If you’re feeling stuck, bored, and ready for a change, you’ve come to the right place.
I’m a rutbuster, and have been most of my life – ever since I first went into business for myself as a 4-year-old in Gary, Indiana.
Rutbusting is the ability to break out of the habits and thought patterns that keep us from our true talents and passions. Most people aren’t able to do this very effectively.
The first time I came across the term “rutbuster” was in a business book by Auren Uris called The Executive Breakthrough. This was the late 1960s and, to my surprise, he was writing about me. I had recently been named the National Advertising Federation’s “Advertising Woman of the Year.” Mr. Uris included a chapter in his book on me – labeling me a “Rutbuster.”
At first, I didn’t like the sound of it. But in time, I came to understand and appreciate it.
The main reason people fail to achieve what they want is they get stuck. Stuck in their routines, stuck in their thought patterns, stuck in their social circles, stuck in their doubts, stuck in their fear of the unknown. Most people don’t realize how easy it is to change this – to replace negative habits with positive ones, and to become unstuck. Many people don’t even recognize the ruts that prevent them, over and over, from reaching their potentials.
These are what I call the Eight Secrets of Rutbusting:
1. Savor the Adventure of Being Different.
It was my grandmother Sophie who taught me this. Sophie was the first person to convince me “You can do it” – the most important four words I heard as a girl.
Sophie had “done it” herself, becoming a successful real estate broker at a time when women were expected to stay home and cook and clean. Although she stood just four feet eleven, I always thought Sophie was a giant in other ways.
Sophie thought there was too much “me-too-ism” in the world and she wanted me to be different, to take risks, to recognize opportunities. Even when circumstances were difficult for us, as they often were during the Depression, Sophie showed me – largely through her example – to look at life as an adventure. I haven’t stopped doing that.
2. Master the Art of Giving.
When I was a young girl, I discovered what seemed a strange human alchemy, a form of white magic. It was my grandmother who first showed it to me.
Shortly after I entered first grade, Sophie announced that she was going to give me an allowance of fifty cents a week – a lot of money in those days. I felt rich when she dropped the first five dimes in my hand.
“Now,” she said. “How much are you going to give away?”
“None of it,” I said.
Sophie reached out and took the 50 cents out of my hand.
“You think about it. Tomorrow we’ll talk again.”
We went through this a few times before I began to understand. Some of the kids in my class came from poor families, which could not afford allowances for their children. My grandmother wanted me to give some of my weekly allowance to them.
After I finally agreed, I decided it might be fun to do it anonymously – and then watch my classmates’ reactions. So that evening I took two of the dimes and sealed them in small envelopes along with a note, signed “From a Friend.”
In the morning, I went to class early and slipped the envelopes inside two of the students’ desks. Then I sat back and waited for them to arrive. The expressions on their faces as they looked around the classroom were worth the price of my whole allowance. The surprise was how much fun it could be to give to other people.
Fortunately, my grandmother also taught me some sound business lessons, and showed me the advantages of saving money. But I’ve never forgotten the looks on the faces of those students – or the lesson it taught me about giving and receiving.
3. Surround Yourself With Teachers.
At age 24, I started my own advertising agency, Wabash Advertising, in Terre Haute, Indiana, with $400. Within a year, we had a million dollars worth of business. One of the reasons for our success was that we hired retirees as advisers. These advisers told me everything I didn’t know, and I listened – and that’s how we grew. I’ve always gravitated toward people who know things I don’t know, who have talents and experiences I don’t have. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate more and more how important this is. My “teachers” keep life stimulating, and an adventure.
4. Find What You Love – And Do It!
I’ve always loved the excitement of salesmanship. In a sense, it’s what I’ve done all my life. When I started the fund-raising drive for our arts complex in Florida, I was doing what I’d always done, and loved – selling people on an idea.
If you aren’t in love with what you do, then you haven’t found your real calling. Don’t settle for something you don’t love. Keep searching, regardless of your age. Some people say they don’t know what they want in life. Find out. Ask yourself: What is it that really makes me happy? What gets me excited? The answers will steer you to what you should be doing. As a teacher and as a business executive, I have often seen how people suddenly blossom when they find work that is ideally suited to them.
