Leisa:  Hello I’m Leisa Holland Nelson and welcome to another edition of Women Mean Business where we’re going to take you up close and personal with extraordinary women doing extraordinary things.  My guest today is Lorraine Grubbs, the Creator of the Happy Workplace System and author of this wonderful book How to Create a Happy Workplace.  Lorraine welcome to Women Mean Business.

Lorraine:  Thank you Leisa, I’m glad to be here.

Leisa:  So you’ve been an executive at Southwest Airlines where you were very successful.  You left there and you started writing books, this is your forth book.  I just heard a little while ago there could be many more down the pipe – at least one more – what advice do you have for our listeners who’d like to achieve the success that you have?

Lorraine:  Well actually I’d say the number one thing for me is find a mentor.  There’s a lot of people that are afraid to ask successful people for advice or for help and actually what I have found is when I reach out and ask others for help they’re flattered and they will be happy to help you.  Number two is be very curious; always ask questions and listen and learn.  And there’s always the third one, which again is being bold.  So we’re actually developing a mantra that says what would you do today if you could be 20% bolder?

And I actually used that in a speech not long ago with the book and the audience was not used to being warm and fuzzy and what does happy mean anyway?  I said I’d like to do something with you guys and I had 700 people stand and I asked them, I said okay, if you want to be 20% bolder I want you for the next 5 seconds to go hug everybody you can find in the room.  Now it’s a risk, you don’t know what they’re going to do.  Everyone; men, women, they were all hugging but again it just goes back to being bold, being curious and having a good mentor and not being afraid to find that right fit.

Leisa:  Thank you very much.

Lorraine:  You’re welcome.

Leisa:  There you have it, extraordinary advice from an extraordinary woman.  I’m Leisa Holland Nelson, author and voice of Women Mean Business.  You can find us on Facebook at Women Mean Business, follow me on Twitter @LHNelson or come back again next week for another edition.