The Clifton Review

The Clifton Review is a tri-weekly column that examines the question of the Clifton project along with the evolution of the war between two billionaires. We covered the start of this war with articles describing the battle over easement rights, the mysterious burning of a home, the blocks to rebuilding, and countless questionable court filings.
The 2018 series salutes fashion mogul Peter Nygard’s Golden Jubilee detailing his rags to riches story and incredible business success over these past fifty years. The Clifton Review will take an inside look at how he did it.

Inside Secrets to Nygard’s Phenomenal Success

By P.J. Malone

Whenever someone is exceptionally successful at something, there must be something he or she is doing that others are generally not doing. In taking an inside look at fashion mogul Peter Nygard’s fifty years of success in the fashion industry, we’ve made some interesting discoveries.

The biggest determinant of Peter Nygard’s success appears to be the combination of characteristics and mental attitude he brings to his business, a business he invested eight thousand dollars in when it was a struggling 800-thousand-dollar enterprise.

So how did he get the business to 800 million dollars fifty years later?

Well, it begins with his belief that nothing is impossible. It is likely the single most influential factor in Peter Nygard’s exponential business success. This belief has driven his approach his business and its practices.

For one, it causes him to always take a solution-oriented approach to his business. This is a big deal.

The significance of a solution-oriented approach is perfectly illustrated in the United States Apollo 13 space mission story. It’s a situation that business consultants have used as a great example to demonstrate an important lesson for businesses.

Many may have heard the term and even used the term “Houston, we have a problem” without realizing where it may have come from.

That statement by the lead Astronaut while they were in space on the Apollo 13 space mission began a critical journey for the ‘rocket scientists’ on the ground responsible for their safe return.

The Apollo 13 Astronauts were in trouble in space with challenges that would have prevented them from returning to earth alive. The Chief of the Apollo 13 mission on the ground at NASA had one goal: “Bring the astronauts home.”

This is the goal he communicated over and over to the engineering team on the ground working on the problems faced by Apollo 13 in space. And when the engineers would come to him with what couldn’t be done, he would send them away. No matter how many times they came to him to explain what problems they faced trying to find a solution, he kept reminding them of the goal—bring the astronauts home.

In essence, he told them that he didn’t want to hear what couldn’t work. He wanted to hear what would bring the astronauts home. In other words, he kept directing them to focus on the resolution and not on the challenges.

There is no doubt that the Apollo 13 mission would have been doomed with the American people having to mourn the death of their astronauts if the team on the ground was not able to come up with a workable solution for the Apollo 13 astronauts to return to earth safely.

While Peter Nygard’s business missions are not so dire, his approach to every objective and goal is to ‘bring the astronauts home’. No matter what he wants to achieve, he works with the premise that without a shadow of a doubt, nothing is impossible.