5. Learn To Take Intelligent Risks.
I received my first business lesson at age 4, when my grandmother lent me the money to start my own company. “What business do you want to go into?” she asked. I thought about it a while and then told her, “Party Favors.” I loved colors and I loved parties and figured that I could make hats and candy baskets that would be used at parties.
I was sitting at the dining room later, cutting up colored construction paper, when my father walked in and saw what I was making. “Why would anyone want to buy that?” he asked. “And who will you sell them to? You don’t even go to school yet.”
I got up from the table and left the room to think about it.
What he was telling me was that I needed a plan. So I came up with one: I would make hats and candy baskets and sell them for a penny apiece to the parents of children who were having birthday parties. I would hire a little boy in the neighborhood named Hedgewood to help me – he was already in school and had the “connections” I needed. Grandmother gave me a ledger to track my sales. On one side, I wrote “Make” in black crayon and on the other “Spend” in red crayon.
Without a plan, my business would have been a bad risk. With a plan, it became an intelligent risk – my first as a businesswoman.
When it comes to what I call “risk intelligence,” people seem to fall into one of two categories: They either maintain an aversion to risk-taking or else they take occasional risks that in retrospect seem careless, without being properly prepared, or fully understanding the consequences.
Think of risk as a stepping stone, on the path to what you really want in your life.
6. Go Back to School.
In my mid-twenties, I was running a successful ad agency and could probably have kept doing it indefinitely. But something was missing. The business was coasting. I was no longer learning new lessons.
My solution was to go back to school – both figuratively and literally. I enrolled in a doctorate program in marketing management at Indiana University – and my business benefited because of it.
One of the essential qualities of rutbusting is being able to wake yourself up when you’ve fallen asleep. Successful people never stop “going back to school.” They develop the instinct of knowing when they are becoming stale and when they need to learn fresh lessons – whether in their jobs or their personal lives.
7. Redefine Failure.
Before I went into advertising, I was a newspaperwoman. One day, while I was in college in Indiana, and editing the school paper, I decided to see if there might be any work available at the city newspaper, the Terre Haute Star.
I brazenly walked into the newsroom and asked for the editor. I showed him my clippings and explained that I would accept a position as either a reporter or editor. The editor scanned my stories for a minute. “Sorry,” he said. “We’re not hiring paper dolls right now. We need experienced reporters.”
Walking out of there, I was livid. I remember thinking, I’m going to show those people. So I looked up the street and saw Meis department store, the largest store in Terre Haute at the time. I walked in and asked to speak to the advertising manager – which was how I did things then. We talked for a few minutes and then fortune winked. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I’m looking for a copy girl. We can give it a try.” Within a year, I was his assistant and earning about $10,000, making me the highest paid woman in Terre Haute.
I’ve failed many times, in many ways, over the years, but I’ve tried to always see it as an opportunity. Think of it this way: Don’t make a lot of room for failure in your life, but understand that it is inevitable. Accept it. Use it. Redefine it – not as a calamity but as a necessity. Success is often a liar. Failure is what keeps us honest.
8. Get Lost.
What can I do with myself? How can I give back to my world? Those were the questions I kept asking myself after my husband died in 1983. I spent weeks “getting lost” – going for long walks by myself – and eventually the answer arrived: I would fund-raise for a local chamber orchestra. It was an answer that led to a new career – as the founder and CEO of what became the Philharmonic Center Cultural Complex, a $105 million arts complex in Southwest Florida.
Being able to change perspective is one of the most valuable, but neglected, aspects of success. Getting lost means escaping from yourself, taking a vacation from your routines and your problems. Getting lost inspires and replenishes. It can also be an effective means of problem-solving.
Getting lost is often the best way of really finding ourselves.
(Adapted from the book Secrets of a Rutbuster: Breaking Rules and Selling Dreams, by Myra Janco Daniels. Daniels is a former advertising executive who is currently founder and CEO of the Philharmonic Center Cultural Complex in Naples, Florida.)