning Radio several times. Dean is an exceptional advocate for and friend to small businesses. We are proud to have him as one of our original “All Kids Bike” national ambassadors, joining our nonprofit mission to provide every child in America the opportunity to learn how to ride a bike! — Ryan McFarland

Founder and CEO of Strider Bikes Founder and Board Member, All Kids Bike

The magic of Monday Morning Radio is the wide variety of topics it covers that are relevant to business owners and entrepreneurs. The same podcast that regularly offers actionable advice on increasing profitability and employee retention also finds room to share fascinating small business tales such as those detailed in my book, Retail Gangster: The Insane Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie. Week-to-week, subscribers never know in advance what the topic will be, but they can be confident it will be worth their time. — Gary Weiss

Award-Winning Investigative Journalist and Author

I love Morning Monday Radio. Host Dean Rotbart’s deep experience reporting on business pays off in his smart questions about business success and failure. You’ll discover great insights in this anthology! — Gary Hoover

Executive Director, American Business History Center

Monday Morning Radio brings something wonderfully unexpected by looking at issues important to small business owners from different perspectives. No surprise, there, with a host like Dean Rotbart, whose work at The Wall Street Journal earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination; he and Maxwell ask questions outside the usual boxes so that listeners get fresh perspectives to bring the insight that can be useful for them. What does a poet have to tell you about being an entrepreneur or running a business? There’s one place to find out this and a whole lot more from people inside and outside the usual business communities. — Matt Mason

Author and Nebraska State Poet (2019-2024)

Dean has deep background and knowledge in media and business, and is also a compassionate and thoughtful interviewer. Which means he doesn’t just get great guests but extracts great thoughts that stand out from the herd. You can really tell when a host knows his stuff and knows what to ask, and Dean stands out. — Matt Murray

Editor in Chief, The Wall Street Journal (2018-2023)

Monday Morning Radio offers great advice and tips for anyone interested in business, particularly small business owners. I can’t wait to read about past shows. — Chris Roush

Executive Editor, Business North Carolina, and Founder, Talking Biz News

A Monday Morning Radio Anthology of Actionable Advice

All You Can Eat Business Wisdom Maxwell Rotbart Co-Host & Associate Producer

TJFR Press Denver, Colorado

All You Can Eat Business Wisdom Maxwell Rotbart

Published by TJFR Press 200 Quebec Street Building 300, Suite 111 Denver, Colorado 80230 Copyright © 2024 by TJFR Press All rights reserved. Permission to reproduce or transmit in any form or by any means — electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording — or by an information storage or retrieval system, must be obtained by contacting the author via email at mondaymorningradio@gmail.com. Ordering Information For additional copies, visit www.GutenbergsStore.com or Amazon.com. Library of Congress Control Number: 2024908396 ISBN 9798324120047 Book Editor: Dean Rotbart Text Production: Avital Romberg Copy Editing and Proofreading: Talya Rotbart First Edition: May 2024

A Note to Readers Think of this as an ebook on paper — unless, of course, you are reading it in a digital format. Each chapter contains links — written in tinyurl format — and QR codes that allow you to quickly access the referenced web pages and podcast audios. You’ll need to manually enter the tinyurls into your browser’s address bar, but that is easier than trying to enter the full (original) URLs. For the podcasts, both the tinyurl and QR code work, whichever you prefer. All You Can Eat Business Wisdom is not intended to be read from cover to cover. It is more of a reference book. Chapters that may not speak to your interests or needs today might well provide the answers you’re searching for tomorrow. In winnowing the guest-candidates to include in this volume, I aimed to tap into the wisdom of pundits with different expertise and life experiences. Accordingly, I have not endeavored to homogenize their strategies. What one expert sees as the formula for effective leadership or greater financial success may contradict what another of the podcast guests prescribes. You be the judge of which recommendations make the most sense to you. The foundation of each chapter is what the guests shared during their Monday Morning Radio appearances. In addition, to supplement what they said on our podcast, I tapped into an array of reference materials, such as news articles and third-party podcasts, as well as their own books and website content. Monday Morning Radio is recorded live-to-tape, which is another way of saying we don’t edit the audio to alter its content. Guests do not know in advance what my father and co-host Dean Rotbart or I will ask, and we strive to avoid the rote questions they’ve answered one hundred times before. Their responses are generally extemporaneous — without the reflection and time that they would have if they were writing a blog post or chapter in one of their own books. As such, I’ve taken the liberty to make minor edits to their exact words spoken on the podcasts when doing so helps to clarify their meaning. Finally, a note on my father’s contributions to this book. Needless to say, I couldn’t have done this without his help. My father has a solid grounding in business and finance that I lack. His

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years reporting for The Wall Street Journal and writing its “Heard on the Street” investment column provide him with invaluable insights. (The paper nominated him for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Journalism.) Ditto, his interviews with well over 500 of our podcast guests before I joined the team in 2023. My dad’s invisible hand — and sometimes a whole arm — has helped shape and vet each chapter in All You Can Eat Business Wisdom. You can trust that the wealth of actionable advice contained herein carries his imprimatur. — Maxwell Rotbart

Table of Contents Foreword: Dean Rotbart

Chapter One: Ken Blanchard: Simple Truths But Profound Leadership Tools

Chapter Two: Charles Duhigg: The Amazing Benefits of Good Habits, Preparedness, the Right Business Culture, and Connection

Chapter Three: Mike Kaeding: Utilize Proven Technologies and Techniques Adapted From Other Business Sectors

Chapter Four: Ramon Ray: Forget Modesty. Celebrity CEOs Thrive by Building a Strong Personal Brand

Chapter Five: Robert L. Dilenschneider: A Proven Formula Anyone Can Use to Obtain Power and Wield Influence

Chapter Six: Michelle D. Gladieux: Communication Skills as a Key Determinant of Happiness and Reputation

Chapter Seven: Carl J. Schramm: Entrepreneurial Success Requires Passion, Determination, and a Willingness to Experiment and Innovate

— Founding host and executive producer, Monday Morning Radio

— Leadership guru and author of The One Minute Manager and more than 50 other business books (With Randy Conley, Blanchard vice president and trust practice leader)

— A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and the author of The Power of Habit, Smarter Faster Better, and Supercommunicators

— A visionary residential real estate developer and CEO of Norhart, Inc.

