The Mr. Magazine™Interview With Jim McCabe, General Manager & Josh Ellis, Editor In Chief, Success Magazine

“This is more of a general statement of how we look at print as part of our brand. We’re very, very happy to be in the magazine business and we look at the print product as a powerful opportunity for us to be able to put out issues like the “YouEconomy” issue with careful study of interesting issues that are effecting our readers lives in a way that only print can do it. And that is in a format that is long-form, and that people can spend time with and can share with others and that’s durable.” Jim McCabe“You mention all of the different avenues that we have to put the good news about this out and express it to as many people as we can, but yes, the print magazine was the lead edge. That’s where we really wanted to plant the flag was with that identifiable cover that we have on the August issue.” (On the role of print versus all of the other platforms Success has) Josh Ellis“That’s why for us as a magazine and a media brand that is targeted to people and that really wants to be partners with people as they journey to success; that’s why the print product is so important for us. It’s the place where we can have the longer form discussion; it’s durable and we have all of the avenues where people can continue that discussion socially and online and we give them day-to-day inspiration with those vehicles, but nothing can replace print as the durable place for a long-form discussion.” Jim McCabe “The cover story alone is 6,000 words, and that’s just something that you don’t see online very much. People will not sit down for the hour that it takes to read a story that long and from the same website and keep scrolling and scrolling, but in print it’s an enjoyable read, because of things like layout and the feel of the paper. We thought it was so important for our readers to get the entire sense of what has developed in the “YouEconomy” that print is the perfect place to really make the announcement.” Josh EllisTake action and work for yourself in the “YouEconomy.” The upcoming August issue of Success magazine is sounding the trumpet and ushering in the concept/movement that could change people’s professional lives with a positive and affirming message that according to General Manager, Jim McCabe, is both naturally evolved and organically grown. Through the thought process that there are no limits or boundaries except the ones we set for ourselves, the “YouEconomy” and Success magazine will show us how we can free ourselves from all types of restrictive mindsets.I spoke with Jim and editor in chief, Josh Ellis, recently and we talked about this incredibly liberating concept that a person can live and work basically anyway they choose when they decide to follow their passions and become engaged with their own agenda, instead of an employer’s. It’s a fascinating subject matter and definitely worth an expanded special issue of Success, which is what readers will get with the August issue. The magazine is devoting each and every feature, including the 6,000 word cover story, to the “YouEconomy” in some form or fashion. A must read for those ready to take control of their own professional destiny. As Josh and Jim each brought their own passions and ideas to the table, the discussion was lively and informative with a hint of “You can do this too” behind every word. Of course, Mr. Magazine™ already subscribes to the “YouEconomy” with every new magazine that hits newsstands, as his passion would allow for nothing less. And the August issue of Success offers each of its readers the same opportunity to explore their own unique passions.So, without further ado, I hope that you enjoy the Mr. Magazine™interview with Jim McCabe, General Manager & Josh Ellis, Editor In Chief, Success Magazine.But first the sound-bites:On how the magazine’s team is being used to create the “YouEconomy” movement (Jim McCabe): It’s not necessarily that we’re creating a movement; it’s the sense that I think we’ve tapped into something that has naturally evolved, and that’s this sense that people are looking at their lives in a different way for a lot of different reasons.On whether success today is easier or harder than ever (Jim McCabe): What we preach is that there is no universal definition of success. To each individual, success means something different. To some success is very traditional, it means what they can acquire: how big a house they have, how many cars they own, how they travel the world. To others success could mean something very different. Success could mean throwing themselves into charity work to be able to try and find a cure for a disease that’s affected a loved one.On how the “YouEconomy” concept is captured within the pages of the magazine (Josh Ellis): It’s completely representative of what we’ve tried to make the magazine about for as long as I’ve been here. Some people sort of confuse it with something like Money or Fortune, but it hasn’t been that. It’s been a holistic definition of success.On whether the “YouEconomy” humanizes success (Josh Ellis): I think so. As Jim touched on, there were a lot of old definitions and I think it can even go back as far as the Industrial Age. We had this old timey view of what success looked like, but really it’s an individual thing. And so much of what we do and why we settled on the “YouEconomy” name in fact was to make it individual for each person, because each person’s definition of success in this 21st century economic paradigm is really up to them.On how you know when you’ve achieved success (Jim McCabe):That’s a very individual thing. But one thing that we talked a lot about in the magazine as one of the measurements is plain happiness. Are you satisfied with what you’re doing? Do you feel as though the work that you’re putting in is fairly compensated? And are you doing not only the things that you want to do professionally, but are you able to do the things that you want to do personally and developing as an individual to a place