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GENIUS

Intensify Your Intelligence for Accelerated Success

The especial genius of women I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency.

MARGARET FULLER

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Genius is not fixed, but elastic.

VICKIE L. MILAZZO

Study after study shows that, overall, men and women are equally intelligent, despite men having 4 percent more brain cells, about 100 grams more brain tissue and an annoying ability to memorize the most inane sports statistics while forgetting their anniversaries.

Interestingly though, women's grade point averages in college are generally higher than men's, no matter what field they study. Women have outstripped men in completing college and obtaining graduate-level degrees, and the lead is widening.

Although equally intelligent, men and women possess different kinds of intelligence. Women have smaller, more compact brains with 10 times more white matter, which tends to improve the integration and assimilation of information. Men have six times more gray matter, which makes them more adept at spatial tasks and thus enhances their map-reading and directional skills. (Could that be why they never ask for directions?)

Women typically develop better language-related skills. During childhood, girls' vocabularies develop faster than those of boys; and by the time they're adults, women speak 20,000 to 25,000 words a day, compared to a man's 7,000 to 10,000.

Women use their holistic intelligence to accumulate knowledge in a variety of areas and to synthesize that material. In the “total immersion” process of learning, women take it in all at once, through their eyes, ears and intuitive senses.

What does all this mean? It means that despite historical data citing more male “geniuses,” women can do anything intellectually that men can do. We simply do it differently.

COLLABORATION IS COLLECTIVE GENIUS

The secret to a woman's genius is collaboration. Instead of solving problems in isolation, we evolved to connect and collaborate. The success that comes from this process provides sanity, support and genius solutions.

Tom and I went fishing in the Colorado backcountry with a group of CEOs and their spouses. I was one of only two women CEOs in the bunch. One evening we played a game, the men against the women. From opposite sides of a blazing campfire, each team asked the other trivia questions about the opposite gender. The men might ask, “Who's Earl Anthony?” The women, “What's GWP?”

The two teams used completely different approaches. The women huddled and collaborated on the answers as well as the questions. “Tom's going to know that GWP means ‘gift with purchase,' I whispered. “Every time I buy cosmetics I show him my gift and brag, ‘I got my GWP!'”

The other women chimed in, and together we strategically decided which questions to ask. In contrast, the men studied their list of questions individually. When a man's turn came, he asked the question he perceived to be hardest. No collaboration, and total astonishment when the women got the answer right.

One question was about weight lifting. As soon as a man asked it, Tom exclaimed, “Arghhh!” He knew I'd know that answer, but since the guys didn't collaborate, Tom's information was useless. The men also popped off their answers without collaborating.

A team of highly successful CEOs against mostly homemakers—wouldn't you expect the men to have the intellectual edge? The men lost miserably because they failed to collaborate. They were so surprised, they demanded a rematch, which we promptly won too.

In my office, the women collaborate naturally. They're in the hallway, in each others' offices, at each others' desks. The ideas are always sparking. In a man's world, collaboration may be viewed as a weakness. Have you ever noticed how determinedly men resist asking for directions, and how many miles out of the way you travel because of that resistance?

Collaboration must be done in concert to be effective. When we route a “live” project from one desk to another, each of us thinks about it on a level that reflects our own knowledge, viewpoints and experiences. It's only when we come together and engage in conversation that we raise new questions and think of possibilities at a collective level we would not have considered on our own.

The rise in the use of wikis and other collaborative software indicate the rapid acceptance of this need to share knowledge, ideas and energies. Office technology has advanced to provide a platform for sharing, reviewing, editing and completely rethinking documents or graphics. Documents that once routed in brown office envelopes from desk to desk for sign-off can be accessed by workers anywhere there's a computer. As our workforce has gone global, software has permeated the vacuum created by our inability to meet in person simultaneously.

Collaboration is not just connecting with people. It's also an attitude of helpfulness. The anonymity of the Internet is fostering a very rude world. Wickedly successful women get it that playing nice is a sign of strength.

Even if someone else in your collaboration doesn't take the high road, take it anyway. Being nice always pays off, and in no way implies that you are weak or have to kowtow to someone else's whims. One of my favorite greeting cards pictures a charming little girl in boots. She's smiling sweetly, but the sentiment reads, “Your boots may be made for walking but mine are made for kicking your ass.” That pretty much sums up my attitude about competitors, yet I'm always professional, even when they're not.

While I ultimately make my own decisions, collaboration is one of the secrets to the wicked success of my company. Inside every woman is a natural collaborator. That's a wicked advantage we have as women, an intellectual edge we can leverage for using our genius at the highest possible level.

LEVERAGE PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY WICKEDLY SUCCESSFUL

Leveraging other people's talents and connections is collaborative genius. I've worked with women who say, “I want to do this all on my own. I don't want my husband's, colleagues' or friends' help.”

My response: “What! Are you crazy? Ride the horse of anybody who has what you need.” None of us arrived where we are completely on our own. That's impossible.

Look around and you'll be surprised by the talent that's already available to you. Evie sums up my attitude about leveraging skills and brain matter in our company:

Even when I worked solo from home, I leveraged other people's knowledge and talents to accelerate my success. I hired a part-time bookkeeper, seven of my typist's children as assistants and other nurses as subcontractors. I woke every day asking, “What can someone else help me with today? How can I leverage the strengths of others to build this business?” Through leveraging others I grossed $1 million before leaving my home office and staffing up for real.

Whether you own a business, manage others or just manage your own day, leveraging the talents of others is just plain smart.

Push Past Success Apartheid

Just as you become a better tennis player by playing with those who are better than you, so too will you become better at your career or any endeavor by interacting with people who are already wickedly successful in that area. But here's the rub: Successful people like to hang out with other successful people, so sometimes you may feel like you're on the outside looking into this private club of “The Wickedly Successful.”