— An effervescent small business evangelist, entrepreneur, public speaker, and author of The Celebrity CEO

— Author, historian, and founder of The Dilenschneider Group, considered by many in the field to be the dean of American public relations executives

— A workplace-communications specialist, teacher, keynote speaker, and author of Communicate with Courage: Taking Risks to Overcome the Four Hidden Challenges

— Distinguished professor at Syracuse University, author, and an internationally recognized leader in entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic growth

Chapter Eight: Blaine Oelkers: Your Mind Is Your Most Potent Business Tool

Chapter Nine: Bert Gervis and Tracy Posner: Holy Bat Logic! Companies Can Do Well By Doing Good

Chapter Ten: Roy H. Williams: Steps That Turn Words into Magic and Dreamers Into Millionaires

Chapter Eleven: Ryan Deiss: It’s Who You Serve, Not What You Serve, That Counts

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Chapter Twelve: Stephen Semple: Harnessing Unconventional Marketing to Build Your Business Empire

125

Chapter Thirteen: Joanne Lipman: Closing the Gender Gap at Work and Reinventing Your Career

137

Chapter Fourteen: Phebe Trotman: Before You Call It Quits, Read This Chapter

147

Chapter Fifteen: Jen Sincero: It is Never Too Late to Change Trajectories From Failure to Soaring Success

157

— A leading authority on personal implementation and America’s only Chief Results Officer

— Cofounders of Gentle Giants Products, a pet food company widely acclaimed for its business ethics, product quality, and financial success

— A widely acknowledged marketing genius, bestselling author, and co-founder of the non-profit Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas

— A serial entrepreneur, leader in the digital marketing space, and founder of the Traffic & Conversion Summit

— A marketing and advertising expert specializing in designing and executing winning campaigns for small and mid-sized owner-operated businesses. Director of Wizard of Ads Canada and host of The Empire Builders Podcast

— Former deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal and editor-in-chief at USA Today, as well as a bestselling author and lecturer at Yale University

— MVP soccer athlete, author, coach, and expert on the importance of resilience

— Self-development expert and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life

Chapter Sixteen: Fauzia Burke: How to Influence People and Win Friends

167

Chapter Seventeen: Karen Wickre: Harnessing the Power of Social Media to Sustain Relationships and Form Valuable New Connections

177

Chapter Eighteen: Dave Combs: Make Your Own Kind of Music

185

Chapter Nineteen: Tom Ziglar: Unlocking the Steps That Lead to a Successful Life

195

Chapter Twenty: Gregory Shepard: It’s Likely You’d Never Hire Someone Like Gregory Shepard, And You’d Be Mistaken

205

Chapter Twenty-One: Ray Bard: That’s What They Said — Wise Words to Live A Fired-Up! Life

217

Acknowledgments

227

About the Author

231

Be Our Guest

233

Also From TJFR Press

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— Founder and president of FSB Associates, a full-service marketing and publicity firm that specializes in creating awareness for books and authors

— A veteran Silicon Valley influencer, early Google executive, and author of Taking the Work Out of Networking: An Introvert’s Guide to Making Connections That Count

— One of the most successful songwriters and independent music distributors you’ve probably never heard of. He is the author of Touched by the Music: How the Story and Music of “Rachel’s Song” Can Change Your Life

— As CEO of Ziglar, Inc., he continues the teachings and fosters the legacy of his acclaimed father, the late Zig Ziglar

— The head of a capital partnership focused on technology investments, he has achieved remarkable success despite being autistic, dyslexic, and having a sensory condition known as synesthesia

— Founder of the eponymous Bard Press, publisher of 32 business and self-help titles, 18 of which became national bestsellers

Foreword By Dean Rotbart

Monday Morning Radio is a podcast, but it is also a community of global business owners and entrepreneurs who come together weekly to learn from one another how to improve the performance of their companies and derive greater personal satisfaction from their efforts. The show follows a model that Business Week magazine, founded in 1929, perfected as part of the McGraw-Hill publishing family: offering bankers practical insights they could glean from the forest products industry and alerting automakers and steel manufacturers to trends in consumer products, fashion, and entertainment. In other words, fostering a culture of cross-pollination where diverse business leaders share insights and innovations and draw inspiration from one another. The 600-plus guests who’ve appeared on Monday Morning Radio likewise run the gamut from billionaire financier, philanthropist, and medical innovator Michael R. Milken (November 2012) to elementary teacher Sarah Hassenger (April 2016), owner of Four Black Paws. When school is out for the day, Hassenger returns home to make and sell a full range of stylish designer collars and accessories for dogs. Her satisfied clients include Rachel Ray (and Isaboo), Amanda Seyfried (and Finn), Ryan Gosling (and George), and Alison Sweeney (and Jorge and Winky). Collectively, the business owners, entrepreneurs, coaches, authors, and investors who’ve shared their wisdom on Monday Morning Radio epitomize why — to reference one of the podcast’s long-time slogans — Small Business Drives America. Independent enterprises and startups are the target audience for Monday Morning Radio. No segment of the U.S. economy is more important for job creation, innovation, diversity and inclusion, and local community cohesion. As of March 2023, the U.S. Small Business Administration reported more than 61 million Americans were working in the small business sector, which accounted for almost 63% of all new jobs created since 1995. Monday Morning Radio is an outgrowth of an over-the-air weekly radio

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program in Denver, Business Unconventional — “BUnconventional” — which I co-hosted every Sunday morning beginning in December 2011 with a local insurance executive, David Biondo, the show’s main sponsor. [https://tinyurl.com/BUnconventional] BUnconventional, despite its not-ready-for-prime-time slot and local orientation, attracted guests of national stature. I immediately realized that the insights and advice they had to offer were relevant well outside the signal range of our host station, 710 KNUS-AM. While Apple’s iTunes began incorporating podcasts in June 2005, the medium was still in its infancy in June 2012 when I decided to record and repackage BUnconventional as a podcast. I chose the name Monday Morning Radio for two reasons. The first, obvious one is that it is posted first thing every Monday morning. The second is that from the start, Monday Morning Radio piggybacked on the wildly popular weekly blog, The Monday Morning Memo, whose author is the incomparable Roy H. Williams III. Roy, featured in Chapter Ten, is a creative genius — not a compliment I toss around lightly. Roy is the mind that has launched 1,000 (metaphorically speaking) small businesses into higher orbits than they could ever have dreamed of reaching. He first published The Monday Morning Memo in May 1994 as a faxed newsletter, sharing his observations on the world at large, trends, tastes, marketing, advertising, small business, and whatever else was on his mind. Thirty years on and more than 1,550 consecutive fresh editions later, the Memo reaches a vast global audience, and thanks to Roy, at the bottom of each of his essays is a plug for that week’s Monday Morning Radio. I have been a Roy Williams acolyte since his seminal book, The Wizard of Ads: Turning Words into Magic and Dreamers into Millionaires, arrived in 1998. I loved that book from the first time I picked it up and began buying bulk copies and sending them to colleagues, clients, and fellow journalists. When Roy and his wife, Pennie — a creative genius in her own right — launched the nonprofit Wizard Academy to teach business owners the type of marketing and operating strategies that they’d never learn in business school, I was in the school’s very first class.

