(To listen to the interview, please CLICK on the 'Pod' icon above left next to the title. Thank you.)

KGNU's Claudia Cragg speaks here with advertising maven, Linda Kaplan Thaler (@lindathaler2), on 'Grit to Great', co-written with Robin Koval. In this, they tackle a topic that is close to their hearts, one that they feel is the real secret to their own success in their careers--and in the careers of so many people they know and have met. And that is the incredible power of grit, perseverance, perspiration, determination, and sheer stick-to-it-tiveness. They say we are all dazzled by the notion that there are some people who get ahead, who reach the corner office because they are simply gifted, or well-connected, or both. In fact, research shows that we far overvalue talent and intellectual ability in our culture. So many people get ahead--even the gifted ones--because they worked incredibly hard, put in the thousands of hours of practice and extra sweat equity, and made their own luck. Linda and Robin should know--they are two girls from the Bronx who had no special advantages or privileges and rose up through their own hard work and relentless drive to succeed to the top of their highly competitive profession. 

In a book illustrated with a cornucopia of stories and the latest research on success, the authors reveal the strategies that helped them, and countless others, succeed at the highest levels in their careers and professions, and in their personal lives. They talk about the guts--the courage--necessary to take on tough challenges and not give up at the first sign of difficulty. They discuss the essential quality of resiliency. Everyone suffers setbacks in their careers and in life. The key, however, is to pick yourself up and bounce back. Drawing on the latest research in positive psychology, they discuss why optimists do better in school, work, and on the playing field--and how to reset that optimistic set point. They talk about industriousness, the notion that Malcolm Gladwell popularized with the 10,000-hour rule in his book Outliers. Creativity theorist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi believes it takes a minimum of 10 years for one's true creative potential to be realized. And the authors explore the concept of tenacity--the quality that allows us to remain focused and avoid distraction in order to get the job done--an increasingly difficult task in today's fragmented, cluttered, high-tech, connected world.

(To listen to the interview, please CLICK on the 'Pod' icon above left next to the title. Thank you.)

KGNU's Claudia Cragg talks here with Vicky Unwin on her latest book compiled from letters her mother, Sheila Mills. wrote during World War Two.

Vicky Unwin when writing it, had also faced the tragic and untimely loss of her daughter Louise, as well as a vicious diagnosis of a malignant sarcoma on her leg.

But with regard to Sheila Mills specifically, she came Unwin says "from a sheltered middle-class upbringing" before she joined the WRNS in 1940.

The working life of a women’s naval officer in World War II was a hard one. The discipline and trials of living and working as a "Wren" plunged her head first into a life of bed bugs, last minute travel, secrecy, and huge responsibility.

But while Sheila met with hard and exciting work during one of the world’s most dangerous conflicts, she also found love, friendship, fun, and the human spirit. Her fascinating encounters, assignments, events, and, of course, the many loves she found and lost, are all seen through her eyes in this lively collection of letters home.

The book itself, and this conversation with Vicky Unwin, both offer unique insight into the coming of age of a young girl in the 1940s, as well as into the intricacies of this mother-daughter relationship. Sheila’s letters have readers laughing—and crying—at the extraordinary life of a young girl who traveled all over the world and witnessed key events in the war. 

Vicky Unwin's Vicky Goes Travelling blog. 

Her Facebook page for Healthy Living with Cancer.

@VickyUnwin