Flip the Script: How to Turn the Tables and Win in Business and Life

From Condé Nast’s publishing director—in charge of Glamour, W, Details, and Bon Apetit, comes Flip the Script—a hip and refreshing lifestyle guide that shows readers how to turn negative situations around and create new opportunities for growth.

Have you ever felt stuck in your career or in your personal life? Do you want to write new and exciting chapters to the story of your life? You just have to learn to flip the script. Few executives in media today are as well respected for their ability to turn a business or situation around as Bill Wackermann. As a leading executive in the publishing industry he is esteemed for his powerful combination of business ingenuity and innovative branding. The New York Times has heralded his work, stating, “Mr. Wackermann is becoming known for the offbeat campaigns he creates,” and Fashion Week Daily called him “Times Square’s turnaround artist.” His simple approach to this kind of transformation transcends the publishing industry, impacting the worlds of entertainment, fashion, and art. Here, in his hip lifestyle guide, he shows how to turn negative situations around and how to create new opportunities for business and personal growth.

Through helpful tips and engaging stories, Wackermann empowers readers to embrace self-knowledge and be confident of their individual talents. With great energy and enthusiasm, he presents a clear and clever program for how people can turn their lives around, essentially discovering how to “flip the script” by identifying prospects where none existed and rewriting their personal stories for the better. He encourages readers to think of ways to turn every problem or situation around to their benefit. Packed with advice such as how to watch for potential openings that might be right in front of you or how to embrace a mantra of personal responsibility, his book draws on eye-opening stories from his life and the lives of friends and colleagues to show how readers can start to find success today.

Flip the Script is a highly intuitive and engrossing guide for everyone from entry level to the corner office. Wackermann shares his results-oriented approach to life and business, which has taken him from brash young upstart to seasoned executive, making it clear to younger readers, in particular, that they too can seize the director’s chair and come out on top.

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I have read many books on how to succeed in business, and often, after reading them, I have been left wondering if the authors’ own experiences were relatable to the average person. The advice in many of the books tended to be either too scholarly or too complicated to incorporate into real life. The lack of a better-grounded, reality-based approach to guiding others to success inspired me to think about my own experiences. My success in life and business has come in the absence of any extraordinary opportunity or vision. Mine is a journey from a family of six children who struggled monthly to make ends meet to a career in one of publishing’s glittering ivory towers. From New York to Paris, from the world of fashion and beauty to the back lots of Hollywood, my success has come from “flipping the script” and creating opportunities where none existed. Flipping the script is my unique approach to turning tables and gaining control. — from Flip the Script

Bill Wackermann is Executive Vice President and Publishing Director at Conde Nast. He is the youngest Executive Vice President in Conde Nast history, having overseen Glamour, W, Details and Bon Appetit magazines.