Danielle Hughes Authors Self-Help Book, ‘Always Make Your Bed’

Socio-economist Randall Bell, Ph.D. has spent over 25 years studying the habits of the superrich, and he says people who make their beds each morning are up to 206.8% more likely to be millionaires. The seemingly simple act puts you in a productive mindset and gives you a small sense of accomplishment that’ll stick to you and inspire the rest of your day.

When Danielle Hughes started analyzing the routines of successful people like Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey, she says she also found a made bed to be a common thread. “I started waking up every day, praying and then making my bed. Now, some days, those are the only things that got done, but they got done.” Eventually, as it happened, she says, “I was getting more and more done in a day.”

This revelation inspired the title of her new book, Always Make Your Bed: 7 Principles to Dream It, Do It and Get What You Want Out of Life. In it, Renaissance High School’s “dream director” and co-founder of Detroit Speaks, Inc. explores themes like money management, networking and relationships, and how to dust yourself off after failure.

“Stay Ready So You Don’t Have to Get Ready” is all about being prepared, so having business cards, keeping your social media pages fresh and the like, because, as the adage goes, luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

Hughes says she didn’t have much direction growing up; she just barely graduated from high school with a 1.9 GPA. Still, she went on to Oakland Community College, then transferred to Georgia State and left with a bachelor’s in journalism.

She applied for over 50 jobs, and after never hearing back from any of them, she was forced to move back home with her mom. She says she felt like she was going through a sort of pre-life crisis, like she was lost before she’d even really gone anywhere.

But, she was determined. She made a vision board with specific goals, and then set off to turn those dreams into something tangible. Hughes was named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in 2018. A portion of the proceeds from her book sales will go towards the David Jackson Scholarship for Emerging Leaders, benefiting Detroit students and named for Hughes’ late grandfather.

“He was such a huge supporter of education,” she says. He wasn’t one to buy a bunch of toys, Hughes says, but she recalls being allowed to pick out whatever she wanted from the bookstore. Once, the pair walked home with four boxes filled to the flaps with books.