In today’s world everyone must take charge of his or her career, business and personal life. We must be free agents who take responsibility for our own learning. Pensions are fading into the past, a job-for-life is no more, and Social Security alone is not enough to retire to a comfortable, independent life. All of us must become self-reliant and free agents. “Be your own rock…rule your kingdom,” said business guru, Tom Peters.[i] We must be self-determined and not wait for opportunity to come to us. “We must find ways to make our own opportunities,” said Gail Turner, the dynamo gal who built two airplanes and whose story is in this book. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it so well, “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” 

          This book invites you to take a glimpse into the hearts of some amazing people. They came from Silicon Valley in Northern California, yet they are not all geeks and techno-experts. They are entrepreneurs, Corporate America professionals and executives, volunteers, working moms/dads/singles, covering a wide range of diversity and ages from 30- to 70-something and coming from vastly different backgrounds. A few are millionaires, some are working towards it, and for all, a large bank account is not the primary motivating factor for success in their lives. They have dreams just like you. They have faced many challenges and disappointments in their lives, yet they didn’t allow anything to stop them.

          In the pages to follow, you’ll meet these dynamic people who took many different roads to get where they are today. They are dreamers, motivators, role models, survivors, and above all achievers. They have one thing in common: They stepped out of their comfortable world and ventured into the unknown in order to follow a dream. They had one passion: to do something they really, really wanted to do. This book invites you to hope and to believe that you too can achieve your dreams just as these very special people have done.

          You will meet Kilsoon Kim, a Korean refugee who lost her parents and siblings during the separation and closing of the North and South Korea borders in the ’50s. She believed passionately that education was the key to her children’s success and followed that dream despite the financial challenges in her life. Doug Jones, CEO of Mortgage Magic, prioritizes having fun on the job. “If the company folded tomorrow, I would still know that everyone had fun,” he says. Michael James’s goal was to start all over in his career. Little did he know that he would have to give up everything to achieve his dream. You’ll meet Carlos Figueroa, who visualized traveling around the world with his bride-to-be although he had no money at the time. You will read the incredible story of Loc Van Phan who escaped from Vietnam by boat. He took a 2000-mile ocean journey with the hope of freedom and security.

          In order to reinforce and enhance your road to success, there are stories on managing shyness, supercharging your commitment attitude, rekindling enthusiasm, and working with a buddy to help you get what you want.

           Amazing stories? Yes. This book is living proof that the impossible happens to ordinary people every day. Yet this is not a book of fiction. These are real people living in the real world. They succeeded in doing what they wanted to do by believing in themselves, working hard, staying with their idea, getting help from others, mustering talents they never knew they had, making personal sacrifices, and conjuring a faith and passion so powerful that they overcame any obstacle that got in their way.

Introducing Silicon Valley Dynamos and How to Use this Book

          Many of my friends, colleagues, acquaintances and even my children are part of Silicon Valley—and not all of them are Silicon Valley geeks but rather Silicon Valley dynamos. This definitely is a new dynamic world today. The people in this book are part of the new high-tech world even though many of them are not working directly in that environment. They have lived and worked in the Silicon Valley area in Northern California and they have moved and changed as needed to succeed in this world.

          Born in San Francisco, I have seen the birth, changes and growth of Silicon Valley over the years—from fruit orchards to campus-type buildings. Silicon Valley has no borders. It is not a city or a county. Its geographical area is defined by the imagination of the people who live and work in these high-tech areas. Other communities are now claiming they too have a Silicon Valley in their cities and in other countries. It is a place where today the Internet and high-tech companies reside to the point that they create thousands of jobs and opportunities—along with traffic jams, expensive homes, geeks, stock options, millionaires and wannabe millionaires.

          These success stories are here to encourage you to persevere and stay with your dreams. They might give you the nudge you need to take stronger action towards your goals and practice new techniques to break old habits. Thus, this book, Top 10 Traits of Silicon Valley Dynamos, was born.

Bite Size Lessons

Designed for the busy person, the chapters are short. You can read one chapter on your lunch hour. Learning is a lifelong experience. Practicing the activities at the end of each chapter can help you break patterns and reinforce your belief system. Each chapter has an activity that gives you tips and exercises that you can practice to help you break patterns and reinforce your new belief system. We learn by doing, so if you want to reinforce some area of your behavioral life, practice the activities. You can start anywhere you want in this book. Pick a chapter that interests you.

          These activities do work. Adapt them to fit your needs. Some of the activities may appear in more than one chapter with a different slant, as repetition is an effective process for learning powerful new good habits. With practice and repetition you can learn new ways to achieve your goals and make positive changes in your life. It depends on your willingness to change to get what you want. Enjoy some great adventures as you read about the experiences of these amazing Silicon Valley dynamos.

Joan Clout-Kruse
Foster City,
California

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[i] The Circle of Innovation, Tom Peters, Vintage Books, 1999, p. 185.