Now for My Next Trick, I'll Turn Brand Into Cash

Back in May 2008, I was on top of the world. Viewers were soaring for my newly launched Yahoo (YHOO) show, TechTicker, my book was about to come out and was boasting a beautifully low three-digit Amazon (AMZN) rank, several of my BusinessWeek columns had been among the most read stories on the site, and traffic on this blog was doubling month-over-month. (Sure it had only been open two months, but details like that don’t matter when you’re on top of the world.)

I was also in New York doing a slew of press interviews for the launch of my book. Not even a torrent of rain and a windstorm that eviscerated my umbrella could dampen my spirits as I Mary Tyler Moore’d all over Manhattan in a DVF dress feeling like I’d turned the world on with my ability to tell a great story and enviable access to people whose stories actually mattered. And let’s be clear: No one had handed me all this.

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