The book has jumped to the top of its category in bestseller lists published by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.
What is the key to Rory Vaden’s success?
It’s all in his bestselling book, Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success (Perigree Trade, 2012).
Since it was published on Feb. 7, the self-help book has jumped to the top of its category in bestseller lists published by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.
Not bad for a 29-year-old first-time author.
Vaden (BS ’06, MBA ’06) says the biggest obstacle to achieving success is procrastination. He has titled the introduction to his book “Waking up to a ProcrastiNation.”
“Problems that are procrastinated on are only amplified,” Vaden says. The cure? “Self-discipline,” he says, a virtue often overlooked in today’s get-rich-quick society where people are always looking for shortcuts to success.
“The vast majority of Western societies have adopted an ‘escalator mentality’ — one that says getting what we want shouldn’t require much work, and that there are always shortcuts in business and in life,” he writes in his book. “Success means we have to develop the self-discipline to get ourselves to do things we don’t want to do. In other words, success is not about taking the escalator — it’s about taking the stairs.”
Vaden is a strategist, a business motivational speaker and co-founder of Southwestern Consulting, an international sales training company. The energetic author is now on a 20-state bus tour that comes to Colorado March 4–6.
Instead of visiting bookstores to promote his book, Vaden is partnering with local schools and other venues to host free speaking events on the seven strategies to improving self-discipline that are presented in his book. He’s encouraging parents to bring their teenagers. A suggested donation of $10 will be collected at the door, “with 100 percent of the money at each event going back to that local school district foundation or a youth character nonprofit,” he says.
Vaden — who as a child lived in a trailer park in Boulder, Colo., before eventually moving to tiny Frederick, Colo. — attended DU on a scholarship.
He thanks his friends and faculty at the University in his book “for taking a chance on investing in me … and for giving me the opportunity to receive the foundation of a first-class higher education.”
Rory Vaden brings his book tour to Columbine High School in Littleton at 6 p.m. March 4; to Lifebridge Church in Longmont at 6 p.m. March 5; and to the University of Colorado-Denver’s Colorado Depression Center at 6 p.m. March 6; visit www.takethestairstour.com to register and for more information.