OFF the CUFF

  • Weight Watchers CEO: Forget Willpower and Do This Instead

    By CNBC | Off the Cuff – Wed, Jan 30, 2013 4:00 AM EST

    Every morning David Kirchhoff springs out of bed, grabs the exercise clothes he’s laid out the night before, works out, and has breakfast. Every single morning, the same routine, the same breakfast: oatmeal with blueberries and banana, a non-fat Greek yogurt, some grapes, and coffee. “I’ve learned to make myself a creature of habit,” he told Off the Cuff.
    Kirchhoff is the CEO of Weight Watchers International.

    When he joined the company in 2000, he was 34 years old and weighed 245 pounds. He lost 40 pounds through the Weight Watchers program and kept it off (No, it wasn’t part of his contract -- we asked). The key, he says, is to accept that if you struggle with weight, you probably always will. “If you’re depending on willpower, it’s always going to let you down. Whereas when you start making healthy choices the automatic choice, living in a healthier way becomes a much easier prospect. All of a sudden, you don’t need willpower.”

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  • Dolly Lenz: Secrets of Selling to the Rich and Famous

    By CNBC | Off the Cuff – Mon, Jan 28, 2013 4:00 AM EST

    She says she’s sold more than $8.5 billion in real estate during her career– more than any other broker based in the U.S. She makes a reported $8 million a year in commissions. Sometimes she has three Blackberries, sometimes 10. She sleeps an average of four hours a night; hasn’t taken a vacation in more than 20 years; and runs 10 miles every day. That’s Dolly Lenz, by the numbers.

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  • John Mackey, the co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, seems like a man of contradictions. His company’s motto is “Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet” -- yet he says there’s an upside to global warming, and he’s reportedly wary of labor unions. He’s a vegan with a self-described Libertarian bent. He’s grown his business to an $11 billion Fortune 300 company, but his salary is $1 per year. To 70,000 team members, he’s the boss. Still, as he told Off the Cuff, “I sometimes put my foot in my mouth.”

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  • From Cultural Revolution to 3D Revolution

    By CNBC | Off the Cuff – Mon, Jan 21, 2013 9:54 PM EST

    “When I was in China I was told that I was a nobody.”

    When she was eight, Ping Fu was a half-starved child laborer, forcibly “re-educated” by Maoist Red Guards. When she was in her thirties, she co-founded a pioneering U.S. software design company, Geomagic, which creates 3-D technologies for design and engineering. Her path from one life to the other is an extraordinary story of survival, grit, and the power of reinvention. She would call it The American Dream.

    “I believe that behind every closed door there is an open space,” Ping Fu told CNBC’s “Off the Cuff.” “Life is a mountain range that you go up and down. It’s kind of like traveling through the mountains, sometimes you don’t see that there is a road behind that mountain.”

    In 1966, Fu was taken from her well-to-do family and sent to live in a dormitory in Nanjing with her younger sister. From ages eight to 18, she didn’t set foot in a classroom. During the period of the Cultural Revolution, her parents were exiled to the countryside, and Fu was left to fend for herself and her sister. “I became a mother when I was eight,” she said.

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About Off the Cuff

Ever wondered what your boss eats for breakfast? Or why he or she works 24/7? Off the Cuff takes you outside the boardroom to show you what high-impact leaders do off the clock. Every week, corporate tycoons will answer questions about what they like (and loathe), what makes them get up in the morning, what inspires them, and what makes them the most proud.

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