that you want to be?On whether the “YouEconomy” formula is the same for everyone when it comes to achieving success and happiness (Jim McCabe): What I think is fascinating about the “You Economy” is that it’s cross generational. There are people in their 50s now who started their careers and were 100% sure they were going to be in corporate America for the rest of their lives and their biggest fear in life was always losing a job and not having an opportunity to earn income and then where that next job was coming from and what they were going to do. And then you also have the younger people, the millennials, who have just come out and have always looked at life differently and aren’t necessarily enamored with signing up with a company forever and having a boss tell them what to do. But the one universal thing that they all have now is immediate opportunity. The one thing that I think the “YouEconomy” eliminates is the unknown.On whether the “YouEconomy” formula is the same for everyone when it comes to achieving success and happiness (Josh Ellis): With our research; we did a Harris Poll, with more than 2,000 adults, and we found that a third of Americans in the workforce have made money in this way within the last year and millennials are the biggest part of it. And so to your question about whether this is an avenue for just about everybody, I think that our research does support that.On the role the print magazine plays in the “YouEconomy” concept versus all of the other platforms Success has (Josh Ellis): You mention all of the different avenues that we have to put the good news about this out and express it to as many people as we can, but yes, the print magazine was the lead edge. That’s where we really wanted to plant the flag was with that identifiable cover that we have on the August issue.On how important it is to spread the message that print is still viable in this digital age (Jim McCabe): This is more of a general statement of how we look at print as part of our brand. We’re very, very happy to be in the magazine business and we look at the print product as a powerful opportunity for us to be able to put out issues like the “YouEconomy” issue with careful study of interesting issues that are effecting our readers lives in a way that only print can do it. And that is in a format that is long-form, and that people can spend time with and can share with others and that’s durable.On how important it is to spread the message that print is still viable in this digital age (Josh Ellis): The other thing too is this was such an important tent-pole for our brand as a whole and in really helping our readers to understand what we’re about and to sort of define, whether they knew it or not, who our readers are. And the cover story alone is 6,000 words, and that’s just something that you don’t see online very much. People will not sit down for the hour that it takes to read a story that long and from the same website and keep scrolling and scrolling, but in print it’s an enjoyable read, because of things like layout and the feel of the paper.On anything else they’d like to add (Jim McCabe): Just that we’re very, very proud of it and I’m extremely proud of it because this is the reflection of Josh’s leadership, taking over the magazine and producing such a quality product so quickly. And taking on a subject that I think is really interesting and newsworthy and groundbreaking. And it’s a reflection of how great a staff he put together for us to be able to do this.On anything else they’d like to add (Josh Ellis): I think that a lot of times a national magazine that isn’t in the New York sphere can be easy to overlook, but doing big issues and really getting out there and trying to produce something that will make a statement is an important way to create some brand awareness. And so this was really a huge issue for the magazine and for everything that we do at Success.On what someone would find them doing if they showed up unexpectedly one evening to their home (Jim McCabe): I’m usually catching up on the day’s news one way or the other, either scanning CNN or Bloomberg or something, or catching up with the Journal or The New York Times or the Post or some of the things that I have to read every day, but haven’t gotten to, and possibly exercising and trying to squeeze that in as well.On what someone would find them doing if they showed up unexpectedly one evening to their home (Josh Ellis): I love to cook; I try to do that as much as I can. But I am a subscriber to several magazines, so I will take some time and read through a few long-form pieces a week. Other than that, playing with the dog or playing video games. (Laughs)On what keeps them up at night (Jim McCabe): These days? The state of politics in the U.S. (Laughs) That really does worry me, because I just think that we’re in a place now where we’ve pushed out a good group of people, a moderate group of people and we’re constantly debating on the fringes as opposed to trying to understand all of the amazing blessings and things we have here.On what keeps them up at night (Josh Ellis): I’m easily fixated on some kind of content that I’m enjoying, so whether I’m reading a magazine story or a book or watching something on Netflix, I have contrary to what a lot of people assume about my generation, a pretty good attention span, so I’m willing to invest some time in entertainment or to learn something new, or to just think about one thing for a long time.And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Jim McCabe, General Manager & Josh Ellis, Editor in Chief, Success magazine.Samir Husni: I was reading about the “YouEconomy” movement in an article in the August issue of Success and it said that it’s much more than money, it’s opportunity for growth, innovation, creating a legacy; it’s about your skills, ideas, your smile. Tell me how you’re taking the magazine and creating the “YouEconomy” movement with the Success team?Jim McCabe: It’s not necessarily that we’re creating a movement; it’s the sense that I think