How 25 Awesome Twentysomethings Nailed It

Prepare to be enlightened, fascinated and inspired by the stories of some of history’s iconic men and women that show where they were at near the age of 25. And how they overcame obstacles, defied their critics and forged ahead to attain success.

Author Robert L. Dilenschneider tells these stories of 25 men and women from around the globe who shaped the world in his new book, Nailing It.

You’ll learn how these individuals:

Came from modest means and went on to help change the world.
Went on to do what put them in the history books.
Used their unique personal traits to enable them to beat all odds and persevere.

The stories offer some perspective on what young people are experience now. The COVID pandemic turned young adulthood upside-down. For millions of millennials, what should have been a key transformation period, full of adventure, freedom, and self-exploration, was temporarily halted. Key life events were put on hold, delayed, or outright cancelled.

Fortunately, history shows, and Nailing It reveals, inspiring examples of successful people who experienced delayed progress in their 20s, forced to take circuitous paths to their life callings, even overcoming tragic starts.

Nailing It includes the stories of:

Maya Angelou
Albert Einstein
Steve Jobs
Sally Ride
Mary Shelley
Jackie Robinson
…and 19 more

Robert L. Dilenschneider

Awhile back, Dilenschneider shared these added insights with us:

Question: How many of the 25 people you profiled in your book were on your original list of landmark figures you planned to profile? If your original list changed, why did it change?

Dilenschneider: We had well over 100 people on the original list. We whittled it down to get to those who were cited based on what they had to offer to readers.

The idea is to inspire young people and help them recognize that they can make a difference. For the more mature this book offers a snapshot of history in the making.

Question: Who might have been the few additional people you would have profiled in your book if you had gone beyond 25?

Dilenschneider: There are dozens of individuals from the world of politics, business and social services that could be profiled, including Nelson Mandela, Tony Blair and Mao Tse Tung. There are many who fit into this category.

Question: Among the 25 iconic individuals profiled, what were the couple common themes that made them all awesome?

Dilenschneider: They had a determination and a focus for what they did. And they had a plan, and they worked the plan. They kept their head down and they did not deviate from their plan.

In almost every case these men and women took prudent risks, were oblivious to criticism, and exercised a laser-like focus on their objectives.

My hope is that knowing where these people were in their lives at that age—whether their acts were together, or not— will be informative and encouraging. Their stories offer some perspective on what young people are experiencing now.

Question: Of the 25, which one has impressed you the most and why?

Dilenschneider: I like Honoré Daumier because he not only offered criticisms of the art establishment in France, but provided on a regular basis serious look into the politics of what was taking place – almost as good as a newspaper. He immediately grasped the implication of combining the relatively new art form of lithography with political satire.

There was another aspect to Daumier’s long career. He eventually developed into a prolific portrait, landscape, and genre painter. He produced around five hundred oils and watercolors that garnered little or no attention from the public during his lifetime, to his disappointment. Posthumously, though, critics saw in this work a foretaste of impressionism, the art movement that had just appeared on the horizon, and appreciation rose.

Every era in history has needed artists, writers, comedians, graphic designers, commentators, pundits, and others to pull the curtain aside, à la Dorothy’s dog Toto in The Wizard of Oz, and show us what’s really going on. Every era has had such people, and Daumier occupies a notable place in the long line of political and social satirists.

Dilenschneider is founder of The Dilenschneider Group. Headquartered in New York and Chicago, the Firm provides strategic advice and counsel to Fortune 500 companies and leading families and individuals around the world, with experience in fields ranging from mergers and acquisitions and crisis communications to marketing, government affairs and international media.

Dilenschneider has authored 14 books, including Decisions: Practical Advice from 23 Men and Women Who Shaped the World; A Briefing for Leaders; On Power, The Critical 14 Years of Your Professional Life; 50 Plus!—Critical Career Decisions for the Rest of Your Life, and Power and Influence: The Rules Have Changed.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me a copy of the book.

Comments

How To Rewire Your Mind To Build Your Adaptability Quotient

Alec Litowitz argues that the most valuable skill of the next decade isn't IQ or even EQ (Emotional Intelligence). It's AQ: your Adaptability Quotient, the ability to question assumptions, update beliefs, and respond effectively when reality changes. Litowitz is the author of the forthcoming book (releasing on September 15, 2026) The Adaptability Quotient: Rewiring Your Mind For Success In The Next Human Era . And he shares that “AQ is a learnable way of using your mind like a high-performance machine: to model risk, absorb feedback, make faster corrections, and create repeatable advantages in conditions where most people stall out—or drown.” In short, it’s all about how to move from “making the right decision” to “making decisions right.” “As artificial intelligence, media, and scientific advances reshape the cognitive landscape, adaptability becomes the essential discipline for reclaiming human agency,” adds Litowitz. “And a s AI resha...

Learn The Power Of Probabilistic Thinking

Dive in for a fascinating read as you discover the life-changing power of probabilistic thinking, taught by Kyle Austin Young in his book, Success Is A Numbers Game . “Every goal that you’re pursuing has two hidden numbers attached to it—a probability of success and a probability of failure,” explains Young, “If you can make the first number bigger and the second number smaller, you can rewrite your predicted outcome.” “Whether you’re trying to start a business, run a marathon, get a promotion, earn a pilot’s license, grow a bumper crop of tomatoes, or sign an acting deal, these two percentages are always lurking in the shadows predicting what is going to happen.” But, adds Young, "Most of us never think about them. We assume our odds are unknowable and unchangeable. This dangerous lie leads millions of people to fail at goals where they were perfectly capable of succeeding. You can choose a smarter path,” encourages Young. In Success is a Numbers Game , ...

