It all starts with an idea.

We all have ideas but we don’t all follow through on them. Innovative people take their ideas and figure out how to implement them. They don’t stop when they don’t know. Instead they press on until they find a solution.

Creating wealth isn’t the only motivation for success. In our post on why you will never be rich, we talked about the negative thoughts people have that keep them from obtaining wealth.

This way of thinking isn’t reserved for people that want to have a lot of money. Money isn’t everything and we aren’t suggesting that it is. These principles can be applied to a career or a goal where obstacles stand in the way of achieving your dream.

Rich and successful people respond to problems with questions. They don’t stop, they figure out the how.

How can I do that

Problem: You have an idea to solve a problem but you don’t know how to ___. You fill in the blank. Start thinking of how you can do it. How can you solve the problem, implement the solution, fill the need. Giving up is not an option unless you don’t think it’s worth doing.

How can I learn

Problem: You don’t know how to do something but you want to learn. Time to get busy. There isn’t much in this world that you can’t learn to do. If you need information, it’s online. If you need experience, take a job that will give you that experience. If you need and education, go back to school. You can learn to do anything.

Who can I get to do it for me

Problem: Either you can’t do it or you don’t want to do it. So many people stop here because paying someone else to do something is not an option. Your only other option is to find someone to do the task for you. Leveraging other people’s time and money is one of the best ways to reach your goal.

How can I make this easier

Problem: It’s too hard. Maybe this project is not your top priority or will take too much of your time. Instead of giving up because of the difficulty think through ways to make it easier. Maybe go back to the question “who can I get to do it for me” or “how can I learn.” Find a way to make it easier.

How can I reduce the risk

Problem: Its to risky. Risk is probably the biggest reason people turn away from an idea. Unknown details create fear and make it easy to make excuses. There are plenty of ways of reducing risk. Education, insurance and partnerships are three of the most commonly used methods to reduce the risk. Don’t stop because of risk or fear, find a way to reduce the risk and press on.

Edward Lampert is the quintessential, successful American businessman. Currently, he boasts a net worth of two billion dollars. He gained his success as a hedge fund manager and is the current CEO and chairman of the Sears Holdings Corporation. However, he gained the majority of his fortune through the founding of his company ESL Investments, of which he is also the present chairman. He got his start in finances while he was an undergraduate student at Yale University where he eventually obtained a degree in economics.

In the summer, of 1984 Lampert fulfilled an internship at Goldman Sachs. The following year he started working in Goldman Sachs’ risk arbitrage department where he stayed for three years.

He left the company he founded, ESL Investments, a hedge fund management organization, in Greenwich, Connecticut. Lampert focused on a highly particular style of investing, often described as concentrated value investing, which he largely focused on the retail sector. He will purchase and then hold his stocks for several years, usually possessing between three and fifteen at a time. Lampert is often compared to billionaire mogul Warren Buffet. He is largely responsible for the formation of Kmart and is credited with the merger of Kmart and Sears into Sears Holdings Corporation.

His strategy paid off when, in 2004, he became the first financial manager on Wall Street to exceed an income of one billion in a single fiscal year. Additionally in 2006 he was credited as the richest person in Connecticut.

At only age 47, Lampert is currently still an active executive member in both his corporations. He stays busy managing his hedge funds with ESL Investments as well as running Sears Holdings Corporation. It is estimated that each year, he makes over one billion dollars, making him one of the nation’s top billionaires. His successes in his investments, in addition to the continued expansion, of Kmart under his leadership, have earned him the title of this generation’s true financial guru.

There are several lessons to be learned from Lampert’s experiences in the financial sector. The first tenet is to pick smart, long-term investments. The other principle that he adheres to is not concentrating all of his financial assets in one investment. Also, he believes in not spreading his assets too thin, by taking on too many investment opportunities.

His other belief is having patience, with his investments. It is essential to hold on to stocks that are increasing in value. It is also of paramount importance to be able to make quick decisions, when some stocks are performing poorly. Lampert possesses vision, another important skill. One of the keys to success is envisioning the possibilities and then making a clear plan to execute, much like he did with the Kmart and Sears merger. Taking on those skills is an excellent way to start the road to success.