In one association I belong to, the majority of the members pull in five-figure incomes. At the other end are a small number of members who pull in the six-figure and seven-figure salaries only dreamed of by the others.

When it comes to socializing and collaborating, the specter of success apartheid raises its ugly head, as the larger group is excluded by the smaller. At the end of the day, if you can't help the ones at the top, they probably aren't looking to help you.

As a mentor to other women, and a natural collaborator, I find this distressing. Likewise, it's helpful to remember that getting into the club requires that you too have something to contribute. Successful people owe you nothing. When they give of themselves, consider it a gift. I've had people angry with me or worse, publicly trash me, because I won't give them my time or a slice of my pie for free. Time is a precious commodity, and wickedly successful women understand they're responsible for their own success.

Don't Chalk Up Failures to Experience

None of us likes the “F”-word (failure), yet mistakes are an inevitable part of success. While we do need to free ourselves to fail, not all mistakes are created equal. Running out of catalogs because your new ad doubled the usual response rate could be classified as an intelligent mistake, and a nice problem to have. Having the wrong phone number on a catalog because you didn't proof it before printing cannot be categorized as anything but negligence. By leveraging the knowledge of others, you're likely to make fewer mistakes, or at least to make more intelligent ones.

I mentored a woman who violated the principles I had taught her about getting a contract and retainer before starting a project with new clients. After completing the project, she had difficulty getting paid. When she contacted me for mentoring, I asked her to describe her plan for solving this issue.

“I guess I'll just write it off and chalk this one up to experience,” she responded. That was exactly the wrong thing to say to me. I was all over that like a goose on a bug.

“No, you don't chalk up an obviously preventable error to experience. The time you want to write off you will never get back, and would have been better spent solidifying your relationship with clients, marketing to grow your business and working on more projects. Lost time is lost money. Sometimes you have to chalk up a mistake to experience, but this is not one of those times. Why? Because you didn't make a mistake. You consciously chose to do something you knew you should not do. With that conscious decision comes an obvious price.”

I am all for making mistakes. I make them every day. After all, people who never make a mistake never make anything. But I am not into making just any mistake—especially not mistakes that are obvious and avoidable. Instead, I aim for making intelligent ones. Making a bad choice and expecting a different outcome isn't a learning experience, it's insanity.

I teach that when you do X, you will get Y result. I take the Xs very seriously. If you choose to do Z, do not expect to get Y, and don't be surprised by the resulting pain from Z. Only chalk up to experience that which grows you.

NOW THAT YOU'VE GOT THE ADVICE, BE GENIUS AND HEED IT

I love to mentor entrepreneurs. I think it's in my DNA, and I like knowing that the advice I'm giving doesn't come from a textbook. I've lived it for 29 years, and I pride myself on the fact that my advice is real and grounded—there's no fluff. Of all the mentors at my company, I'm probably the toughest. I've always lived a buck-up lifestyle and don't like it when people make excuses for why they can't do what they know they have to do to succeed.

I'm also never afraid to say I don't know, or that I have to research a question (a skill I learned from working with attorneys). But my advice is only as good as the recipient's willingness to do something with it.

Here are the stories of two different entrepreneurs and their very different reactions to my mentoring. The first has been in business for 10 years. This entrepreneur asked me to critique an audio recording promo he'd created. When I communicated my input, I started by saying that I wasn't sure if he wanted to re-record the promo, but that my feedback would require him to do so. His response was, “Absolutely, I'll do it!” and he did.

The other is a student with zero years of entrepreneurial experience. She has bombarded me and other company mentors with question after question, all without putting any of it into practice. With every piece of advice offered, she instantly jumps in to say why the advice is wrong for her and won't work.

If I can borrow and paraphrase Danny DeVito's line from the movie, War of the Roses, “When someone who gets paid $400 an hour wants to give you free advice, you should listen.” When you've asked advice from an expert, whether you're paying for it or not, be ready to listen. It doesn't mean you should blindly follow it. I've gotten advice from high-powered business experts that was clearly wrong for me, but I at least considered it before rejecting it outright.

When an expert's advice isn't right for you, you don't have to heed it, but at least first receive the advice with openness and curiosity. If the advice is from a credible expert, ask yourself why you're resisting it. Is it because the advice is not a right fit for you? Or are you rejecting it because it will require you to stretch yourself or do something inconvenient or outside the comfort zone you've built around yourself?

People who covet what someone else has worked hard to achieve, whether it's losing weight, composing an award-winning song or making a six-figure income, often hesitate to analyze what it took to achieve those results, because the answer often involves hard work and discipline.

A common question people ask me is, “Vickie, where do you get the energy to manage your company, speak, exercise and write books too?” It's true that I'm a high-energy person. I start at 4:00 a.m. and go strong all day long. But I don't magically wake up every morning in overdrive. There's a discipline to achieving that energy level—exercise, weight control, a good night's sleep, eating the right foods, a glass of healthy red wine. It takes the whole routine.

Yet when I tell people about that simple discipline I can see their eyes glaze over. They expect a magic potion, a quick fix, like pulling out your lipstick for a touch-up. They've learned my secret, but instead of applying what they've learned, they often look for an easier route. You don't have to get up at 4:00 a.m. to be wickedly successful, but you do have to get up. Take my advice on this one, and I won't even charge you the $400.

GENIUS HEARS OTHER VOICES

While I don't need to take a majority vote on every issue, I've learned that I care more about being successful than being right. That requires listening, collaborating and even seeking opposing viewpoints. My staff is strong, opinionated and sometimes even mouthy—just the way I like them.