It was my honor, years later, to become a Wizard Academy director and faculty member.

Foreword

The business owners and entrepreneurs who read The Monday Morning Memo, subscribe to Monday Morning Radio, and attend classes at Wizard Academy are a self-selecting special breed of iconoclasts. They prefer to write and follow their own playbook, eschewing conventional approaches to success. The Wizard Academy/Monday Morning Radio tribe understands that there is no getrich-quick trick to business. Success takes persistence, networking, coaching, the support of a loving life partner, an appreciation of history, and counterintuitive thinking — all themes you will encounter throughout this book. As Roy imparts, entrepreneurs need to focus on these questions: “What do you believe in? Are you willing to invest in that? Are you willing to commit yourself to that? Are you willing to fight to make that happen?” All You Can Eat Business Wisdom is an anthology of the best insights and recommendations from two dozen of our age’s most influential and forward-thinking business virtuosos. It is a rich buffet of practical advice and inspiration. Bon appétit.

ean Rotbart, an award-winning author and former financial columnist with The Wall Street Journal, is Monday Morning Radio’s founding host and executive producer. While at the Journal, he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism. He has won Gold Medals from the Nonfiction Authors Association for his 2021 book, September Twelfth: An American Comeback Story, and his 2023 book, Dedication and Service: 50 Years on Call with the Volunteers of Colorado’s Genesee Fire Rescue. Dean and his wife, Talya, also an author, live in Denver, Colorado.

Chapter One

Simple Truths But Profound Leadership Tools

Ken Blanchard and

Randy Conley

Success is Best Achieved When Managers Serve Workers, Inverting the Traditional Hierarchical Pyramid

FIVE ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS 1. Leaders should not consider themselves omniscient; they should lead collaboratively. Effective leaders realize that humility is not a weakness. It’s a strength. 2. Instill in every employee, regardless of their rank, the sense that they are owners, not just wage workers. 3. If caring for your employees and your customers comes first, then you’ll be profitable. If generating profits comes first, then your employees and your customers will resent you, and your bottom line will suffer. 4. Don’t berate employees for their mistakes. Approach their errors as learning opportunities. Leaders who take the heat for their employees foster trust and psychological safety, which leads to innovation, productivity, and higher morale. 5. Create a reserve of goodwill with employees before offering constructive criticism. 1

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With Great Service, Success is in the Bag In Ken Blanchard’s 2017 book, The Simple Truths of Service, co-authored with Barbara Glanz, he shares the true story of a grocery store bagger with Down syndrome. It has become legendary on the motivational speakers’ circuit. The bagger, who Blanchard and Glanz identified only as “Johnny,” took it upon himself to elevate the food store’s standard of hospitality. Before work daily, Johnny would write up quotes that he liked, many of which were original to him. His father then typed up the sayings and printed multiple copies. Johnny would cut out the phrases and, at work, leave one quote strip in the bag of each customer he assisted. Soon, the line of shoppers at Johnny’s checkout aisle far exceeded those customers at the other registers. People were willing to queue up to receive Johnny’s daily dose of wisdom. Inspired by Johnny’s thoughtfulness and popularity, other store employees began adopting their own spin on customer service. The store’s managers did not conceive of or require their clerks’ behaviors; they arose organically from each employee.

Customer Service Royalty Blanchard shot to prominence with his blockbuster 1982 book, The One Minute Manager, co-authored with Spencer Johnson. Since then, he is often called the “King of Customer Service.” In Blanchard’s two appearances on Monday Morning Radio, he stressed the importance of treating every customer and employee with the utmost respect. Rather than dictating from on high what employees must do and how they are required to behave, Blanchard says the secret of business success is giving every employee — even lowly grocery clerks — the sense that they are owners, not just wage workers. Blanchard points to Colleen Barrett as a shining example of how employees can thrive and significantly contribute to their employers when their supervisors avoid pigeonholing them — restricting personnel to narrow roles or expectations. Barrett began her career as the legal secretary to Herb Kelleher, who, at the time, was practicing law. Kelleher subsequently co-founded and led Southwest Airlines for two decades.

Barrett followed Kelleher to Southwest, which, under his leadership,

Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley

grew dramatically from a tiny Texas low-fare, no-frills airline serving Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio to the fourth-largest domestic carrier, offering more than 2,700 daily flights to 57 cities in 29 states. Southwest, whose logo is a tri-colored heart, adopted “love,” which it spelled LUV, as its brand identity, so much so that its New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol is LUV. The label reflects the company’s caring culture, customer service, and employee appreciation. Barrett took it upon herself to spread the love by fostering and guarding the airline’s service-centric culture. It worked. Twenty years after joining Southwest full-time in 1981, she succeeded Kelleher in his role as president of the company, becoming the highest-ranking woman in U.S. airline history. On Monday Morning Radio, Blanchard answered the question of why Kelleher turned to Barrett — who graduated from Becker College in Worcester, Massachusetts, with a two-year legal secretary degree — and not some Harvard-MBA-type manager. “[Herb] didn’t want some Jack Welch look-alike coming down there and changing the vision and the values,” Blanchard explained. “He wanted somebody who had a servant’s heart.” “Colleen Barrett has lived the leadership principles extolled by Ken Blanchard,” Kelleher wrote in the Foreword to Lead with LUV: A Different Way to Create Real Success, the 2010 book co-authored by Blanchard and Barrett. “She has ensured that no grief goes unattended; that no joy goes unshared; that each achievement is celebrated; and that those requiring help receive it.” In 2015, Barrett donated $1 million to her alma mater, the largest individual contribution to Becker College in the school’s 230-year-history.