Tom Gores was born on July 31, 1964 in Nazareth, Israel. His mother is of Lebanese descent, and his father was of Greek descent. His family believed they could have a better life in America, so they left Israel in 1968 and moved to Genesee, Michigan. Tom’s uncle sponsored his family’s immigration and provided a house for them to live in. When Tom was only 10 years old he began working for his uncle in his grocery store, and he kept working during all of his school years.

He attended Genesee High School in Genesse, Michigan, where he excelled in sports. He earned a scholarship to Michigan State University because of his outstanding sports record, and he received his Bachelor of Science degree there in 1986.

Tom and his brother Alec attribute a large part of their success to their uncle, Tom Joubran, who was a successful businessman, and taught them and mentored them during their growing up years. In honor of their uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary in 2002, Tom and Alec donated $250,000 to their old high school, Genesee High.

After Tom graduated from college, his brother Alec helped him finance a company that sold software to lumberyards. The business was not successful, but Tom learned a lesson from the venture. He discovered that he had to get customers hooked on his system, and collect a continuing stream of income by selling upgrades or leasing databases if he wanted to make money in computers.

Tom moved to California and worked for Alec’s computer company and later for his private equity firm. They used their own resources for the most part when they made their deals, so they received all the money when they sold their investments at a profit.

In 1995, Tom Gores founded a private company, Platinum Equity, to purchase weak divisions of Fortune 1000 corporations and turn them into profitable ventures. The company is one of the fastest growing and largest private companies in America. His leveraged buyout business is based in California, and he, his wife and their three children live in Beverly Hills. Platinum Equity also has regional offices in New York, New York, Boston, Massachusetts, and London, England.

Platinum Equity buys troubled businesses and makes the necessary changes to turn them around and become successful, often combining several businesses into one profitable organization.

Tom is generous with his time and his wealth and gives support to various charitable organizations. St. Joseph’s Hospital, UCLA Medical Center and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are some of the associations that have benefited from his leadership, and he uses some of his free time in coaching his children’s youth basketball and soccer teams.

By learning to work and excel in sports at an early age, he developed good habits that helped him to be successful later in life. His net worth is estimated to be $2.2 billion dollars, and he is one of the youngest people to be listed on the Forbes list of World’s Billionaires as well as their list of Richest Americans.

Marc Benioff is one of the nation’s biggest billionaires. Born in September of 1964, Benioff founded his own company, salesforce.com by the age of 35 in March of 1999. He started the business with a bold mission, to end all software; in essence to render it defunct. In many ways, he has been successful, turning his small operation out of a rented apartment into a multi-billion dollar corporation. Salesforce.com is a cloud computing company and has largely changed the way that software programs are currently designed as well as how they are distributed to their demographic via the Internet. Benioff coined the phrase “platform-as-a-service,” Today, customers are able to create their own applications on the Salesforce.com cloud.

Prior to his successes with Salesforce.com, Benioff had his share of experience in entrepreneurship and high-tech corporations. While still in high school Benioff founded Liberty Software who designed microcomputer games, which he sold for the Atari gaming system. Benioff attended the University of Southern California and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. Following college, he did a term in the Macintosh Division of Apple Computer Inc. as an assembly language programmer. Then he was hired at Oracle Corporation where he served for thirteen years. At age 23, he was named Rookie of the Year and three years later at age 26 he was promoted to become the youngest Vice President in the company.

Since Salesforce.com’s enormous success, Benioff has been recognized with a number of honors and awards. He was even appointed by President George W. Bush and served as the co-chairman of the President’s Information Technology and Advisory Committee. Benioff is also is a prominent philanthropist donating money to and supporting publicly a wide variety of causes and programs. Not only does he contribute to the realm of technology but also to other efforts. For instance, in June 2010 Benioff donated $100 million to the University of California at San Francisco Children’s Hospital. He has also written a best-selling book entitled Behind the Cloud.

Benioff’s continued success is an excellent example of the kind of attitude and dedication one needs to adopt in order to be successful. His most noticeable attribute is his boldness. He is not afraid to make challenges that many may view as impossible or unrealistic. Limiting oneself is the best way to guarantee that one is limited. He also demonstrates the ability to persevere and take charge of a situation; be a leader rather than a follower. However, be flexible and take other people’s perspectives into account. The biggest lesson anyone can take from Marc Benioff is to aim high and to never back off from that ambition.