We naturally navigate toward people who agree with us. But the person who disagrees will force you to think at a higher level. Consensus almost always leads to weakened decisions. Some of our best ideas are spawned from discussing an opposing viewpoint. Surround yourself with people who challenge you. And reward their outspokenness by listening, even when you decide not to heed their advice. These other voices might be hard to hear when their suggestions lead to more work or more expense, but it's worth it.

We call one extraordinary woman in our company the “other voice.” When the rest of us are hot on an idea, she presents alternative ways of thinking. Without being negative, she challenges our paradigms.

Recently, I sat down with our conference team to discuss the curriculum, expecting the discussion to go quickly. We'd forgotten our other voice. She didn't like one of the decisions we made. Her dissenting opinion at first made us moan with the realization that her suggestions meant more work; but after the groaning died down, we revisited our decision, adopted her ideas, made the change and arrived at a much better result.

When we shortchange collaboration and the dissenting viewpoints that come with it, we're missing an important piece of the performance process. Diverse opinions spark new thoughts and atypical directions, and one plus one suddenly equals a lot more than two. You arrive at a place no individual would have reached alone, and your project rockets to a new level. Even when I disagree with a collaborator's viewpoint, I try to extract something of value from it.

Actively seek out individuals with opposing viewpoints. Do you typically hang with your best friends who never disagree with you on how you handled a situation with your boss? Do you eat lunch with the same person every day or sit next to the same person in every meeting? Do you only hang with people your age? I recommend doing the opposite—get with people who have the potential to challenge you.

Stop Sucking Up

If you can't express opposing viewpoints without fear of recrimination or retaliation, or you work for someone who doesn't care about your ideas, it may be the wrong job for you.

But when we hire new employees, I sometimes notice they're reluctant at first to give opinions that are different from the majority of the outspoken staffers. Not only are they slow to speak up, when they do it's obvious they're just tagging onto the others' opinions. It's like the new hires are afraid to get off the fence and jump down on either side until they know what side everybody else is on. Here in Texas, if you're sitting on a fence in a pasture full of longhorn cattle, that may be a good idea. But when you're in my conference room, it's not a tactic for success with me or my staff.

If you don't buck up and speak up, you'll get zero credit for your contribution. If I or your boss wanted a parrot, we would have hired one. Instead, we hired you for your expertise. We want to hear your opinion—whether we agree with it or not.

Successful businessowners don't want to be surrounded by yes-people. They're used to thinking for themselves, and they expect the same of you. They don't need you to suck up; they need you to buck up and intelligently articulate your thoughts and opinions.

CHALLENGE THE EXPERTS

There are experts all around us, and it could be those very experts holding you back. This is why you don't want to limit your collective genius to just the acclaimed authorities. They're often wrong.

What happened when the nutrition experts convinced an entire nation that a high-carbohydrate diet (including processed carbs) was healthy? Increased obesity and alarming rates of diabetes, in not just adults, but also our children.

My success, like that of many entrepreneurs, is built on challenging the experts—not relying on them. Our founding fathers weren't experts at governing for freedom. Many of our best inventors weren't experts. America was built by a handful of amateurs, and many of our greatest achievements came from the “genius” of tinkerers and inventors constantly poking, prodding, testing, then discarding what didn't work, until they hit the magic formula.

To be wickedly successful we often have to act contrary to what the experts advise. When I pioneered the field of legal nurse consulting I was challenging the experts. The whole concept was contrary to what attorneys accepted as an industry standard. Typically, they relied on doctors to try to make sense of medical records, yet it's widely known that most doctors don't read the medical records. So how could attorneys possibly be getting what they really needed? Not to mention the fact that physicians were charging way too much for their time and weren't always giving the attorneys objective opinions, because they are often too protective of each other.

I had to go against the experts and educate attorneys that the registered nurse is the only healthcare provider who knows everything that's going on with the patient. We were the ones with hands-on information, with 24/7, face-to-face contact with patients; and, most important, we're the only healthcare providers who ever read the entire medical record. RNs not only have the expertise to uncover vital facts and key pieces of information that can make or break an attorney's case, they're cost-effective, too.

When James Cameron created the movie Avatar, he did everything contrary to the experts. The conventional wisdom Hollywood experts clung to warned that audiences “won't go see an intelligent movie,” that they only want gross-out, teen-oriented comedies or star-driven vehicles. Cameron ignored the experts. He penned, directed and produced a movie that required a viewer's full attention, because he put its leading characters into unrecognizable avatars.

The experts say the attention span of audiences caps out at 90 minutes, that moviegoers won't sit for a film running 162 minutes. Cameron ignored that expert advice and cut the movie he wanted audiences to see. Again, the experts were wrong—to the tune of more than $2.7 billion worldwide!

Experts also believed that audiences weren't ready for full-length 3D movies other than children's animated films or the occasional IMAX spectacle. Cameron ventured out on a limb and filmed his movie in 3D anyway. This turned out to be the viewing method of choice for Avatar audiences. And since the release of Avatar, 3D is breeding in the movie industry.

Contrary to what most people believe, it doesn't take an Einstein to spawn brilliant ideas. The reality is that there are very few Einsteins out there and a lot more ordinary people like you and me. We all wake up with ideas; some are brilliant, some are ordinary and some are just plain dumb. But even an ordinary idea can pay off huge.

In my company, I encourage everyone, expert or not, to speak up when they have a new idea and to verbalize their objections when they think something isn't working. Sometimes the person who knows the least about the subject asks a question that helps us make the biggest breakthroughs. In fact, I always know we're onto a truly innovative idea when one of the experts offers up his or her good, old-fashioned, safe, conservative advice and says, “You can't do that, because …”

I frequently gather our staff around our big conference table for a focused, all-day brainstorming session. These sessions have contributed tremendously to our wicked success.

