Turning “What If?” into a Multimillion Dollar Business

Persistence, time and energy. That’s the difference between “what if” and product success, and Lori Greiner has all three. After years of having ideas for products and even books and sitting on the sidelines, she grew tired of thinking about what might happen. So when she had a promising idea for an earring organizer, she immediately got to work. Read more

Gearing up for a Great Year

As we begin to wrap up 2009, I want to take a few minutes to encourage you to start planning for 2010. The end of the year is a natural time to consider where you are, what you’ve accomplished, and, most important, what you want to accomplish in 2010—and beyond. Here are a few tips on how to make this the year that you achieve your goals. Read more

Reinvent Your Career: Success Tips from Teresa Carleo

When Teresa Carleo started her landscaping business 20-plus years ago, she was literally building a business from the ground up. Her only experience consisted of fond childhood memories of working in the garden with her parents. So she started at the bottom by taking a minimum-wage job watering plants.

Carleo worked to expand her knowledge, eventually breaking out on her own and founding Plant Fantasies Incorporated. Success didn’t come without struggle, but, today, Carleo’s thriving business offers a wide range of services—from flower arrangements and ground-floor landscaping to rooftop gardens—for some of New York’s top real estate developers. Here, she shares a few of her success tips: Read more

How Far Have You Traveled?

Fran Lessans took the phrase “find a need and fill it” to heart and built a thriving business.

When a door closes, Fran Lessans is tenacious enough to keep knocking until it reopens—or looking until she finds a new one. The CEO and president of Passport Health has worked to prove herself and her business model in the medical industry.

“Being a nurse and a woman was a challenge,” Lessans says. “There were a lot of roadblocks.” The stigma that, as a woman, she wasn’t intelligent or savvy enough kept some hospital CEOs, her initial prospects, from agreeing to see her. She finally determined to take on a male, minority investor early in the life of her business. It seems (almost) unimaginable now, but in the early 1990s, discrimination against women was still so fierce that she realized she “needed that deep voice” to do presentations. Read more

Reinventing Your Career

The cover story in the USA Today that landed outside my hotel room a couple weeks ago featured a man who’d worked in the automobile industry since his teens. Facing yet another layoff, the 35-year-old made the decision to shift gears, go back to school and pursue a career in the health industry. That type of story is becoming increasingly common in this topsy-turvy economy. But, for women, the trend has been on the rise for quite some time. Read more

The Sweet Life

Rachel Thebault went from investment banker to baker. By living her passion she’s enjoying a very sweet life.

For those who’ve acquired an education and built a career in a specialized field, making a major change can be unsettling—especially if you’re uncertain as to what the change should be. Rachel Thebault knows the feeling. After majoring in economics and working for Merrill Lynch and Bank of America as an investment banker, the long hours and hectic travel schedule had Thebault rethinking her career choice. “It didn’t allow me to have a lot of my own time outside the job,” she says. Read more

A Place to Call Home

The success of women immigrants is ‘remarkable,’ according to a new study.

When women immigrants come to America—“the land of opportunity”—a new study shows that their journeys are laced with unforeseen challenges. And still, these women often emerge more resilient, potentially more business savvy and more nurturing to their families, according to inferred statistics released in May 2009 by New America Media (NAM). Read more

Reinvent Your Life - Tips and Tricks that Really Work

Growing into confident, successful, happy women can be like a game of survival of the fittest. How do we ensure our life unfolds as planned? And what do we do when it doesn’t? Women have the power to recreate themselves and redefine their roles. It’s no longer survival of the fittest; it’s evolution at its best. Read more