Daniel Snyder – A Success Story

Daniel Snyder was born in Silver Springs, Maryland on November 23, 1965. He was raised in Maryland where his father was a freelance writer who wrote for United Press International and National Geographic. Snyder had his first job at B. Dalton Bookseller when he was fourteen. When Daniel Snyder was seventeen, he tried to start a business with his father. They partnered together to sell bus-trip packages to fans of the Washington Capitals hockey team. The business failed.

During college, Snyder dropped out of the University of Maryland to start his first successful business. He focused on the college market and leased jets to fly college students on spring break to Fort Lauderdale and the Caribbean. Later Snyder sought a partnership with real estate entrepreneur Mortimer Zuckerman. Fred Drasner and Zuckerman, co-publishers of the New York Daily News. They invested three million dollars in Snyder’s magazine “Campus USA.” After three years, “Campus USA” closed due to not being able to produce enough paid advertising. When “Campus USA” failed, Snyder focused on wall boards, an advertising business enterprise designed for certain populations. Snyder once again had the backing of Zuckerman and Drasner again.

Daniel Snyder and Michelle Snyder, his sister, founded a marketing company Snyder Communications, Inc. The company focuses on direct marketing, database marketing, patented product sampling, sponsored information display in major locations, call centers, and field sales. In September 1996 at the age of 32, Snyder became the youngest CEO of a New York Stock Exchange listed company.

Snyder made his fortune through expanding his company and selling it to a French advertising and marketing services group Havas for $2 billion. Snyder received $300 million. The sale of Snyder Communications, Inc, was the largest transaction in the history of the advertising and marketing industries. Snyder now owns the Washington Redskins, Red Zebra Broadcasting, Johnny Rockets, and Dick Clark Productions. He is looking to go into business with the English Premier League. Snyder is also chairman of the board of Ventiv Health and is a board member of McLeodUSA.

We can learn several lessons from Daniel Snyder’s success. Snyder focuses in a niche he was familiar with, got a strong financial backing and put all his energy into that niche. Before he was successful he had to endure a few failures but he never gave up. He pushed on until he won the game of business.

He has taken a lot of that passion and poured it into making the Redskins successful. Maybe 2010 will be the year, I sure hope it is.

John Arnold is a hedge fund manager that owns his own business called “Centaurus Advisors, LLC”, a company that trades energy products. He was born in 1974 and was raised in Dallas, Texas. He lived in a home with both parents that worked. His father was a lawyer and his mother was an accountant. He attended and graduated from Vanderbilt University after earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts and Science after only 3 years. Later, he moved to Houston, Texas, where he still resides with his wife and 2 children.

In his 20′s, Arnold started his career at Enron working on the Crude Oil desk and was later moved to the Natural Gas Desk. Here he started trading online and made Enron three quarters of a billion dollars in 2001. Enron gave Arnold a huge bonus of $8 million soon after. In 2002, after Enron’s collapse, Arnold started his own venture and invested the bonus that he got from Enron into a company of his own. After opening “Centaurus Advisors, LLC”, Arnold became one of youngest billionaires in U.S. history by using his ability to take big risks with smaller companies in the energy trading markets. Bigger companies didn’t want to risk trading with these smaller companies for fear of losing money with them. Arnold, on the other hand, seemed to have thrived with these smaller ones. He had the ability to see the future, or so it seemed, and gambled on the fall of energy costs. This put him on the road to prosperity. By trading with the smaller companies, he was able to buy cheaper commodities and resell when the prices went up. Taking these risks have definitely paid off for Arnold. He has a net worth of $4 billion this year, making him one of the richest self-made billionaires alive.

Nowadays, Arnold has started new endeavors. He is starting a new twist in the energy world by buying up natural-gas taverns and by looking to the horizons for the next energy boost, liquefied natural gas. He still makes appearances in Washington to keep up with the trading limitations that the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) has vowed to set against the energy trading community.

Even if the rest of the world doesn’t have the ability or assets to risk in the energy markets, we can still learn something from John Arnold. We can try to venture out every once in a while and take a few risks, even if we think that we will fail at it. It may not fail after all. Life is too short and uncertain for us not to try something new and it may well be worth the risk that you put into it. Sometimes, we might just need to go with our gut feelings.