I've shared this strategy with CEOs who say, “I can't afford to shut down my business for the day and sit in a room with $15/hour nonexperts.” My response: “I can't afford not to, knowing how many genius ideas I get for launching new services, products and better service for our clients.”

How many multimillion-dollar ideas are stuck in the mailroom? Brilliant ideas are generated by the most unlikely individuals—and you'll never know if you don't ask. Ethically “embezzling” my employees' ideas for 29 years makes me look like a genius.

To advance your career or business, listen to nonexperts as well as the acclaimed authorities. If not for renegade visionaries who followed their own minds despite the advice of experts, a lot of wonderful things we take for granted today wouldn't exist, because the experts said no one needed them or nobody would buy them.

What expert have you challenged lately? What nonexpert have you listened to? Embrace this renegade strategy, and no one can stop you on the fast lane to wicked success.

REMOVE YOUR OWN BURRS

During a trip to Africa I went hiking with Colin Francombe on his Kenyan game sanctuary, Ol Malo. The trail varied between rock and brush. Colin's dog Uzuri came with us, sometimes running ahead, other times following behind. Well into the hike we encountered a section of trail infested with burrs. Soon Uzuri limped up next to me on three legs, obviously having picked up a burr, and I stooped to help.

When I asked Colin the best way to remove a burr, he replied, “Oh, I don't do that. I let her sort it out. Otherwise, I'd spend all my time picking burrs off her.” I put her paw down and, sure enough, moments later she ran alongside us again on all fours, the burr gone and forgotten.

As we hiked, I considered Colin's attitude. He lives in a brutal country where self-reliance is a necessity, not a luxury. African people and animals must be strong and independent or they'd never survive in the hostile African bush. My sympathy for Uzuri almost caused me to intervene, to her detriment. If I'd helped her, I would have made a friend. Instead, Colin encouraged her independence. The next time she picks up a burr, she'll handle it like a pro. She won't limp back to the main house looking for Colin or me.

This bush survival principle also applies in our world. When we find our own solutions, we grow stronger. Excessive reliance on others for our success weakens us. Soon we shy away from challenges we once might have conquered with relish and ease.

Consulting mentors, leveraging the talents of others, and listening to other voices won't protect you from every burr, or help you every time you get one. Intelligent women know when to ask for help in removing burrs too big or thorny to manage alone and when to enjoy the sweet victory that comes from their own efforts. Toughen your intelligence by removing your own burrs.

TRUST YOUR OWN VOICE

We all have an inner teacher (our own voice) ready to show us the way, as long as we're willing to be a student of our own intelligence. In yoga class the teacher is essential, but the reflection in the mirror is the best teacher of all.

Are you a reflection of your own ideas, or someone else's? Doing what others tell us to do is often a way to avoid accountability. Even though I highly appreciate brainstorming sessions and use them extensively in my company, I don't always go with the crowd. My staff teases that we're not a democracy; we're a semibenevolent dictatorship. I laugh, because I'm fine with that.

In a meeting, when I've gone against the crowd and made a decision contrary to their collective advice, somebody will invariably pipe up and say “It's unanimous!” and we all have a good laugh. It's not that I don't listen to the crowd, but the crowd isn't always right. Neither am I, but at the end of the day, the decision, responsibility and the name on the company are mine, and it has to feel right to me.

Always trusting the groupthink is herd mentality. Blending into the herd is not a strategy for wicked success. It's only a strategy for staying alive if you're a zebra or wildebeest. Agreeing with the majority doesn't make you right; it just means you hang out with a lot of people of like mind. They might be so busy agreeing with one another that they miss the errors in their thinking. In a world jam-packed with information, ideas, options and opinions, you have to be willing to assess, decide and trust your own voice.

As I mentioned, a related industry association formed after I pioneered the industry of legal nurse consulting. And the strangest thing happened: I started getting negative messages from them—”Vickie, you're saturating our market.” “Vickie, you can't do seminars in our city.” “Vickie, you can't do this; you shouldn't do that.” My reaction was, “I'll do it my way, thank you very much.”

When I offered to help them develop a set of standards, they said, “We don't need standards.” Later, I noticed they had adopted my published standards as their own.

When our industry further matured, I offered to help the association create a certification. They again said, “No, we don't need that. We're not ready for that.”

I didn't agree. And after what had happened when I offered to help them develop standards, I knew that sooner or later they would take my idea, probably use my curriculum and develop the certification without me, since I wasn't a member of their herd.

I decided to create the certification I knew our nursing specialty needed. Today our association thrives, while theirs continues to shrink in membership. Their limited and often negative mind-sets drive away prospective members. We advocate freethinkers while they foster an atmosphere of groupthink rigidity.

Wanting too much to be accepted as a group member or striving to please others can detract from thinking for yourself. Audaciously successful people often stand contrary to what the world believes is right, and they don't care if their ideas upset people. Of course your goal is not to upset, but to express your opinions uncensored, in your truest voice.

Be willing to stir things up, stand out and maybe tick off a few people. Let other women “go along” and have their middle-of-the-road successes. Just don't let one of those other women be you.

STOP HANGING WITH THE BIGGEST LOSERS

I have a friend who's overweight and really wants to lose the extra pounds. She has tried just about everything—the grapefruit diet, the cabbage soup diet and the Atkins, South Park, South Beach, Long Beach and Muscle Beach diets. Each one lasted less than a week. She's now considering lap band surgery and joining yet another weight management support group.

When I did psych rotations in nursing school, I thought, “How can group therapy possibly work?” Well, it usually didn't, and that's because we persist in putting a psych patient who has a particular problem in a group of other psych patients with like problems. Then we wonder why they don't act normal. How can they even know what normal looks like?