Be an Eagle, Not a Duck In The Simple Truths of Service, Blanchard and Glanz don’t write much about the grocery store managers who had the foresight to see the potential in a Down syndrome applicant, hire Johnny, and then permit him the liberty to improvise his heightened customer service. But Blanchard is unequivocal that employee and customer care trickles down from the top — a process he labels “servant leadership.”

All You Can Eat Business Wisdom

“All that really means is reaching out to people in a caring way and seeing how you can encourage them,” he explains. “Praise them if they’re doing a good job. Redirect them if they’re having problems.” On the flip side, Blanchard says, are “self-serving leaders [who] want everybody sucking up to the hierarchy.” The result: enfeebled employees. Blanchard notes everyone has experienced interacting with robotic employees when trying to resolve a problem. “You’re used to talking to a duck. They go: ‘Quack, quack. It’s our policy. Quack, quack. I just work here. Quack, quack. I didn’t make the freaking rules. Quack, quack. You want to talk to my supervisor?” Don’t blame these “mallards,” Blanchard says. “Because if they take any risk, they get clobbered.” In contrast, Johnny the bagger, Colleen Barrett, and so many others like them who have the good fortune to work for servant leaders are “eagles” in Blanchard’s lexicon. They soar on the job. When a customer presents with an issue, these self-confident achievers take it upon themselves to address the problem. Blanchard likes to tell the story of a man who went shopping at Nordstrom for a gift for his wife. He was after a specific perfume, but the luxury department store didn’t carry it. However, the sales associate knew another store in the mall that did sell the perfume. What did this “eagle” do? She left her counter and took it upon herself to go to the other store and purchase the perfume. Then, she gift-wrapped the fragrance and charged the grateful husband only what she paid for the gift. “So Nordstrom didn’t make any money. But what did they make? They made a customer!” Blanchard affirms. “It all starts from the top,” he says, pointing out that the best-run small businesses are those where the owner is present, active, and service-minded.

Servant leadership inverts the hierarchical pyramid. Instead of employees trying to figure out what their bosses want, employers seek to ascertain what their workers need.

Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley

“Effective leadership is an inside job. It starts in your heart.”

Sit, Nero. Heel, Caesar. Randy Conley co-authored Simple Truths of Leadership with Blanchard and joined him on Monday Morning Radio in April 2022. Conley echoes what Blanchard teaches: “Servant leadership has proven time and time again to be a beneficial leadership model. It leads to organizations having higher profitability, higher employee engagement, and less turnover.” Conley acknowledges a key challenge in implementing a service-leadership model: So many business owners focus on increasing profitability in the near term that they lose sight of the long-term consequences of their myopia. The two co-authors sing from the same hymnal when it comes to the “simple truths” they espouse in their book and during speaking engagements. The principles of servant leadership, Conley says, are “common sense, but they’re just not common practice.” Blanchard has a theory for why servant-based leadership is often neglected, even by well-meaning, highly-educated executives. “I think when people become leaders, they often get scared, you know, ‘Am I going to do it right? Am I the right person?’ And they start focusing on themselves. When you start focusing on yourself, you don’t want to share your vulnerability, which is really sad.” The antidote, he believes, is to admit to subordinates that you don’t have the answers and to seek their advice. Instead of thinking that you are foolish for not knowing the answers, they’ll relish the opportunity to work with you as teammates. Moreover, they’ll realize that it’s all right if they don’t know all the answers, which will make for a much more collaborative workplace culture. That’s why, in Blanchard’s business courses, “we try to teach people about humility, to help with false pride and fear and self-doubt. Humility is not a weakness. It’s a strength.” The absence of these values has led to what Conley describes as “a crisis of trustworthy leaders” that has permeated the country since the 1960s. “I get asked all the time, ‘How can I be a servant leader when I work in a toxic culture?’ And I think you have to start at your own circle of influence. Who is it on your team that you can influence and practice these principles with?” To prove the value of servant leadership versus self-serving leadership,

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Blanchard references a quip by his colleague, Pastor John Ortberg. Let’s assume that 2,100 — 2,200 — years ago you were a gambler… Where would you bet your money on lasting? The Roman Empire and the Roman army or a little Jewish rabbi with twelve incompetent followers? This is interesting that 2,100 — 2,200 — years later we’re still naming kids Jesús, Peter, Paul, and Mary. And we name our dogs Nero and Caesar.

[AUTHOR’S NOTE: The February 12, 2024, episode of Monday Morning Radio featured Jane Boulware, a farm girl who used a combination of talent, grit, and ambition to become one of the ten highest-ranking women working for Microsoft Corp by the time she turned 40. She was miserable, thinking herself unworthy of her lofty position. Boulware worried: “If people realized I was just a pig farmer from Iowa, would they really follow me? I often felt like a fraud.” The fear of being discovered almost derailed her career. Only when Boulware came to the realization that it was okay not to have command of all her responsibilities and to seek help from those she supervised did the crisis pass. Here’s what she shared: I went back to what I learned as a kid growing up and gathered people around me who were better than me. I stopped pretending that I knew everything. I told myself it was okay not to know, and I realized that when I tried to be fearless, I felt like a fraud. I actually grew in my work. My trajectory went much greater than 90 degrees because I wasn’t trying to do it all. I started focusing on other people and what they were good at. I surrounded myself with people better than myself, and I wasn’t threatened by them. In the process of doing that I created an amazing team. And, you know, our results blew everybody else away. I’d find people who didn’t even know how good they were, and help them to be better than they thought they would be. We did things that people said couldn’t be done. Boulware’s entire interview is available at https://tinyurl.com/MMR021224]

A Short Checklist for Great Leadership Blanchard and Conley write that the words I Corinthians 13:4-7 uses to describe love can well be applied to leadership qualities:

Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. More than the religious and philosophical intangibles of making you a better person and employer, Blanchard’s advice has practical benefits. No matter how great a company’s product or service is, he asserts, the business won’t succeed in the long run without embracing servant leadership. Like a tall tree with a weak root system, a company that is managed as an oligarchy will lack the foundation for long-term survival.

The Buck Stops Here Inevitably, all business owners retire or die. Conley warns that companies will not long survive those who eschewed servant-leadership and instead adopted the perspective that “it’s been about them. They do the work, they’ve built their business.” These types of owners don’t function collaboratively, failing to train a next generation of company leaders who can succeed them. Conley observes: At some point, business owners have to ask themselves, ‘How can I multiply my influence? I can’t be everywhere. At the same time, if I want my business to grow, if I want it to thrive, I need to multiply myself. I need to create other leaders.’ … When you raise a whole crop of leaders that are effectively running your organization, that makes your job easier, more enjoyable, more effective” and, to the point, more sustainable. Conley continues, “Lead your team to success and then other people around are going to start looking and saying, ‘Wow, look at him (or her), look what he’s doing with his team. Why are they crushing it? What are they doing differently than other teams?’ And like the proverbial dropping a pebble in a pond and seeing the ripple effect, hopefully that creates a ripple that then starts to change the organization from the inside out.”

