“If you only walk away with one thing…. The secret to success is focusing on the right things,” explained entrepreneur Lee Silber to a packed room in the Conservatory Annex on Tuesday, March 4.

A best-selling author of advice books, Silber knows the art of the gimmick. As weather-bedraggled students trickled into the room, they found a clothespin attached to a handout on each of their seats. The handout listed the ten skills needed for “making it” in the creative arts and instructions for turning the handout into a paper airplane.

Later, Silber put a piece of paper in a metal tin for each aspect of creative career management and then set the papers on fire. Swooping the lid onto the container, he extinguished the flame. Then, he removed the lid to reveal an unharmed piece of paper labeled “success.” Gregarious and vivacious, Silber and his dramatic presentation style — laced with offers of free books to particularly enthusiastic volunteers — easily engaged the audience.

Silber, who hails from California, is a guru of career management for people in creative professions, went through his early high school days as a self-described “beach bum.” In an earlier private presentation to Conservatory Professor of Flute Kathleen Chastain’s Professional Development for the Freelance Artist class, he explained how he began to change his life as a result of reading The Winner’s Edge by Denis Waitley. Thanks to the book he made the honor roll, and that is when Silber says he became a “goalaholic” and a “pusher” who tries to inspire other people to make, follow and attain their goals.

When Silber graduated from high school, he and his brothers decided to combine their surfing obsession with business and opened a surf shop. Within the first three months, their store had sold over $285,000 of merchandise. He has since moved on to being a graphic artist, a motivational speaker and, of course, a best-selling author.

Reminiscent of the sentiments in The Secret, Silber declared, “What you want, wants you.” Silber insisted that “positive people attract positive things” and so artists may want to consider shedding some of that stereotypical angsty-artist persona. He recommended that artists immerse themselves in the success stories of people they admire in their field of expertise, whether it’s playing the flute or oil painting, because it “makes your excuses bogus.” If those artists can make a living doing what they love, so can anyone.

Silber’s advice went beyond such broad comments to specific “action items” that could help goals turn into realities. He recommended such basic ideas as doubling a person’s current output of handwritten thank you notes, “a lost art” in the current era. He suggested that students “set a goal to meet as many people as possible” and always grab opportunities to display talent because “you never know who will be in the audience.”

Claiming that it helped him become a much better presenter, Silber urged the listeners to join a local Toastmasters public speaking group. He particularly focused on creating vision statements that encompass audio, pictures and writing by using iPhoto.

As marketing- and business-wary as artists may be, Silber asks them to apply a creative slant to their business approach. Silber maintains, “You don’t have to sell out to sell yourself.”