I wonder if the ultimate peer pressure is to not rise above a group but to remain at the same level as everyone else in the group. I'm going to take a position here that's controversial: I don't believe the best way to achieve something is by hanging out with people who haven't achieved their own goals—whether shared or different from yours.

If you want to lose weight, you're more likely to succeed if you hang with people who have successfully managed to maintain or lose weight, instead of people who haven't. Just like if you want to learn to play golf, you don't hang with a bad golfer. You take lessons from a professional, or at least someone with high-level skills.

My overweight friend has fallen into what I call the culture of losers. Rather than do the hard work of getting on an exercise program, regulating her diet, cooking healthy foods at home and exercising self-discipline, she's found a support group of other “dieters” with similar issues, who sit around together, acting empathic about failing week after week. As much as American society loves winners, individually we seem to be more comfortable identifying with a culture of losers. Think reality TV.

This also applies to your workplace. Generally there are two groups of people: the successful movers and shakers who work hard and get promoted, and the coffee-klatchers who spend their time complaining and whining about anything and everything.

Let's face facts. People who are successful tend to hang with other successful people, not with losers who whine about someone else's success.

Which way do you gravitate? I go to a number of professional conferences each year. At one of my favorites, I typically see three clearly defined groups: (1) worked hard to become successful and are; (2) working hard to be successful and probably will be, and (3) working hard at complaining, and will probably never be successful.

Group three always gives me pause. You can easily spot them by their glum, dour looks. You'll hear them exchanging failed strategies and denouncing proven strategies. Why aren't they hanging with any successful people from group one? Where they are, they won't learn a thing other than how not to be successful.

An entrepreneur I know needed to fill a vacancy in a department and hoped to do so internally. She had the perfect candidate in mind, perceiving her to have untapped potential. But there was one drawback: The candidate had never expressed any interest in increasing her knowledge or growing beyond her current position. Also, she never socialized or interacted with people outside her department.

When the owner suggested this woman to the department manager, the manager rejected the recommendation outright, explaining that she'd never noticed the employee do anything other than what was expected of her. Unaware of all this, the castoff candidate still works her original job, doing what she was hired to do, lunching with the same people and hanging with that same group at company functions. She'll never know the opportunities she missed out on by hanging with the same people day after day.

Back to my friend with the weight issue. She has every skill she needs to lose her additional pounds. I know her family, and she's certainly the exception to her family's rule. Her issue isn't genetic; it's motivational. It's time for her to change her support group, from a lack of support for change to an active support to change. Instead of going to a meeting where everyone understands and commiserates over how they needed that extra pint of Häagen-Dazs dulce de leche after a less than stellar performance review, and how they'll do better next week, she needs someone who will support her in taking responsibility for her weight and hold her feet to the fryer when she doesn't.

The view from the top is meant to be shared. Find someone who's there to share it with, not someone who's never seen it.

GENIUS COMBINES IQ AND HARD WORK

Wicked success is not about genetics, and intelligence won't get you out of doing the hard work. Occasionally someone will be in the right place at the right time, but you may as well start buying lottery tickets if you think it's that easy.

Thomas Edison, who failed thousands of times at producing a working lightbulb before he hit on the perfect model, said: “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” Our advanced technology might speed up the process a bit, but hard work is still a big part of the success equation.

I learned a humbling lesson from my thesis advisor when she gave me a B in a course, even though I had turned in A work. When I challenged her, she said that while the result of my semester's work was certainly A quality, I was capable of doing more than I had done. And she was right. I tried to skate through that last semester solely on my intelligence, thinking she wouldn't notice.

I was upset that she busted my 4.0 average for my master's degree, but looking back I know she did me a favor. This intelligent woman taught me that being smart is not enough. To excel in life, we have to merge IQ with a strong work ethic.

The team who works for me knows that to get the same performance evaluation rating the next year, they have to be stronger and swifter. That's right; the same behaviors year after year won't cut it for them because it won't cut it for the company and our clients. In today's fast-moving world, just to get the same results year after year requires new behavior. Just think about what your world was like five years ago.

Talent Is Overrated

According to Geoffrey Colvin in his book Talent Is Overrated, high achievers are not just talented (i.e., have an inborn ability); they might not be talented at all.

So what separates wickedly successful women from the rest of the pack? They don't need someone to watch over them or push them. They buck up to reality of what wicked success demands: repetitive, focused and deliberate practice designed to specifically improve performance.

Now, if that sounds like hard work, it is. If you've ever watched American Idol or Dancing with the Stars, you know it's not always the most talented who advance. Time after time, the winner is the one who puts on the best show. And to put on the best show requires repetitive, focused and deliberate practice.

That's why honest and competent self-analysis is so important. Act as though you're on the outside looking in, an active observer of your own behavior. We all know it's easier to analyze someone else than to aim that harsh scrutiny in our own direction. The ability to analyze yourself objectively is truly a wicked trait.

For example: If you're about to interview for a promotion, you don't just show up, you apply repetitive, focused and deliberate practice to make that interview the best one yet. Once the interview commences, you need the intuitive perception to recognize if you're off target and the agility to pull your act together swiftly.

You must be able to self-analyze at the very moment something is going wrong, so you can rescue the situation. If you can't competently self-analyze, not only will you fail in that interview, you'll just keep making the same mistakes over and over again in future interviews.

It's no surprise that people who fail, fail often. And people who succeed, succeed often.

Practicing the answers to interview questions over and over is an important action step to mastering your self-analysis skills. But that only works if you're practicing the correct responses.

Practicing the same bad tennis swing over and over just produces more bad tennis swings. Repetitive, focused and deliberate practice is worthless if it's the wrong practice. At first you need a tennis coach to straighten out your swing. Then you'll be able to tell for yourself when your swing is off.