All You Can Eat Business Wisdom

Moreover, “people who feel good about themselves produce good results… When you understand that you are good enough that your self-worth is not predicated on the applause of others or the supposed success that you have or don’t have, then it frees you to produce good work.” Among the advice that Conley has for employers is to frame employee mistakes as learning opportunities. “When your leader is willing to take the heat for you that fosters trust, it fosters psychological safety, which leads to innovation, productivity, and higher morale.” Blanchard counsels that employers need to build a relationship with their employees before they can offer critical feedback. By having a reserve of goodwill, employees will be much less defensive and open to constructive remarks.

Beyond the Boardroom Concluding their book, Simple Truths of Leadership, Blanchard and Conley describe their approach to becoming effective leaders as having vital importance beyond the business world alone. The world is in desperate need of a new kind of leadership…. Clearly, what we’ve been doing isn’t working. We need a leadership philosophy grounded in the knowledge and belief that the most successful leaders and organizations are those that place an emphasis on serving others and leading with trust. Trusted servant leaders are the answer to today’s challenges. People are looking for deeper purpose and meaning as a way to meet the rapid changes happening in their lives. They are also looking for leaders they can trust and believe in — leaders whose focus is on serving the greater good.

en Blanchard seemed destined for the academia track.

From the fall of 1957, when he started his freshman year at Cornell University, until the spring of 1966, when he completed his Ph.D. there, Dr. Blanchard was continually in school.

He earned a bachelor’s in government and philosophy, a master’s in sociology and counseling, and a doctorate in education administration, leadership, and organizational behavior — all in short order. He was active in

Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley

campus life as part of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and basketball team. So it was hardly a surprise when his first job out of college was as an assistant professor at Ohio University’s business school; followed by a full professorship in education at the University of Massachusetts. It was a university position that took Dr. Blanchard to San Diego in 1976. But three years later — after more than two decades in the academic world — Dr. Blanchard and his wife, Margie, launched The Ken Blanchard Companies, an international training and consulting firm. Dr. Blanchard has authored, co-authored, or contributed to more than 65 books and has been recognized by Amazon as one of its all-time best-selling authors. The One Minute Manager, co-authored with Spencer Johnson, has sold more than 13 million copies. Dr. Blanchard was born in New Jersey and raised in New York. He and Margie have two adult children.

andy Conley is a recognized authority in the fields of trust and leadership. He is popular keynote speaker, presenter, and trainer.

Conley joined Blanchard’s consulting firm in August 1996, having recently graduated from San Diego Christian College’s business management program. He quickly became a crucial member of Blanchard’s team, rising through the ranks to become a vice president and a leading expert on servant leadership. Among the clients he has advised are Amgen, American Express, Burlington, Wells Fargo, American Honda, Pfizer, and the San Diego Padres. Inc. magazine named Conley one of the country’s top leadership thinkers and speakers. He authors the Leading with Trust blog and is the co-author of Blanchard’s Building Trust training program. He and his wife, Kim, live in San Diego and have two adult sons.

All You Can Eat Business Wisdom

Scan the QR Codes Below to Listen to Ken Blanchard’s Appearances on Monday Morning Radio

Why Make Being an Effective Leader So Complex When — DUH! — All It Takes is Common Sense?s Also available to stream or download from https://tinyurl.com/Blanchard-Conley

Ken Blanchard, Author of ‘The One Minute Manager’ Ministers the Simple Truths of Great Customer Service Also available to stream or download from https://tinyurl.com/Blanchard-Johnny

Ken Blanchard’s and Randy Conley’s Websites and Social Media Ken Blanchard: https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-Blanchard How We Lead: https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-HowWeLead LinkedIn: https://tinyurl.com/Blanchard-LinkedIn Twitter: https://tinyurl.com/Blanchard-Twitter Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/Blanchard-Facebook 10

Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley

Randy Conley: https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-Conley Leading with Trust: https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-LeadingWithTrust LinkedIn: https://tinyurl.com/Conley-LinkedIn Twitter: https://tinyurl.com/Conley-Twitter

A Partial List of Ken Blanchard’s Books Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2022. — co-authored with Randy Conley https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-STLeadership Simple Truths of Service: Inspired by Johnny the Bagger. Ignite Reads, 2018 — co-authored with Barbara Glanz https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-STService The New One Minute Manager. William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2015. — co-authored with Spencer Johnson https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-New1Minute Lead with LUV: A Different Way to Create Real Success. Pearson, 2010. — co-authored with Colleen Barrett https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-LeadWithLUV Lead Like Jesus: Lessons from the Greatest Leadership Role Model of All Time. Thomas Nelson, 2005 — co-authored with Phil Hodges https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-LeadLikeJesus The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2004 — co-authored with Mark Miller https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-TheSecret Gung Ho! Turn On the People in Any Organization. William Morrow and Company, 1998 — co-authored with Sheldon M. Bowles https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-GungHo Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service. William Morrow and Company, 1993 — co-authored with Sheldon M. Bowles https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-RavingFans

Chapter Two

The Amazing Benefits of Good Habits, Preparedness, the Right Business Culture, and Connection

Charles Duhigg

As Unpredictable as Human Behavior Seems, There is a Practical Science to It

FIVE ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS 1. Any bad habit, no matter how ingrained, can be replaced with a good one — at work or home — using well-established techniques. 2. Identify “keystone habits,” the small changes in regular routines that can have profound ripple effects. 3. Just as people have personality types, so do businesses. Fostering the right culture for your business is a necessary foundation of success. 4. Companies enjoy greater profits, longer survival rates, and more satisfied employees when they value everyone’s contributions, regardless of rank or responsibility. 5. The aim of the most significant conversations should be to learn how the people we’re speaking to see the world and to make clear our perspectives.

