The Real Truth about Success: What the Top 1% Do Differently, Why They Won't Tell You, and How You Can Do It Anyway! [Hardcover]

Garrison Wynn (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0071629963 | ISBN-13: 978-0071629966 | Publication Date: September 11, 2009 | Edition: 1

"Everyone is looking for the real in whatever they endeavor. Garrison Wynn went out looking for real answers to real success challenges--and he found them. If you want them, get this book real fast!"
--Jeffrey Gitomer, New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Little Red Book of Selling

Life and business aren’t fair, which is good. If they were, you couldn’t seize the unfair advantage.

Think about it. Is your CEO the smartest person in the company? Is the head of your department more driven than you? Does the leading company in your industry make the best products? Probably not. They all have one thing in common, though: They’re on top of the pile because they discovered and exploited their unfair advantage—and with the help of business expert and motivational dynamo Garrison Wynn, you can do the same.

The Real Truth about Success is the culmination of ten years’ worth of interviews with more than 5,000 top performers in their fields. During the process, Wynn discovered that better brains, a positive attitude, and superior all-around quality rarely drive true success. Rather, the most successful people in the world leverage their unique, distinctive qualities—whatever they may be—to propel themselves to the front of the line.

In The Real Truth about Success, Wynn helps you:

• Discover (or create) your own personal advantage
• Align it with the most appropriate goals
• Transition from self-knowledge to repeatable implementation
• Relentlessly put your advantage to practical use
• Bask in the sunshine of well-deserved success

All of us have a personal advantage we can use to stack the cards in our own favor. What’s yours? High intelligence? Good looks? Likability? Great connections? (Your unfair advantage may well be a talent for leveraging other peoples’ unfair advantage.)

Refreshingly (sometimes brutally) honest about what it takes to get to the top, The Real Truth about Success blows the lid off the secret of their success—so you can make it the secret of your success.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Learn How to Seize the Unfair Advantage!

“Very quotable and brutally honest.”
—David Stephenson, CEO, American Concrete

“Funny, and dead on! I want all of my employees to read this book. This is not another self-help motivational book, far from it. It’s about developing your own tools to find your own path to success.”
—Keith Baizer, Mayor of Creativity, Art Mart

“Garrison shows it’s not cheating to use the advantages we have over others to win and stay on top. One of the key reasons some pretty unimpressive people are superstars is willingness.”
—Byron Haney, Director, Financial Advisory, Farmers Insurance

“This book shows you how to win an unfair fight! It’s filled with those secret truths that can be impossible to learn on your own.”
—Shep Hyken, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Cult of the Customer

“As he thoughtfully debunks conventional wisdom, Wynn provides high-impact insights for success in this fast-moving, humorous, and entertaining book.”
—Wiliam F. Murdy, Chairman and CEO, Comfort Systems USA

About the Author

Garrison Wynn is a former professional stand-up comedian and the founder of Wynn Solutions, a firm that provides business strategies and influence techniques to audiences around the world. In his teens, Wynn worked with Magnavox and Hank Aaron to promote the world’s first video gaming system, and by age 27, he became the youngest department head in a Fortune 500 company’s history. He lives in Houston, Texas.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 11, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071629963
• ISBN-13: 978-0071629966
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,245 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Garrison Wynn helps people learn how to make the jump from being great at what they do to understanding and developing the qualities it takes to be chosen for the job. He gets them to understand why their products, services, or leadership styles-- or those of their competitors -- are selected. As he says, "If the world agreed on what's best, everybody would choose the best and nothing else would be considered. Decision making doesn't work that way."

As a keynote speaker, author, and consultant, Garrison has worked with some of the world's most effective corporate leaders and salespeople, from multibillion-dollar manufacturers to top New York Stock Exchange wire houses. He has a background in manufacturing, entertainment, telecommunications, and financial services. Garrison started as a sales and marketing person in a branch office of a Fortune 500 company at age 24 and was chosen to be department head at corporate headquarters three years later. He researched and designed processes for 38 company locations nationwide and developed and marketed products still being sold in 30 countries. An experienced actor in films and a former professional stand-up comedian, he has hosted television specials and national radio programs.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What's keeping you from your success?, October 6, 2009

By 

C. Hill "Barton Avenue Books" (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Real Truth about Success: What the Top 1% Do Differently, Why They Won't Tell You, and How You Can Do It Anyway! (Hardcover)

By the time you are two chapters in, these are the questions you will be asking about your own success: What's keeping me back? What are my advantages? What are my opportunities that those around me don't have? And, what can I learn from those who are successful that will put me on the right path?

Garrison Wynn writes his funny and charming book like a mystery. How do those people sitting at the front table, hauling away those big awards from the conference achieve their successes? What do they do differently? How did they get in the front of the line, and the top of the heap? He decided to do some interviews, issue surveys, and ask questions only to find that the answers he was handed were trite and predictable. Everyone knows what "best practices" are, why are some people more successful than others at using them?

It took some deep digging, prodding, patience and a little calling out, but Garrison got to the bottom of what makes that 1% more successful, and the answer is so simple it is hard to believe. Everyone has advantages, talents, capacities and connections that could help them win in the unfair fight that is today's business world. It's how you use them, how you recognize them, how you develop them, and finding the courage to be yourself that can put you ahead.

Be prepared to laugh out loud in the coffee shop, and to nod your head in recognition as Garrison Wynn tells story after story of how perfectly normal and average people found the specific talent or advantage that helped them to succeed. By the end of the book, you will be listing your own talents, connections, and opportunities and starting to chart your own journey on the way to success.

A good gift for a new college graduate? Absolutely!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real, useful and the funniest biz book I've ever read, October 24, 2009

By 

Brian B. Carter (Pawleys Island, SC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Real Truth about Success: What the Top 1% Do Differently, Why They Won't Tell You, and How You Can Do It Anyway! (Hardcover)

I'm a big reader. Well ok I guess I'm a little reader at just 5'6" but I do read a LOT of books, about 75 a year, and about 10 of those are business books. I've read fewer business books over the last couple years, because my experience in business is different from what most of these high falutin PhD business book writers recommend. In fact, I've learned some lessons from trying to implement "book smarts" in the business world. It's not always a good idea!

But Garrison Wynn's Real Truths are just that- both getting at the real advantages people have (sometimes it's being the boss's son) and the psychological compulsions we can leverage in ourselves- both are real, in my experience. Finding out that sometimes it's not that you suck, it's just that the other guy was related to the owner, can actually be encouraging. Then you can look for your own advantages, build relationships, and use them to succeed.

And this is the first biz book I've read where I laughed at about every other page, sometimes twice a page. Garrison's comedic experience, and his funny keynote speeches (watch some on his website, as funny as any comedy central comedian, which isn't saying much- actually as funny as the best of those) both have happened because he's naturally funny- he thinks differently than most- so that makes it insightful and hilarious. E.g. watch out for these humor gems: Giant Smart Guy and why we follow him, Michael Phelps' disturbing amazingness, and why some people make those around them lose the will to live.

Useful, true, and funny. A great, insightful, and because of the humor, recreational experience. I highly recommend it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Leverage your natural abilities to get ahead, August 23, 2011

By 

J. Donovan - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Real Truth about Success: What the Top 1% Do Differently, Why They Won't Tell You, and How You Can Do It Anyway! (Hardcover)

In a nutshell, this book is a humorous and more current version of Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people."

The good:
1. Loaded with key takeaways
2. Fast, entertaining, and funny read
3. Inspirational premise that you can succeed by identifying & amplifying your innate traits and talents

The bad:
1. The book has a decent amount of repetition
2. Though the author frequently cites 10 years or research, the book feels more based on (intelligent/informed) opinion rather than on hard statistics.

My key takeaways:
- Gain personal advantage harnessing natural (esp. interpersonal) traits and developing new abilities
- Be a beacon of positivity
- Be convenient, comfortable, familiar, uncomplicated, clear, and concise
- Be trustworthy, sincere, caring, compassionate, and kind
- Position all of your ideas as solutions with an emphasis on personal value; make sure others see their input in the solution
- Be noticeable and create great first impressions
- Build and leverage personal relationships - especially with industry veterans
- Seek advice from others, actively listen, and show your appreciation
- Make others feel smart, important, and valued
- Give credit and accept blame/responsibility
- Make decisions, prioritize, take action, and drive projects to completion
- Channel fear into action
- It is what you say AND how you say it
- Maintain emotional awareness and stability
- Appear confident, not arrogant
- Embrace change / be adaptable and flexible
- Have a positive view of authority
- Write down your goals
- Spend time with the people who will position you to succeed
- Do what is important to your boss (know his/her top 5 objectives in any given month)