we’ve tapped into something that has naturally evolved, and that’s this sense that people are looking at their lives in a different way for a lot of different reasons.Thirty years ago the way that people looked at their career was very, very different, it was predictable; you knew what courses to study in college if you were going into a certain discipline, you would attach yourself to a company that had a particular path that would allow you to see your future there for decades and the compensation was arranged to give you pensions and other things that made it very comfortable and worthwhile to invest your time there.When the world began to shift and we could go into hundreds of reasons why that was, but that covenant between the worker and the business began to erode and it became much more of a transactional relationship, people began to look at what they were doing for the majority of their lives and instead of just looking at compensation from the financial standpoint, they looked at compensation from a number of different standpoints. They looked at the emotional standpoint, the legacy standpoint, and from a simple happiness standpoint.And these are all things that we’ve preached in the magazine, so naturally what happened was people began to identify with what we were talking about and we began to see this group of people who were growing become much more interested in the things that we were doing. And that’s part of the reason I think you saw our website over the past couple of years go from 300,000 monthly uniques to close to two million. That’s why we have the three million Facebook likes that we have.It’s been a natural marriage of what we have always consistently said. And the circumstances of where people are in their lives have matched that and that’s how we’ve come together.Samir Husni: Do you think achieving success today is easier or harder than ever?Jim McCabe: What we preach is that there is no universal definition of success. To each individual, success means something different. To some success is very traditional, it means what they can acquire: how big a house they have, how many cars they own, how they travel the world.To others success could mean something very different. Success could mean throwing themselves into charity work to be able to try and find a cure for a disease that’s affected a loved one. Success for some people could mean that they just want to surf all day and they need to have the right amount of income to be able to support that, so finding something that they can do in the off-surfing hours to support that lifestyle is important.I think the major difference that we’re in now and one of the major points about the “You Economy” is that there are many accepted definitions of success. In the past, again thirty years ago, there was a pretty universal definition of how people measured each other when it came to success, the size of their home, the type of car they drove. Now, people look at individuals and are very open to saying, OK, they’re living the life that they want to live and I’m fine with that. I’m not going to judge them. They’re successful by their own definition and that’s great.Samir Husni: Josh, how do you take the “YouEconomy” and try and capture it in the pages of the magazine, because you now have to deal with work, play and life?Josh Ellis: It’s completely representative of what we’ve tried to make the magazine about for as long as I’ve been here. Some people sort of confuse it with something like Money or Fortune, but it hasn’t been that. It’s been a holistic definition of success.We redesigned the front of the book to try and encompass as many of the major pillars of how our readers define success and it’s happiness, health, growth and purpose. And I think for a lot of people, especially younger people, millennial readers, the growth and the purpose aspect of success and the “YouEconomy” as an avenue toward that is just a natural fit. We think that younger readers especially, they recognize that there is a certain amount of money that will allow them to live comfortably and to pursue the passions that they want.Jim talked about people who want to surf all day; some people, especially my age, we don’t want to come into an office. We want to work from home or only work 15 hours per week and still be able to make a living doing that and the “YouEconomy” represents a way that that’s possible. It also makes it possible to be able to make a living doing things that we’re passionate about, whether it’s contract labor, something that we have great skills in, or even something as simple as Uber driving. There are so many avenues to entrepreneurship now that the “You Economy” makes perfect sense for us.Samir Husni: With the “YouEconomy,” are you humanizing success?Josh Ellis: I think so. As Jim touched on, there were a lot of old definitions and I think it can even go back as far as the Industrial Age. We had this old timey view of what success looked like, but really it’s an individual thing.And so much of what we do and why we settled on the “YouEconomy” name in fact was to make it individual for each person, because each person’s definition of success in this 21^st century economic paradigm is really up to them. It’s how they want to achieve it, the things that they can do, and this is in a lot of ways where we come in. It’s the things that they can do to supplement their skills and to make themselves more productive or more persuasive, or so many different soft skills that we can teach that are helpful not only in traditional careers, but also in careers as our readers define them for themselves.Samir Husni: Jim, as an achiever, how do you know or when do you feel that you’ve achieved that success with the “YouEconomy?” Do you have a measurement or some sort of guideline that let’s someone know they did it, they achieved success?Jim McCabe: That’s a very individual thing. But one thing that we talked a lot about in the magazine as one of the measurements is plain happiness. Are you satisfied with what you’re