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Chapter Eighteen

Make Your Own Kind of Music

Dave Combs

Sometimes in Life and in Business, There is Little More to Go on Than Faith in Yourself and Your Destiny

FIVE ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS 1. When you encounter a large obstacle on the road to success, go around it, over it, or underneath it to reach the other side. 2. It’s easy to just want to put your feet up and relax after a long day. However, that may be when opportunity knocks the loudest. 3. It’s never too late to start in a new field and thrive. 4. Sometimes, success comes when you least expect it from sources you never considered. Don’t give up hope that you’ll make it as an entrepreneur. 5. Many of the most vexing puzzles are solved not with a thunderous revelation but with subtle insights that have been there all along, patiently awaiting your notice.

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Three Spinster Sisters About 50 miles southwest of the Greek city of Thessaloniki is Mount Olympus, the tallest peak in the country. According to legend, the Greek gods and goddesses lived there, including Zeus, king of the gods; Poseidon, god of the sea; Aphrodite, goddess of love; Athena, goddess of wisdom; and Apollo, god of the sun. Less well remembered are the goddesses Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. Yet, these three sisters wielded more power than even mighty Zeus. The trio, known as the Fates, were spinsters in both marital status and occupation. Clotho, the youngest, was responsible for spinning the thread of life; Lachesis, the middle sister, took charge of measuring its length; while Atropos, the eldest, wielded the shears to cut it. Symbolically, their tasks encompassed life’s journey: Clotho had the power to initiate life, determining the moment of birth. Lachesis held sway over the unfolding of life’s events, shaping destinies with her measurements. Atropos, with a decisive snip, determined the end of each life. Together, they served as guardians of the cosmic order and arbiters of mortal destinies. No person or god could escape the Fates; all were subject to the spinning of their threads. An ancient Greek might have attributed Dave Combs’s success as a musician and entrepreneur to Lachesis’s measuring rod. A gambler might credit Lady Luck. As a devout Christian, Combs attributes his remarkable entrepreneurial tale to Divine intervention. Whatever its origin, Combs’s true-life journey has all the makings of a modern-day myth.

Don’t Ask Where Inspiration Arises, Just Be Grateful Music has always been a part of Dave Combs’s life. He was raised in a small town in upper East Tennessee, where both of his parents and his paternal grandmother played the piano. Likewise, the black and white keys became his playmates from an early age. Combs, who speaks with a decidedly drawn-out southern accent, was living and working in Bethesda, Maryland when inspiration first struck. The year was 1981 — 19 and 81, as Combs enunciates it. Thirty-three years old, he had spent his career until that point in the telecommunications industry, a left-brain 186 field if there ever was one.

Dave Combs

One day, however, a tune came to him out of nowhere. He didn’t compose it, he insists, as much as receive it. I played it on my piano and didn’t even realize that I had written a song. Little did I know that that song would change my life forever. The arrangement was catchy, perhaps fairly described as hypnotic. “It’s a very simple melody with a very simple chord progression,” he explains. “It starts out in a major key, which most people would say is associated with a more happy, upbeat kind of a thought. But then, in the chorus, it goes to an F and then an F-minor chord, which kind of takes it to almost a sad tone. It’s filled with this rollercoaster of emotions.” Combs’s wife, Linda, was the first to fall under its spell. “She came home from work a couple of days later and said, ‘Dave, what’s the name of this tune that I have stuck in my head?’ — humming a little bit of it.” “It doesn’t have a name, Linda.” “Well, it’s something you play on the piano all the time.” “It’s just something I made up the other night. “Well, you have to write it down.” “No, no. I’ve got it in my head. I’m not going to forget it.” “Oh, no, you’re not going to leave it there because something might happen to you and that song would be gone. You better write it down.” So he penned the notes of the melody and the chords, and then deposited the sheet music in the piano bench.

A Christening Almost three years passed. Some good friends of the Combses gave birth to a baby girl, Rachel, and asked Dave and Linda to be their newborn’s godparents. As Combs relays the story: 187

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“Linda and I are sitting there in the church [at the christening in December 1983] and it’s just us and the family and the minister. Up at the front of the church, in the center of the platform, is a grand piano.” Toward the end of the formal service, Combs nudged Linda. Hey, what do you think about me playing this little tune now on the piano? It seems like an appropriate place to play it. She smiled and nodded her approval. I went up and asked permission from the minister and the family, and they said, ‘Sure.’ So everybody sat back down. I went over to the piano and played this little song. When I got most of the way through the song, I could hear sounds from the audience of people clearing their throats and sniffling. Everyone, including Combs, was teary. “I looked over at little Rachel in the arms of her mother and I said, ‘From now on, this song will be called ‘Rachel’s Song’ in her honor.’” After Linda, Rachel’s family were among the first to experience ‘Rachel’s Song.’ Soon enough, millions of people worldwide would be touched by it.

Twilight Resolve In 1986, as an information technology consultant with Western Electric/AT&T Network Systems, Combs commuted weekly from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to Nashville. His job was to advise factory managers on using computer systems to squeeze more efficiency out of their operations. “If I could help a factory operate more effectively, I felt a strong sense of satisfaction and purpose,” he wrote in Touched by the Music, his 2021 autobiography. It was Linda who suggested that since Combs was spending so much time in Nashville — Music City, USA — he should consider finding a studio to make a demo recording of “Rachel’s Song:” “Turn it over and let a professional record it and arrange it and see what it sounds like.”

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“I could have said, “You know, after working such long days, the last thing I want to do is drive around town looking for a recording studio. What I

Dave Combs

really want to do after a long day on the road is just put my feet up and relax,” Combs wrote in his book. “Fortunately, however, I stepped towards Linda’s idea and said, ‘What a great idea!’” One evening at day’s end, tired but determined, Combs randomly drove around downtown Nashville in search of a studio that might still be open for business at that hour. He concentrated on Music Square, an area rich in music businesses and lore. Out his windshield, he eyed the Country Music Hall of Fame, the historic RCA Victor Studios, BMI headquarters, and multiple recording facilities. The sole studio he found still open was the Music Mill, run by composer, songwriter, arranger, and session musician George Clinton. Clinton couldn’t have been friendlier, but he couldn’t help either. His fees were well outside Combs’s budget. But Clinton recommended a facility just across the street called Studio 803, run by a talented session musician, Gary Prim. Clinton’s fees were $125 an hour, plus an engineer, while Prim’s were a much more modest $15 an hour, plus engineer. Later that evening, as Combs recounts in Touched by the Music, he and Prim connected by telephone. “Well, I have written this simple instrumental piece called ‘Rachel’s Song,’ and I would like to get a good demo recording of it on piano. Is that something you could do for me? “‘Why sure!’ [Prim] said with genuine enthusiasm.” “You know how they say you can hear a smile in someone’s voice over the phone? Well, I heard Gary’s smile, and I instantly knew that I would really enjoy working with him.” In time, Combs and Prim would collaborate on 15 albums and more than 170 songs. “I write the songs in a very simple way, and I hand them to Gary, and he takes that creation and arranges it, and makes it sound a thousand times better than I could ever dream about,” Combs says modestly.

