Success comes to the people who are willing to shout their strongly held opinions from every rooftop, and not care who disagrees.

And I can prove it.

"What Could This Little Girl Have To Say?"

Heather is one of those rare people who can see shapes and contours others cannot, while still having a grasp of the logical realities of running a business. She is a right-brain thinker with a left-brain attitude who is unique in her ability to keep her clients focused on results while also forcing them to think of things unthought.

Together with her husband, Matt, Heather started a small marketing and graphic design firm in Houston, Texas. Heather has a mission. Heather has a dream.

And Heather has a problem.

I met Heather about two years ago when she and Matt signed up for a teleseminar training program I conducted in conjunction with my first book. They had come to a business ravine. They could see across the ravine to the peak they intended to summit, but didn't have the tools or guide to traverse the chasm, which is what prompted them to take the seminar.

Unfortunately, my sales training program wasn't what they needed, because their problem had nothing to do with their ability to sell.

You see, the Houston ad and marketing community is a cigar-smoking, old-boys club if ever there was one. And if Heather was to cross the chasm between her and the next business summit, she'd need to get tons of work from these firms.

But Heather didn't have the stature she needed to break into this club.

Even though she's in her 30s, married, has one son and is running a successful company, Heather looks like she's 14 years old (her words). So whenever Heather managed to land an appointment at one of these huge ad agencies, the good old boy with whom she met would listen, then in a fatherly manner pat her head as he showed her out of his office.

They say it's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog ... and Heather is the proof. She saw her chance to nip at their heels when a government task force hosted a panel discussion to explain how it would attract new businesses to the Houston area. The area's top five ad agency executives, who were also the top executives on the task force, filled the panel.

In attendance: 200 business executives, and one "14-year-old."

Listening carefully, Heather sat on the edge of anticipation as the panelists regaled the crowd with stories of how their companies would attract new business to Houston. But when they began bragging of their own companies' creative genius, Heather found her opening -- she flatly disagreed with what these men were saying. So despite her fear that it would cost her any chance of doing business with these large ad agencies, when the moderator invited questions Heather raised her hand, waving it wildly, making it impossible to miss.

When called upon to ask her question, this "little girl" stood up and loudly exclaimed, "I cry bullshit!"

I'd love to be able to quote the rest of what she said, but those are the only three words Heather is certain she spoke. Suffice it to say that she spent the next 30 to 60 seconds reminding these good old boys that 90 percent of their business was creating ads for oil companies, and that oil companies are the most conservative advertisers anywhere. And after pointing out that oil money had driven virtually every shred of creative genius from all of their firms, Heather asked, "How can we realistically expect to attract new business to Houston based on our collective creativity, when the five most conservative ad firms in town are running the task force to make this happen?"

I'm confident that some of the people in that room thought Heather was dead wrong, but the thunderous applause generated by the rest of the audience drowned out any chance they had to complain. And I'm also quite sure Heather's stature was no longer an obstacle to her dream, because three of those five good old boys sought her out after the meeting and invited her to join the mayor's "Only in Houston" (OiH) task force.

(One of them chuckled while saying, "When you stood up, I thought, ‘What could this little girl have to say?'")

Within only a few months, Heather was not only running the OiH task force meetings, but had also won the contest to create the OiH logo (see: onlyinhouston.org) and has consistently generated new business for her firm.

I submit that success is waiting for you to speak your mind.

I submit that disagreeing with the masses, the powerful, the status quo and the competition has more to do with generating success than just about anything else in business.

I submit that those unwilling to speak their minds for fear of the consequences are doomed to an average life.

Do you have the courage to shout what you believe?

Do you have faith in your ideas?

Do you have faith in yourself?

Then let us stand and cry "Bullshit" together!

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