doing? Do you feel as though the work that you’re putting in is fairly compensated? And are you doing not only the things that you want to do professionally, but are you able to do the things that you want to do personally and developing as an individual to a place that you want to be?So, that’s a very individual and emotional thing, but I think anybody who has worked in a traditional career has had times when they felt like they were stuck in a job or that they weren’t being recognized or were worried about whether or not they were getting that promotion.And I think taking those equations out and allowing yourself to say that you’re going to be responsible for your own paycheck and everything else that happens gives people a sense of freedom and happiness that if they’re able to meet those goals, which we’re saying in the “You Economy” that there’s so many different options for someone to be able to do that and there are combinations of options out there that allow you to do that, the happiness equation is something that people get.Samir Husni: From what I understand, happiness today is more of a science than an emotion. With that happiness as the anchor for success, do you think that people from all walks of life can achieve the same results from the “YouEconomy” concept, achieve the same level of happiness? Is the “YouEconomy” formula for everyone?Jim McCabe: What I think is fascinating about the “YouEconomy” is that it’s cross generational. There are people in their 50s now who started their careers and were 100% sure they were going to be in corporate America for the rest of their lives and their biggest fear in life was always losing a job and not having an opportunity to earn income and then where that next job was coming from and what they were going to do. And their world was thrown upside-down in the past couple of decades. Some people said it was chapter two or whatever, but people had to reinvent themselves, but there was always that sense that they were rejected by what they thought was the establishment and they didn’t know if they were going to go forward.And then you also have the younger people, the millennials, who have just come out and have always looked at life differently and aren’t necessarily enamored with signing up with a company forever and having a boss tell them what to do. But the one universal thing that they all have now is immediate opportunity. That person who’s been thrown out there, there are tons of things that they can do and tons of ways that they can use the skills that they’ve developed in their career with freelancing or whatever, even if they wanted to do something like drive for Uber, they can immediately still be out there earning an income. So, for the younger folks, there’s the ability to figure out what they really want to do and take time between jobs and earn additional income doing different things as they figure it out.The one thing that I think the “YouEconomy” eliminates is the unknown and the fear of not having access to income. And that was something that drove generations of people. I think one of the most interesting things about the “YouEconomy” from our standpoint is the same people, especially when you’re looking at freelancers, have realized that they were selling themselves short by allowing themselves to be employed by other companies. And what they found was that their work was more valuable than they thought it was. And those companies were willing to pay them more as individual contractors than they were paying them as employees, and that they could work for more people.So, I think that mindset and the ability to take advantage of that has given them a freedom and eliminated a layer of fear that drove people for a long time.Josh Ellis: And I just want to add to that, because I think your question was a little bit about how widely encompassing this is, at least among the population. With our research; we did a Harris Poll, with more than 2,000 adults, and we found that a third of Americans in the workforce have made money in this way within the last year and millennials are the biggest part of it. Of course, they are now like the largest generation in total numbers, but they only make up just over 50% of the “YouEconomy” workforce. People over 55 are 30% of the “YouEconomy” and there’s also a majority of minority participants, 55% of the people in the “YouEconomy” are racial or ethnic minorities.And so to your question about whether this is an avenue for just about everybody, I think that our research does support that.Samir Husni: What role does the printed Success magazine play in all of this and how do the other platforms fit in: the books, videos, website and your video courses? Is the print magazine the anchor for all of this or just a part of it? What drives that relationship that you want to establish between the brand and those generations?Josh Ellis: You mention all of the different avenues that we have to put the good news about this out and express it to as many people as we can, but yes, the print magazine was the lead edge. That’s where we really wanted to plant the flag was with that identifiable cover that we have on the August issue.Jim was getting to the point that a lot of the time people who worked in companies and then became freelancers didn’t realize until after the fact just what a great opportunity this was and I think that’s what our issue is, it’s like a siren call kind of thing to jostle people into understanding what the opportunity is for them now, with what technology has made possible and changes in the economy have made possible.And in the August issue, it isn’t just about the cover story where we’re expressing the total opportunity of the “YouEconomy,” but it’s also every feature in the issue is designed to either speak to people of a certain background, whether they’re women or younger people or older people or anyone wanting to start a traditional business.Or take on something like an Uber’s job, which we‘ve mentioned a couple of times, but that’s just one of the many