Turning a Pastime Into a Business Before “Rachel’s Song,” Combs had never composed music. Now, he wrote a few more musical pieces, and with Prim’s arrangements, produced an album. Like many would-be entrepreneurs, Combs’s gut, and feedback from fami-

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ly and friends told him people would want to buy his music. “The problem I had was I had no idea how to sell it,” he recalls. A radio station here and there agreed to play “Rachel’s Song” and the Combs-Prim tunes, but Combs couldn’t entice record stores to carry his cassette tapes. “Some of the folks that I did talk to about my music were almost insulting,” he recounts. Combs was convinced he had an excellent product, which encouraged him to keep knocking on doors. “Any entrepreneur will have to have a very, sometimes, exaggerated belief in their own product or what they’re creating,” Combs observes. He needed that belief in his cassette tape to persevere. Combs was no George Strait or Randy Tavis, who could command premium real estate in music stores nationwide. “Rachel’s Song” — unlike Strait’s “Famous Last Words of a Fool” and Travis’s “Deeper Than the Holler” — was instrumental, soft, soothing, and relaxing music from an unknown artist. “Store owners were only concerned about the performer and the promotion and the publicity around it,” Combs recalls. He found himself facing a mountain that he couldn’t seem to scale. In English, a preposition is a connector, typically describing the relationship between a noun and the word or words preceding it. Teachers commonly use this mnemonic device to help their students remember what prepositions are: “A preposition is anywhere a cat can go. A cat can go above something, or through something, or near something, or below something.” Combs must have learned his grammar well. Unable to win over the big music stores, he chose to go around them. “When you have an obstacle and you can’t go over it, you go around it or through it or under it or you find a way to get on the other side of that obstacle,” he recites. And so he did.

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Dave Combs

Telegraphing Success Throughout his book and interview on Monday Morning Radio, Combs credits heavenly mediation for many of the serendipitous occurrences that led to his success. Most accomplished entrepreneurs — religious and atheist alike — acknowledge that being in the right place at the right time or having a chance encounter with a pivotal stranger was foundational to their accomplishments. While music stores shut out Combs and his album, Leslie, a coworker whose desk sat directly behind his, asked a fortuitous question one day, as he recounts in Touched by the Music. “Hey, Dave,” she said. “I was thinking. A friend of mine owns a gift shop called America in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. Do you think it would be okay if I gave her a CD of ‘Rachel’s Song’? I think she’d love it.” The shopkeeper, Jane, did and repeatedly played it overhead in her store. Responding to her customers’ requests, she pressed him to provide her CDs and cassettes of his album so she could sell them. Combs did, and his music quickly sold out. He restocked her store, and again, the cassettes and CDs were gone in a flash. “Nearly every customer in my shop that hears your music wants to take it home,” Jane told Combs, as he recounts in his book. His left brain began to noodle the possibilities. My thoughts quickly returned to the concept of compound interest and duplication. Let’s see, if I make X dollars with one gift shop, the music could earn 5X dollars if I had five gift shops. And what if I had just one gift shop in each state? Well, that would be 50X dollars! How about five in each state? 250X dollars! Looking at how much income was being generated from just this one shop, I realized, now we’re talkin’ some real income to support my music endeavors. At the time, few artists — Combs thinks fewer than five nationally — had tried a similar marketing strategy. He became a pioneer in the play-and-sell market, in which a retail outlet plays music in the background, and its customers seek to purchase the recordings. Combs never relied on any other form of advertising. It took six years, but Combs found himself averaging 20 gift shops in each state — a network of more than 1,000 stores. Approaching his mid-40s, Combs faced a choice: stay in the career to

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which he had dedicated 22-plus years of his life or forge a new, entrepreneurial path in the music industry. [Such inflection points are becoming much more common, Joanne Lipman noted during her June 2023 appearance on Monday Morning Radio. She is the author of Next! The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work (https://tinyurl.com/AYCEBW-Next). See Chapter 13.] By this point, Combs’s postal carrier was developing chronic back pain, hefting all the fan letters arriving at his home. (When Combs was interviewed in 2023, the number of supportive correspondences he’d received had risen to more than 50,000.) Over the years, Combs has tried to understand why his original tune has enraptured so many people, including an enthusiastic 25,000-person St. Louis audience that heard him perform live. “The piano is such a beautiful, simple instrument that can reach down into your soul in ways that other instruments don’t seem to be able to,” he reflects. “‘Rachel’s Song’ is a very simple melody with a very simple chord progression. It has no words. But I have had folks write to me and tell me that they come up with their own lyrics to the song as they listen to it.” One letter, in particular, struck a chord with Combs. At the end of 1991 (“19 and 91” in Combs’s retelling), he received a letter from a gentleman who insisted, “Writing music is what God put you on this planet to do.” Combs remembers he was contemplating that letter in church the following Sunday when the thought struck him: Good Lord, you must think I am the densest Christian on the planet. Here I’ve had thousands of people write me letters, and one even wrote and told me what you wanted me to hear. And I’ve been waiting for the lightning to strike and the thunder to roll and all the big things. And I said, ‘You’ve already told me what I need to do.’ So after that church service that Monday, I went and met with Bill, my boss, and said, “Okay, I gotta do what I gotta do.”

ave Combs is a songwriter, music distributor, author, photographer, and publisher.