As Vince Lombardi said, “Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.”

A woman who works out at our gym literally throws herself into her weight-lifting routine with an intensity that would put women half her age to shame. She's disciplined, dedicated and hardworking, but she's not getting any discernable results.

Why? Because her form is off. She flails around, spastically moving her arms and legs as if she's just been hit by a Taser. When she's working out, we all give her a wide berth because we never know in which direction she'll suddenly lurch.

My trainer Jerome is almost a form-fascist. Fortunately he never saw my form when I was working out with my previous trainer—he might have rejected me outright.

When I move a weight, no matter how heavy or light, Jerome chants a mantra of “shoulder blades, abs, glutes, adductors,” or whatever muscles or body parts I'm supposed to be engaging for stabilization, strength and form. He constantly teaches me how to exercise my muscles correctly. Jerome's philosophy is that the workout is not how much weight I'm moving; it's about doing it with correct form.

Working hard or long doesn't always predict the quality or quantity of your output. Correct form reaps astonishing productivity. To achieve the form that will provide the results you want, you must practice good work habits.

The woman at my gym is a glowing example of why “working smarter not harder” became such a success mantra. She's working hard without paying attention to those “smart” details that could give her the results she so obviously craves and is willing to work so hard to obtain.

Choose your mentors and advisors carefully. Inept coaches don't just fail to help you, they actually help you to fail.

I recently invested eight months mentoring a woman in my company through repetitive, focused and deliberate practice on a job function I wanted her to master. I required her to do the job herself first. Then I gave her feedback, so each time she was doing it more and more correctly.

Sometimes we don't know what we don't know. That's why appropriate mentors are so important to the process of learning how to self-analyze competently.

I didn't just give this woman feedback; I would ask her to tell me what she needed to do differently the next time. I wanted her to analyze herself, before I mentored her.

My goal was that she would become me during her self-analysis. It would be like Vickie was standing over her shoulder guiding her every step of the way. I wanted her to be able to assess herself in the same way I would.

Time-consuming and sometimes painful for both of us, this investment has paid off in hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. She tells me she still occasionally looks over her shoulder to see if I'm there. And sometimes I am! But not to correct her, just to ask her how her day is going.

Move with Stillness

During a polar-bear-spotting trip to the Svalbard archipelago, one of the naturalists, Richard, was usually the first to spot a polar bear. Now, if they're sitting next to the ship or licking the bow, that's pretty easy, but Richard could spot a white bear in a white environment as far as two and a half miles away.

While the rest of us were scanning the ice flows for anything that looked like it might be alive, Richard would spot a bear and say something like, “It's lying on its belly, off the bow at two o'clock, about a mile out, just past the two ivory gulls and to the left of the walrus with the cavity in its right tusk.”

Everyone on the ship was in awe of him and his talent. He had a slight advantage because he was a birder. In comparison to spotting and identifying tiny, quick-moving birds, 8-foot-tall, 1,500-pound polar bears are relatively easy. What no one commented on, however, was the fact that Richard relied on more than just his talent.

Observing Richard spot wildlife, I noticed why he was so successful. He was working harder than anyone else. He never stopped moving and searching. A combination of constant movement and absolute stillness, Richard started on one side of the ship's bridge, searching, moving to the other side, searching, moving outside to the freezing cold of the observation deck (in his flip-flops) and searching some more. When he was moving, he moved quickly, but when he was searching, he was a portrait in stillness.

Richard achieved the perfect balance of action and observation, one that I certainly envy—not just for polar bear spotting but for everyday work. Other passengers and crew were also looking for wildlife, but without the success rate Richard achieved because they often gave up after half an hour or so.

The wickedly successful women I meet aren't the lucky ones. These successful women are the ones who work the hardest—day in and day out.

Apply repetitive, focused and deliberate practice to your passionate vision. With such genius behavior, you might even become legendary. Any woman can, because, after all, talent is overrated.

EMPLOY THE GENIUS OF EINSTEIN

A genius for all times, Albert Einstein once said, “You can't solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it.” When I first read this, I contemplated its meaning and thought, “It is only a problem if I allow myself to view it as such.”

Applying Einstein's statement in a practical way to my everyday life and career, I decided, “To solve a problem I've obviously helped to create, I need to start with a new and fresh mind.”

For example, a woman thinks, “If I can change my job, my life will be better.” Possibly. If her job is truly the problem, she might be right, but what if she carries her old attitude into a new job and finds that life hasn't changed at all? More often, this is what happens. If we persist in doing and thinking the same thoughts as always, nothing new or fresh ever gets in.

For many of us, myself included, the Pavlovian response to new ideas and solving problems is, “The problem with that is …”

Well, the problem with that is precisely what Einstein knew—that we can't solve problems as long as we perceive them as problems. Unless you change your mind-set, your thoughts or your self-talk will get you the same results. Every problem will be a problem instead of the opportunity it could be.

If you want to effect a change, get outside yourself and look at the situation with fresh eyes. See how you might assess your problem using a different mind-set. Oversimplification? Perhaps. Career or business applications? Infinite.

One of the things that makes my husband Tom good with computers is that he doesn't see a computer problem as a problem. He simply views it as a fun puzzle to solve. I've watched him call tech support on an issue and then help the techie resolve it, simply because Tom approaches it with a different mind-set.

Education is wonderful, but so is forging new ground. Even though I have a string of degrees, I don't have any formal business training, which often works in my favor. I don't feel the constraints that a classroom of MBAs all trained to think alike might feel. Not having their training, I'm free to go in any direction I choose, right or wrong.

Use the next 10 sections to think with a different mind-set and improve your own in the process.

