Focus Leadership Blog

Name: Susan "Suze" Orman

Occupation: Author, fundraiser, financial advisor, and host of CNBC's The Suze Orman Show.

Career Highlights: Went from living in a van for three months to waitressing at Berkeley, CA's Buttercup Bakery to training as an account executive at Merrill Lynch, who she later sued when her stockbroker turned out to be a crook. Worked at Merrill Lynch until 1983, then moved over to Prudential, then started her own financial planning firm that she only resigned from because her financial advice books were selling so well. Currently the most successful fundraiser in the history of public television, and reaching that plateau on QVC as well. Evidently, living in a van really prepared her for soliciting money from total strangers.

Dominant Pattern(s): Driver and Collaborator - Suze's initiative shows itself in her rise from absolute poverty to where she is now, and is even more evident in her borderline-terrifying personal intensity. She's also proven to be very good at working with people, to judge from her track record of successful business partnerships, including her current ones with Oprah Winfrey and CostCo. Business opportunities like those don't open up for just anyone, after all. Her casual speaking/writing style and phenomenal book sales suggest not only the ability to delegate, but the ability to reach and energize people, or at least the ability to scare people into feeling reached and energized.

Recommendation(s) for Improvement: Switching to decaf, for starters. Also, Suze needs a Visionary tune-up. The criticism that her advice is very general and wades into pop-psychology is well taken, and dumbing things down for the assumed benefit of a mainstream audience is bad news for a topic as achingly complex as personal finance. She should keep up with changing economic landscapes by embracing more creative approaches to help people invest their money. Visionary exercises would help her writing, too - she's not hurting for book sales now, but she will be if future books start repeating themselves. She should try the Floating/Kite movement exercises and read Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions to flare up a different set of neurons.