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His Combs Music is an independent record company. It has established a business relationship with Separk Music Company, which operates a brick-and-mortar facility on the outskirts of Winston-Salem, North Caro-

Dave Combs

lina, and provides Combs with day-to-day customer service and fulfillment. As a draw, and because Combs believes “Rachel’s Song” can soothe, inspire, and touch the hearts of so many people, he posts the three-minute-and-fifty-one-second song to stream or download for free from the Combs Music website: https://tinyurl.com/ AYCEBW-Combs. Combs’s autobiography, whose full title is Touched by the Music: How the Story and Music of “Rachel’s Song” Can Change Your Life, includes a Foreword by Jack Canfield, co-author of the mega-bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Canfield writes: One of the things that is beautiful about this book, in addition to his song and the music he has created, is that it really is a primer on what to do if you want to get something out into the world. It’s about trusting your intuition, taking action, not giving up, being persistent and consistent—all principles I talk about all the time. Combs dedicates his book to his wife, Linda Morrison Combs, for her inspiration, patience, advice, and love. Dave and Linda, an Ed.D., outside of the music world were best known as a Washington power couple. From 2005 to 2007, she was the Controller of the United States, responsible for establishing financial management policies and requirements for the Executive branch of the Federal government, totaling $2.7 trillion in revenue. She served under three presidents, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Dave rose through the technology world, eventually becoming the head of IT for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. When they neared retirement, Dave and Linda left the District of Columbia for quieter pastures in her native North Carolina. There, she worked as the state’s controller, and they both served on the board of the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, which works to preserve the beauty of America’s longest linear park. Linda had a catastrophic brain aneurysm on the morning of October 19, 2023, and passed away early the next morning. She was 77 years old. Linda and Dave had been married for close to 54 years. At her funeral, he played “Rachel’s Song.”

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About The Author

axwell Rotbart is co-host and associate producer of Monday Morning Radio, the podcast started by his father, Dean Rotbart, in June 2012.

Maxwell joined Monday Morning Radio full-time in 2023 after spending a decade as a middle-and high-school history teacher. He brings to the podcast and All You Can Eat Business Wisdom a deep desire to educate business owners and entrepreneurs on techniques they can use to achieve greater professional success and personal fulfillment. Maxwell peppers his writing and interviews with relevant historical anecdotes that provide context for today’s challenges. He is completing his master’s degree in history from the University of Nebraska. A fifth-generation Coloradan, he attended high school in Los Angeles and now lives in Denver. Despite the pain, he is a fan of the Colorado Rockies. All You Can Eat Business Wisdom is Maxwell’s first book written for adults.

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Be Our Guest

Monday Morning Radio always welcomes innovative business owners, entrepreneurs, and business experts who can bring fresh, actionable insights to our global audience. Likewise, if you are interested in being featured in Volume Two of All You Can Eat Business Wisdom, please let us know. We invite your application at https://tinyurl.com/MMR-Guests. Left to Right: Row One — Chris Kane, Evan Hafer, Frank Armbruster, Helen Yu, Ruben Gonzalez, Randall Lane Row Two — Radhika Dutt, Raj Venkatesan, Jeff Sexton, Minal Bopaiah, Melissa Joseph, Sarah Cooper Row Three — Gary Hoover, Anton Suddia, David Hailey, Julie Winkle Giulioni, Daniel Burrus, Alfred Edmond, Jr. Row Four — Bill Fox, Hanah Polotsky, Gregory Zuckerman, Vicky Brown, Gary Weiss, Gino Wickman Row Five — Jane Boulware, Joseph Fung, Carina Ramirez Cahan, Jake Williams, Ryan Erickson, Lynette M. Smith Row Six — Nick Loper, Christopher Kolenda, Lori Poland, Robin Landa, Clay Safford, Gene Sticco

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Also From TJFR Press Winners of the Nonfiction Authors Association Gold Medal

A thrilling and inspiring tale of journalistic dedication — Kirkus Reviews

On September 11, 2001, The Wall Street Journal’s main newsroom — located just across the street from the World Trade Center — was severely damaged by falling debris and flaming smoke. This is the true story of how the traumatized men and women of the Journal and Dow Jones overcame their personal anguish and confusion and rallied to publish a Pulitzer Prize-winning edition on September 12th.

Dedication and Service masterfully tells the story of Genesee Fire Rescue, a remarkable volunteer company located in the foothills west of Denver. The book is an inspiring testament to the enduring spirit of American volunteerism, a beacon that continues to shine in towns and cities nationwide, often with little fanfare.

Available from Gutenberg’s Store https://tinyurl.com/gutenbergs

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Monday, Monday So good to me Monday mornin’, it was all I hoped it would be — John Phillips, The Mamas & the Papas (1966)

Listen and Subscribe To subscribe to Monday Morning Radio, visit our website at https://tinyurl.com/ MondayMorningRadio and enter your email address on the form in the right-hand column on our homepage, or find us on one of your favorite podcast platforms.

Apple Music: https://tinyurl.com/MMR-AppleMusic Amazon/Audible: https://tinyurl.com/MMR-Audible iHeart: https://tinyurl.com/MMR-iHeart Complete Archive of Monday Morning Radio Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/MMR-Archive

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Praise for Monday Morning Radio Dean and Maxwell offer an important addition to the podcast universe. They ask the tough questions backed by a deep understanding of business. — Alan Murray, CEO, Fortune I highly recommend Monday Morning Radio to small business owners, entrepreneurs, and anyone with a curious mind who appreciates actionable insights. Hosts Dean and Maxwell Rotbart ask questions that are insightful, in-depth, and well-researched. — Jane Boulware, author and former corporate vice president, Microsoft

FEAST ON SUCCESS: Unlock the Secrets of Business Mastery with All You Can Eat Business Wisdom With nearly one million downloads since its inception, the weekly Monday Morning Radio podcast has featured an unparalleled array of business owners, entrepreneurs, and experts who share their experiences and insights. Dean Rotbart, an award-winning author and former financial columnist with The Wall Street Journal, is the podcast’s founding host and executive producer. In 2023, Maxwell Rotbart, Dean’s son and the author of this volume, joined as co-host and associate producer. Maxwell reviewed nearly 600 episodes of Monday Morning Radio to select the guests featured in this anthology.

Chapters Include: • • • • • • • • •

Ken Blanchard: Simple Truths But Profound Leadership Tools Charles Duhigg: The Amazing Benefits of Good Habits Michelle D. Gladieux: The Key Determinant of Happiness and Reputation Mike Kaeding: Utilize Proven Strategies Adapted From Other Business Sectors Joanne Lipman: Closing the Gender Gap at Work and Reinventing Your Career Blaine Oelkers: Your Mind is Your Most Potent Business Tool Stephen Semple: Unconventional Marketing to Build Your Business Empire Roy H. Williams: How to Turn Words into Magic and Dreamers Into Millionaires Tom Ziglar: The Steps That Lead to a Successful Life

All You Can Eat Business Wisdom is a rich buffet of practical advice. Readers will want to fill their plates and return for seconds. About the Author: Maxwell Rotbart is an educator and historian.