She was born in Texas as Mary Kathlyn Wagner.  She achieved success as a business woman over her thirty year career in direct sales and training with several different companies.  When she retired in 1963, she wrote a book on how to help woman succeed in the business world.  That book became her new business plan, as well as a book to be included in business courses at the Harvard Business School.

This fabulous person was the woman we all refer to as Mary Kay!  Shortly after that book was finished, Mary Kay Ash and her son, Richard Rogers, started Mary Kay Cosmetics with her life savings of only a $5,000.  That small investment literally made a large fortune!  Starting in just a small storefront in Dallas, the company grew rapidly.  Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc. today is the largest direct sales company of skin care products in the United States.  It is recognized  as one of the Top 100 Best Companies to work for in America, as well as one of the 10 best companies for women.  Currently, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc. has over 800,000 Independent Beauty Consultants in 37 countries covering 5 continents!  How is that for growth?

Mary Kay’s unconventional basics for business became not only her mainstay, but has become one of the leading management courses in business schools.  Her main theory and statement became very well known, and respected.  “God first, family second, and career third“.  She firmly believed that every person needs to prioritize, keep focused, and have a good balance in their lives in order to be successful.  Mary Kay was a great humanitarian, receiving many awards for her generosity and work with cancer foundations and other charitable organizations.  She died in 2001.

Success is what you make it, so the old adage goes. The truth is, success is a very personal thing to each of us. Many people think of success in monetary terms, but for some people, money means very little. Their success is happiness, fulfillment of a dream or lifetime goal. For anyone to be considered successful, they must have achieved a goal they’ve set. Goals are achieved by setting your mind to positive action and taking control of your life.

Oprah Winfrey is one of the most successful people in America today. She’s worth billions, but Oprah came up the hard way. She has worked hard all her life and inspires women of all ages to become the best they can be. In fact, one of the secrets to her enormous success may be that she sincerely wants others to be as successful as she is. For Oprah, success isn’t all about the money. It’s about living the best life possible, and giving back to her fans and others. Oprah loves what she does and is doing her part to make the world a better place.

Like Oprah, we must believe in our ability to achieve our goals in life. The most important element in any successful endeavor is having passion for what you’re doing and for the goals you’ve set. Some of the most successful people are the most generous. Oprah is generous to a fault, coupled with a genuine love for people and a desire to help them. Her advice, “You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job and not be paid for it. What I know is, is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come."

The question is: "What things are tied for second place in popularity among undergraduate students?" The most popular thing is the iPod. Facebook is an online social network. Registration is required but access to the website is free. Users can join by groups from a region, city, workplace, or school. You only need an active email address and be more than thirteen years of age. The money is made from banner ads. Though Chris Hughes, Facebook cofounder said that they have no plans to sell user data to third parties, there is a clause that states that they can. They do collect as much data from visitors as Google and Microsoft, but not as much as Yahoo.

Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Facebook. He founded it, along with Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, in 2004 during Zukerberg's sophomore year at Harvard University. It began as a social network for Harvard, then other Ivy League colleges were added. From there it spread to all universities, high schools, workplaces (Apple and Microsoft), and then to the public in general. It has been described as "less high school" than MySpace. MySpace allows more customization of user sites.

In 2007, there were various rumors of offers being made to buy out Facebook, and figures in the billions were bandied about. Zuckerberg has indicated that Facebook is not for sale. It is known that in October 2007 Microsoft purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $246 million. Peter Thiel (cofounder of PayPal) was the first investor in 2004 with $200,000 and now is a board member of Facebook. Facebook's Platform has allowed it to expand the services offered to users. TheAtlantic.com's Michael Hirschorn wrote in October 2007 that, "By bringing order to the Web, Facebook could become as important to us as Google."

It's become kind of a cliche to say that a talented athlete "makes it look easy", but in the case of Manny Ramirez of the Boston Red Sox, it's the honest truth.  One of the game's premier power hitters, he approaches baseball with an uncanny lassiez-faire attitude that has gone so far as to infuriate fans and teammates at times.  But when it really counts, Manny always seems to come through in the clinch with a perfectly-timed base hit or even home run to save the day for the Boston fans.  

Ramirez got his start with the Cleveland Indians, making a name for himself with consistently strong production at the plate.  He was picked up by Boston in 2001, and his talents grew until 2003, when he was paired with fellow legendary power hitter David Ortiz.  Often batting together in the 3 and 4 spots, the two men quickly became a fearsome force in the AL, and have led to the downfall of many a pitcher.  

But as amazing as Ramirez is at the plate, his antics have given owners and managers headaches time and time again.  Often playing out sick when he feels slighted, his behavior was enough to get him put on waivers after the 2003 season, but no one claimed him.  In 2005 he demanded to be traded, only to reconcile with management and call Boston his home once again.  Despite his occasionally bizarre behavior, fans are glad to see him in Boston's colors each season, and with his recent milestone of five hundred home runs, Ramirez has made another entry for himself in the history books.

When Jerry Yang set his sights on Stanford University he was interested in electrical engineering. However, he soon discovered that a career in computer science could be extremely lucrative.

When Yang first launched his website, the internet was just beginning to catch on.  In 1994, Yang decided to put together a site that he called "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web," that was going to act as a kind of web portal or directory for the web.  A name change in 1995, along with incorporated status, led to Yahoo! which quickly became one of the most popular network servers in existence.  The internet business venture that Yang launched with a friend from Stanford quickly earned the bright young man a generous salary. Today, with Yahoo! hosting millions of users, Yang has earned over $2.3 billion and is among the richest people in the world.

Of course, all that wealth and success doesn't come without a few drawbacks as well.  Yang sustained an incredible amount of heat for his handling of an incident involving a Chinese journalist.  Journalist Shi Tao used a Yahoo! email address to send information to a pro-democracy group, informing them that the Chinese government had forbidden their media from covering the events surrounding the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Protests.  Yahoo! provided the Chinese government with the information about who sent the email and where it came from, allowing them to identify and arrest Shi Tao.  While Yang, who considers himself to be Chinese American, originally argued that Yahoo! had a responsibility to obey the laws of the nations that they do business with, he later offered monetary assistance to the family of the arrested journalist.