Blog Posts by Secrets To Your Success

Radio personality and Point Hope founder Delilah says she can remember every lyric she's ever heard in her life. "While I'm listening to somebody tell their story," explains Delilah, "they'll say a sentence or a line and that will trigger what song I want to marry with that call."

More on Shine: Jewel: "I know what it's like to feel hopeless"

Born Delilah Luke, the talk show host says she's had her iconic radio voice since she was a young child. In junior high, she was in a speech contest where the judges were from the local radio station. They set up a program for Delilah at the radio station, teaching her how to write news and sports and record. After high school, Delilah started working full time in radio.

"I moved a lot. I got fired a lot. I lived in my car on occasions," she says. Delilah did everything from airborne traffic reporting to country music before developing her signature show.

Inspired by the stories listeners would tell her as they made requests, Delilah says, "One

Read More »from Delilah: Radio Host Talks About Why Her Show Is so Successful

Life hasn't been the same for true crime author Ann Rule since her book about serial killer Ted Bundy, "The Stranger Beside Me," was published. She says her editor told her, "Now, Ann, if you could just befriend another serial killer and write a book about it." But Ann certainly didn't want to repeat that route.

More on Shine: Using your words: 7 tips for writing a memoir

Ann says she spent every summer in jail as a child. Her grandpa was a sheriff in Montcalm County, Michigan, so Ann wanted to grow up to be a police officer. But after failing the police eye exam, she began writing short crime stories. She got her first book contract in 1975 to write about a series of unsolved killings.

"Mysterious Ted was abducting and killing young women in the Northwest," says Ann. "Nobody knew who it was." Later, Ted Bundy was arrested in Florida, and he called Ann. It turns out she had known the killer she was writing about. Ann had volunteered at a crisis clinic in Seattle, and the college

Read More »from Ann Rule: True Crime Author Tells How She Writes One Book a Year

Marie Tillman, widow, author, and President of the Pat Tillman Foundation, says grief is personal. "You can't go around it," she explains. "You can't sort of skip to the next stage."

More on Shine: How tragedy has changed me as a mom

Marie grew up with Pat and says she was attracted to his energy and passion. "As long as I knew him, he played football," she says. Pat signed with the Arizona Cardinals, but after the 9/11 attacks, he turned down a multi-million dollar NFL contract to enlist in the Army Rangers. While the decision was shocking to some, Marie says the people who knew Pat were less surprised. Pat was someone who stood up for what he believed in and didn't think of himself as just a football player, she says.

In 2004, Pat was killed while serving in Afghanistan. Originally, Marie was told that Pat was killed in an ambush, but a month later, the military said they suspected it was friendly fire. "That sort of started years of trying to figure out, well, what really did

Read More »from Marie Tillman: Pat Tillman's Widow Talks Grief, Healing and Keeping Pat's Legacy Alive

Christy Turlington Burns, model and founder of Every Mother Counts, says, "You don't have to be a mother to care about mothers. We've all come into the world the same way." Christy believes every woman should have the chance to survive childbirth.

More on Shine: 10 ways to pamper mom

Growing up, Christy and her older sister rode horses every day after school. At the end of their lesson one day, a photographer approached Christy's mom and asked if she had thought about having her daughters model. Christy began modeling for Vogue when she was 16, which she says quickly took her from a department store ad to the fashion world.

Over the years, Christy appeared on the cover of every major fashion magazine and in ads for Calvin Klein and Maybelline. Not knowing how long she would model, Christy says she took advantage of the job. "I sort of fell into this career as a model," she explains, "and I felt like it's going to allow me to do other things."

Christy began to use her fame to advocate

Read More »from Secrets to Your Success: Christy Turlington Burns

LearnVest founder Alexa von Tobel says financial planning should be accessible to everyone. "Financial planning shouldn't be a luxury," she says. "Every single person in the country should be able to have access to trusted financial advice." And she won't stop her mission until LearnVest is helping millions of people.

More on Shine: A financial expert solves couples' biggest money problems

Growing up in Florida, Alexa tagged along with her two older brothers, playing touch football and other outdoor games. She says that taught her to be able to get along with different groups of people. Alexa attended Harvard, studying psychology. During her senior year at Harvard, she came up with the idea for LearnVest, developing the business plan while working as a trader at Morgan Stanley. Alexa left her Wall Street career behind to attend Harvard Business School in 2008.

"I won a business plan competition of sorts," says Alexa, "and I had a few professors say, 'You know what? This is a really big

Read More »from Secrets to Your Success: Alexa von Tobel

Mom changed your diapers, kissed your boo-boos, and said you could do anything you ever wanted. She instilled qualities, like humor, strength, and courage. She believed in you and ultimately has influenced your life and career. These four successful women say they are who they are because of dear Mom.

More on Shine: The best advice from Mom

Comedian Tig Notaro says her mom was a "wild person," doing anything to make her laugh. "I think that I definitely got her sensibility as far as comedy," explains Tig.

Lisa Leslie, a former WNBA player, says her mom was her first and is still her biggest role model. Even when kids would tease Lisa for being tall and skinny, Lisa says her mom would tell her, "Lisa, some people grow on the inside and some people grow on the outside, and we've been blessed enough to do both." Lisa's mom encouraged her to hold her head up high. Lisa says her mom worked to empower her to feel good about herself and be thankful.

When Kristen Trattner, a cancer survivor

Read More »from Secrets to Your Success: I Am Who I Am Because of My Mom

Tanya Zuckerbrot, registered dietician and founder of the F-Factor diet, says we live in a world where we simply can't control a lot of things, but we can control what we eat every day. "You know, what's at the edge of that fork," she says, "it's up to you."

More on Shine: Is your diet making you angry?

Tanya grew up in a family of cooks and says, "I just think that I have always loved to cook and loved to eat." After college, Tanya headed to NYU to get her master's in nutrition. She went into private practice as a registered dietitian and started working with doctors to treat their patients. She says when she worked with cardiovascular patients, the goal was to lower their bad cholesterol and improve their good cholesterol, and when she worked with diabetics, the goal was to manage their sugars. But with both patients, they were losing weight. Although the diets were different, each diet included fiber.

"If someone loses 20 pounds, people notice," says Tanya. She started receiving

Read More »from Secrets to Your Success: Tanya Zuckerbrot

Talk show host Sally Jessy Raphael's iconic, over-sized red glasses were purchased out of necessity. She says that when she went to the optometrist, they only had red glasses, so that's just what she bought. Sally exudes confidence. "I knew from the day I was born what I wanted to do," she says. "I wanted to communicate, and I wanted to make a difference in the world."

More on Shine: Sally Jessy Raphael reveals why she bought her famous red glasses

Sally says she grew up in a privileged family with very supportive parents; however, when her father became ill, her family fell on hard times. She says they slept in a car and learned to survive on what they had, but Sally pursued her dreams and went on to study theatre in college. She turned to radio and television when acting didn't work out. In her early career, she worked at 28 different TV and radio stations, often facing discrimination as a woman.

After a guest appearance on "The Phil Donahue Show," Sally finally got her big break

Read More »from Secrets to Your Success: Sally Jessy Raphael