Break Patterns

Insanity is often described as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Your mind is made up of neural pathways that are like roads connecting bits of information. Most of us have found ourselves driving home only to jolt alert and wonder how we got there. The road is so familiar we follow it automatically. The same thing happens in your mind. Once you learn a thing and do it over and over, you follow that pathway from one thought to another automatically, which allows you to give a speech or swing a golf club.

The mind likes patterns, and it's not always easy to break a pattern. But breaking a pattern presents an opportunity for finding a new solution to a recurring problem. Merely brainstorming ideas with a different person or working in a different environment can give you a new mind-set.

At my company's brainstorming sessions all our employees participate. We constantly change the composition of the small breakout groups. By changing the patterns, we ensure that we get different approaches every time, because it's never the same minds working together.

Tom and I got free coffee from Starbucks for two weeks straight. How do you get free coffee at Starbucks? Easy—go to the one where the staff has developed the bad habit of not being ready when the doors open.

I don't know if it's a Starbucks corporate policy, but it's certainly a policy at this local Starbucks that if you show up at 5:30 a.m. and they haven't yet brewed those steaming hot cauldrons of coffee, they'll give it to you for free once it's ready. This policy consistently worked to our advantage for two weeks because the morning crew was unfailingly late.

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, isn't it also insanity to make the same mistake over and over and expect a different result?

What bad habits have you developed that are causing you to give away the equivalent of a cup (or pot) of free coffee? Do you push the envelope on your commute and then act surprised when you're late? Do you fail to return calls promptly and then act surprised that an important client is unhappy? Each of these bad patterns represents a free cup of hot, steamy, expensive Starbucks coffee, ready to be served to the person you've let down.

The hardest thing about a bad habit or a pattern that no longer advances you is recognizing it. Honestly evaluate your habits and patterns, then work at breaking one bad habit or pattern at a time.

Seek New Patterns

Mark Zuckerberg is widely credited for creating Facebook, and at the same time widely accused of stealing Facebook. Social networking sites existed long before Facebook, but what Zuckerberg did was take a hard look at the existing ideas and preconceptions of social media and apply new ideas to improve the social media experience.

He believed that Facebook's true value was in keeping users informed about their “friends.” He sought new ways to do this, adding the news feed (which was originally detested), privacy options and photo-tagging. Most important, he made Facebook easy to use for everyone, no matter how primitive or advanced their computer skills, so all Facebook users share the same experience.

Seeking new patterns from old ideas, Zuckerberg created a new and unmatched paradigm for social networks. He reinvented social media and changed forever the way we communicate.

Change a Small Action or Behavior

Taking action, even a small one, will often automatically change your thoughts. Instead of going immediately to your computer, if that's your habit, stop instead to write out a short list of what you want to accomplish. Then power up. You might awaken your mind to sensational new possibilities.

New behaviors are also essential to keeping your brain healthy and young. Brain plasticity allows you to add new synapses and new brain cells by learning new tasks. Brains can get lazy and adjust to routines, much like muscles do on a static workout program. Challenge your brain to learn and you extend its life and memory.

Challenge Your Obstacles

Let go of the notion that you don't have enough time, energy, money or discipline to do what it takes to succeed. Ask yourself frequently, “What beliefs, ideas and behaviors are obstructing my progress? What must I change to abolish these obstacles?”

My biggest obstacle is time, specifically, that I don't have enough to accomplish everything I want. When I challenge my belief and just start doing what I don't have time to do, I magically make it happen.

Become Your Own Other Voice

Law school taught me to consider both sides of a problem, the validity of opposing ideas and that there is no black or white, just shades of gray. The perfect answer is somewhere in that gray.

Like boxers who anticipate their opponent's every punch, successful attorneys spend as much time in the mind of their opponents as they do in their own. The more you anticipate opposing ideas, their not-so-obvious direction and their impact, the better you can strategize for success and avoid fatal blows. Whether it's a career issue or a personal problem to solve, practice considering alternative ideas by being your own other voice.

Ditch Unnecessary Complexities

Complexity in and of itself is not negative. When what you do is complex, someone else can't copy or replicate you so easily. But complexity for complexity's sake wastes your genius.

In one of our staff brainstorming sessions, I asked everyone to identify unnecessary complexities, with the focus on being more efficient and eliminating processes that were no longer needed. Together they identified 48. I was stunned. Of course we triaged the most important ones to tackle first, but many required very little effort. Doing away with the frozen margarita machine in the lunchroom, however, generated numerous heated discussions.

Raise your complexity consciousness by asking yourself the following questions:

1. What am I doing that I no longer need to be doing?
2. Why exactly am I doing it this way? Is it simply because that's how I've always done it?
3. What am I doing that gives me little or no payoff?
4. How can I simplify this process and do it faster and/or cheaper?
5. What technology exists to automate or simplify this process?

Ditching unnecessary complexity opens your complexity consciousness for engagement in Big Things.

Influence Mind-Set with Simplicity

An attorney taught me that there is no value in trying to win a case by proving 10 points if you can prevail by proving only three. Piling on the points can actually backfire because a jury may be counting the points and get distracted from the more important issues.

Similarly, the danger in presenting too many variables for your most important communications is that your listener or reader might lose focus and miss the entire message. Avoid making minor points that render an explanation too complex and confusing. Identify the strong points and keep coming back to those.

A well-known trial attorney I consulted with proves this point. The young guns from the opposing team announced to their colleagues that they were “unimpressed” with this famous attorney's unpretentious trial arguments. Yet that attorney won a $12-million verdict. What failed to impress these less experienced attorneys was the power of simplicity.

This attorney succeeded by condensing the case to the basics, pointing out the obvious, never straying from it and making the difficult appear simple. Twelve million dollars' worth of simple, “unimpressive” communication.

