James Marshall Reilly is an entrepreneur and journalist who set out on a mission to find out exactly how the most successful of this generation—top business leaders, ideators, humanitarians and social entrepreneurs—have defined and achieved success. And what he discovered is that we have landed in a new place not only in terms of generational expectations and new technology, but in terms of education, perceived limitations, and the job market as well. Now he’s teaching other people—whether they are running a company or looking for their dream job—how they can achieve a higher level of success in this new marketplace.

His book, Shake the World: It’s Not About Finding a Job, It’s About Creating a Life (Penguin/Portfolio, December, 2011), features in-depth interviews with Tony Hsieh (Zappos), Doug Ulman (CEO and President of LIVESTRONG), Bobby Chang (Founder of Incase, the largest supplier/designer of Apple cases in the world), Elizabeth Gore (Executive Director of Global Partnerships at the United Nations Foundation), and Blake Mycoskie (Founder of TOMS), along with many of the other top entrepreneurs, business leaders, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, and humanitarians on the planet. What he learned was that despite their different fields of interest, they’re all using similar tools to seize opportunities and redefine success. But perhaps more importantly, he concluded that the rest of us can model the behaviors of these highly successful individuals as a means to achieve and sustain success of our own, however we may individually define the term.

How is it that some people are able to convert small, seemingly ordinary life experiences into power, money, happiness and global change of unprecedented magnitude? What does microlending in Tanzania have to do with the Industrial Revolution? What can Napster and Netflix teach us about getting a job? How does acting as a disruptive force within industry relate to riding a bike or our own career trajectories? How can taking a series of small, mitigated risks result in a world-changing initiative that saves the lives of millions? How can approaching problems and challenges from unique angles lead to the development of a multimillion-dollar company? And, most importantly, how do these stories relate to us? What can we do to create the lives, careers, and opportunities that will leave us feeling well balanced and happy?

Taking the practical advice given by each of his interview subjects, and falling back on a decade of experience in branding and marketing while working with some of the most celebrated individuals in the world, Reilly hopes to outline a new, actionable blueprint from which we can all craft extraordinary success on our own terms.