"Extreme You": Are you living up to your potential?

Sarah Robb O’Hagan is known for being a re-inventor of brands. Beyond her accomplishments at Nike and Virgin Atlantic, Robb O’Hagan successfully led the turnaround of Gatorade’s $5 billion dollar business, and helped reinvent the fitness company Equinox.

Now, the Flywheel CEO is offering advice on how to tap into your true potential with her new book, “Extreme You: Step Up. Stand Out. Kick Ass. Repeat.”

The idea for the book started when Robb O’Hagan was giving a speech at Harvard University, and a young lady was reading her bio during the introduction. She squirmed in her seat because she felt it wasn’t the full truth.

“I was very average as a child. I had some epic fails along the way including getting fired. And I was like, ‘Why are we not actually telling the truth?’ And I realized that our culture of success has become one where we sort of, we just want to look at the good stuff. Then we don’t so much get vulnerable and be honest about some of the truth,” Robb O’Hagan said Wednesday on “CBS This Morning.”

So she’s opening up about her failures as well as successes to show that you have to take risks and fail along the way.

For her book, she interviewed a number of remarkable people ranging from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to tattoo artist Mister Cartoon.

“They all use the same language around how they’ve become successful and had all these very similar traits. Like openness to experience, like super proactive in terms of not waiting to be asked to take an opportunity but jumping in and doing it anyway. And what was really interesting to me is they all continued to push to the next level,” Robb O’Hagan said. “Like just as soon as they get really good at something, they’re like I’ve got to go to the next level and push again.” 

So she encourages everyone to “break yourself to make yourself”: when you get to the top of your game, it’s a good time to explore, Robb O’Hagan said.

Are your current choices in life helping you live up to your extreme potential? Take the Extremer Quiz.