avenues into this. There are so many others; you can walk dogs and make a living doing it now and find work doing that at the touch of a button on your iPhone. There are also direct selling opportunities where people can find a product that they’re really passionate about and share that with other people in their network. So, what we tried to do was use the entire issue to really highlight what’s available.Samir Husni: How important do you feel it is to spread this message that print is still viable in this digital age?Jim McCabe: This is more of a general statement of how we look at print as part of our brand. We’re very, very happy to be in the magazine business and we look at the print product as a powerful opportunity for us to be able to put out issues like the “You Economy” issue with careful study of interesting issues that are effecting our readers lives in a way that only print can do it. And that is in a format that is long-form, and that people can spend time with and can share with others and that’s durable.We went through a redesign a year ago and as part of that redesign we talked a lot about what we wanted the print product to do and be in our universe of users and readers. And one of the things that we talked a lot about was, and one of the reasons that we changed our paper stock and other things that we did, was because durability was something that was important. We want the print product to be something that people save, use and refer back to and is part of a library that they use in developing the strategy they have to build their own personal level of success.And as Josh said, by taking the entire edit well and looking at this story from different personal angles, from different contributors, that’s something that people will invest hours in and they’ll all invest hours in a print product to do that. So, that’s why for us as a magazine and a media brand that is targeted to people and that really wants to be partners with people as they journey to success; that’s why the print product is so important for us. It’s the place where we can have the longer form discussion; it’s durable and we have all of the avenues where people can continue that discussion socially and online and we give them day-to-day inspiration with those vehicles, but nothing can replace print as the durable place for a long-form discussion.Josh Ellis: The other thing too is this was such an important tent-pole for our brand as a whole and in really helping our readers to understand what we’re about and to sort of define, whether they knew it or not, who our readers are. And the cover story alone is 6,000 words, and that’s just something that you don’t see online very much. People will not sit down for the hour that it takes to read a story that long and from the same website and keep scrolling and scrolling, but in print it’s an enjoyable read, because of things like layout and the feel of the paper.We thought it was so important for our readers to get the entire sense of what has developed in the “You Economy” that print is the perfect place to really make the announcement. Samir Husni: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?Jim McCabe: Just that we’re very, very proud of it and I’m extremely proud of it because this is the reflection of Josh’s leadership, taking over the magazine and producing such a quality product so quickly. And taking on a subject that I think is really interesting and newsworthy and groundbreaking. And it’s a reflection of how great a staff he put together for us to be able to do this.As I said before, we’re happy to be in the magazine business and this is a reflection of the talented group of people we have under Josh.Josh Ellis: I think that a lot of times a national magazine that isn’t in the New York sphere can be easy to overlook, but doing big issues and really getting out there and trying to produce something that will make a statement is an important way to create some brand awareness. And so this was really a huge issue for the magazine and for everything that we do at Success.Samir Husni: If I showed up unexpectedly to your house one evening after work, what would I find you doing; reading a magazine, reading your iPad, watching television, or something else?Jim McCabe: I’m usually catching up on the day’s news one way or the other, either scanning CNN or Bloomberg or something, or catching up with the Journal or The New York Times or the Post or some of the things that I have to read every day, but haven’t gotten to, and possibly exercising and trying to squeeze that in as well.Josh Ellis: I love to cook; I try to do that as much as I can. But I am a subscriber to several magazines, so I will take some time and read through a few long-form pieces a week. Other than that, playing with the dog or playing video games. (Laughs)Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?Jim McCabe: These days? The state of politics in the U.S. (Laughs)Samir Husni: (Laughs too).Jim McCabe: That really does worry me, because I just think that we’re in a place now where we’ve pushed out a good group of people, a moderate group of people and we’re constantly debating on the fringes as opposed to trying to understand all of the amazing blessings and things we have here. And it’s an uneasy time. I have children and they’re going to live in a different world than I lived in, and although they have the opportunities of the “YouEconomy” which is great, I’m just hoping that they can enjoy all of that, plus the freedoms and happiness that I had.Josh Ellis: I’m easily fixated on some kind of content that I’m enjoying, so whether I’m reading a magazine story or a book or watching something on Netflix, I have contrary to what a lot of people assume about my generation, a pretty good attention span, so I’m willing to invest some time in entertainment or to learn something new, or to just think about one thing for a long time. I don’t have any great fears like Jim, but I’m happy to sit down with something and enjoy for a good while.Samir Husni: Thank you.