Words have power. Break complex situations down to the most basic level and deliver a focused message. Consciously observe if you are making a simple question, statement or issue more complex than it really is. If someone asks you the time, don't tell them how to build a Rolex.

Do you quickly get to the essence, or are you cluttering unnecessarily? Do you come up for air while answering a question? Do you occasionally pause to receive feedback or clarify questions? Or do you go on until the person you're talking to starts fidgeting to escape? Pay attention not only to how you communicate, but how you think. Assess for yourself how you analyze a problem.

The more we simplify and focus, the more our listeners or readers will comprehend. The process of clear communication starts and ends with us. Simplicity is genius.

Less Is More

I've eaten just about every variety of food in restaurants around the world, from standing in the rain at tiny Blade Runner noodle stands at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo to the humble carts of street vendors in Bangkok to the “best restaurant in the world,” the highly idiosyncratic Noma, in Copenhagen, but I keep returning to one chef's place every chance I get. I can't tell you the name of the restaurant or chef because reservations are already too hard to get. The food is such a sensory experience that I devour every dish he places in front of me. One amazing creation is a one-bite crab salad.

Before you say “Vickie, that's ridiculous; why would you want just one bite of a crab salad?” let me add: This crab salad demonstrates one of the chef's most important success secrets—less is more.

You won't find an overflowing bowl of pasta or a slab of ribs on his table. His dishes are so small that each one can usually be eaten in a bite or two, and they burst with intensity. The experience starts when you first see the dish, continues as you smell its aroma and savor the too quickly gone burst of flavors and ends with your hoping no one is looking so that you can lick the plate clean.

The chef's goal: he never wants you to be satiated. In other words, after you've had that bite or two, he wants you to crave more. I've dreamed about having more of some of his dishes. I would gladly scrub pots and pans in his kitchen for just another bite of one oyster dish he creates.

That's a goal you should strive for in your interactions. You want people to always want more of you, to never feel they've had enough or too much.

When you meet in person, never overstay your welcome. If you're on the phone or Skyping, remember, time is valuable.

Come up for air, and don't talk more than you have to. Never use 10 sentences when two will do. In your communications, written, electronic or vocal, and in your work product, give relevant detail, but don't go down rabbit trails commenting on irrelevancies.

Tune Up Your Voice

A study published in Speech Management magazine shows that when meeting someone for the first time, 62 percent of a person's effectiveness can be attributed to voice and delivery and only 38 percent to content.

Delivery is the way you talk—your speech mannerisms, the sound of your voice and even how you change your posture as you speak. What you say is important, but the way you say it affects listeners as much as three times more. Your voice is a vital communication tool.

Having grown up in New Orleans, I joke that in America you can talk funny and still be wickedly successful. While I have pretty much shed my New Orleans accent, my voice does have its own distinctive qualities. Analyze yours to discover what needs improvement. Do you whisper or mumble? Do people constantly ask you to repeat yourself? Do you find yourself using your parent or cell phone voice in normal conversation? Do you sound interested or bored? Do you race like a runaway train, providing no opportunity for the listener to speak? Do you needlessly punctuate your speech with ahs, ums, hmms, sighs, “like,” “I mean,” “you know,” or other fillers?

Most of us are not aware of how we sound to others. If we were, we might talk a lot less. I've appeared on radio, television and video often enough to know all too well how I sound. This process has taught me that the best way to learn your own verbal “tics” is to video-record a conversation and then watch and listen to it. This enables you to hear how you really sound and see how you really look when you speak. Review the recordings as objectively as possible and honestly assess what you need to improve. Then do it.

With only a little practice this important tool of genius will gain you instant credibility, visibility and profit while you achieve your goals. Ignore it and you might never realize how many opportunities you've lost just because of your voice. Even one is too many, so start tuning up your voice today.

Improve Your Memory with a Legal Pad

People often compliment me on what a great memory I have. While my memory's respectable, what's even better is my note-taking prowess. That's my real secret. I am a voracious note-taker in every business situation.

I always have a legal pad and pen handy, even in the most informal of meetings. They serve as my external memory, one that doesn't get erased by sleep, an office crisis or a box of hot glazed donuts. One of my executive directors boils it down to, “The person with the best notes wins.”

Have you noticed that as a society we are becoming less skilled at listening? You can't afford to be, or risk becoming, a poor listener. When you're talking to your boss, clients or colleagues, they must be the center of your attention, and you should appear smart, alert and “all in” the conversation.

Think about the last time you were talking to someone who was looking past you over your shoulder, checking her iPhone or appeared to be daydreaming. Remember how you felt? You also risk missing a key communication, such as an important issue or deadline. Just as taking notes in school improved your exam scores, taking notes in business situations will dramatically increase the number of points you score.

If you switch conversations to a different subject, switch to a different page. You might slay a forest in your lifetime, but it's simpler and ultimately more efficient to have notes for only one subject per page. That way, when you get to your office, you can file appropriate pages with their corresponding files without having to rewrite a single note.

You might be thinking, “I can do the same thing with my iPad or laptop,” but when you're on a device, people believe, rightly or wrongly, that they have lost you to cyberspace.

The more you practice efficient note-taking, the more natural it becomes. Soon you'll be able to talk, maintain eye contact, smile and take notes all at the same time. The people in my office who see me take notes all day, every day, in every meeting or hallway conversation, are the same people who credit me with a great memory. The note-taking becomes invisible, and all they remember is that somehow, day after day, I remember everything we discussed. Note-taking is a business power tool for wickedly successful women.

Beginning today, think frequently about which consciousness you have working before you tackle a challenge. Your problems won't disappear, and you may not find a solution instantly, but new patterns, new thinking, new behaviors and new communication will awaken the genius within you.