Daily Intentions For Leaders

Everyone can benefit from the book, Dear Friend , which features bite-sized, daily notes for contemplation, inspiration, connection, and clarity. Busy and stressed business leaders can particularly benefit from the 365 profound, heartfelt reflections from author Michelle Maros , founder of Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life and cohost of the podcast, Life Happens with Barb and Michelle . Dear Friend invites readers to go deep and use the notes as a daily practice that compounds over time, nurturing strength, resilience, and clarity. In just a few minutes each day, this book will offer you a daily reprieve when you feel burned out, beaten down, or overwhelmed by the strains and stresses of modern life. The heart of Dear Friend began in the quiet mornings Michelle shared with her mom, Barb. Every day, they would sit together, reading affirmations or passages from Barb’s beloved books. These small rituals—simple but powerful—set the tone for each day, grounding them in g...

How To Transform Your Perspective And Lead With Positivity

Here is a new book I imagine nearly everyone will benefit from. It is, The Negativity Fast . It's both a self-help book and a book for leaders who want to lead with positivity. At the core of the book is a thirteen-week negativity fast, during which you’ll progressively eliminate sources of negativity in your life for 90 days. And then from that point, you’ll have a new outlook on life and will have learned how to use gratitude to completely transform your mental outlook as you reframe the negative events in your life into events that made you stronger, more resilient, and better prepared for future setbacks. “My goal is to help you reduce the time you spend in a negative state and increase the time you are positive,” explains the book’s author, Anthony Iannarino . Particularly for business leaders, the book offers easy-to-follow lessons on l earning to lead with positivity for effective change throughout your team and organization. The evidence-based exercise...

Seven Indicators Of The Right Work For You

In Brian Tracy 's new book, Find Your Balance Point , he shares this helpful list of the seven indicators of the right work for you and the career where you will feel fully engaged and where you will be the happiest in serving other people: The right work for you is something that you really enjoy doing; something that you love to do. The right work for you is easy for you to learn and easy to do. In many cases, you learned it automatically, without thought or effort. You love learning more and more about the work if it is the right work for you. When you are engrossed in this work, the hours fly past. You forget what time it is, and later you are surprised to see how much time has passed. The right work for you gives you energy when you are doing it. You can spend hours at this work, often forgetting to eat. If it is the right work for you, you want to be excellent at it, and you are constantly striving to learn and improve in that area. If it is the right work for y...

How To Maximize Employee Involvement

Here are 10 tips for how to maximize employee involvement : Have active ways to listen to your employees. Check often with employees to see if the information you are sharing with them is what they need and what they want. Share information about customer satisfaction with employees. Discuss financial performance with your employees and be sure everyone understands the importance of profitability and how they can contribute to profitability. Allow ad hoc teams among employees to form to address organizational problems and work with those teams to tackle the identified issues. Encourage employees to make suggestions for improvement whether those ideas are large or small. Take an idea from one employee and share it with other employees and teams and let everyone make a contribution to build upon that idea. Train! For long-term employees, find ways to keep their jobs interesting through new assignments and challenges. Conduct meetings around specific issues and brai...

How To Write A Company Policy

Keep these five tips in mind when you craft your next company policy: Keep the policy short and simple. Get rid of two old policies for every new policy you implement. Make sure that your organization's policy and procedures are written to serve your employees and customers--not just your organization. Don't write a policy in reaction to a single incident. The problem may never arise again. Don't write a policy longer than one-page, no matter how large your organization may be. Thanks to author Bob Nelson for these great tips from his book, 1001 Ways To Energize Employees .

How Will You Get Involved?

"Philanthropy isn't just a pursuit for the wealthy. Philanthropy is about involvement . Pick your issue, work at it, and do your best to make things happen. Even if you're not wealthy, you have time, expertise, skills and other resources you may not even have realized that can be used to serve others." Thanks for this great advice from author Eli Broad.

70 New Year's Resolutions For Leaders For 2019

With less than two weeks before 2019, it's time to identify your New Year's Resolutions for next year. To get you started, how about selecting one or more of these 70 New Year's resolutions for leaders? Perhaps write down five to ten and then between now and January 1, think about which couple you want to work on during 2019. Don't micromanage Don't be a bottleneck Focus on outcomes, not minutiae Build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes Assess your company's strengths and weaknesses at all times Conduct annual risk reviews Be courageous, quick and fair Talk more about values more than rules Reward how a performance is achieved and not only the performance Constantly challenge your team to do better Celebrate your employees' successes, not your own Err on the side of taking action Communicate clearly and often Be visible Eliminate the cause of a mistake View every problem as an opportunity to grow Summarize group consens...

How To Coach Rather Than Supervise Employees

Bill Berman and George Bradt , authors of the book, Influence and Impact , explain the importance of helping your employees to understand what their jobs entails, and what the culture expects, so they can do the work you need from them the most. More importantly, they say that it is better for you as a leader to coach employees rather than supervise them. And, as you coach, they recommend you: Ensure the employee fully understands their job responsibilities. Pave the way for the employee to be successful. Given them the time, resources and encouragement they will need. Help them know themselves better. Consider a personality assessment by a trained evaluator so they understand their styles and preferences. Help them know the business. Ensure they know the organization’s mission, vision and purpose, business strategies and cultural norms. Help them know you. Help them to really understand what you really need from them to make you and the organiz...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog