Mind Matters

Michael E. Gerber has crafted an entire career in and around the topic of entrepreneurship. His latest book is Awakening the Entrepreneur Within. He certainly has the concept of networking down cold. On the cover above the title is a blurb from Jack Canfield, no slouch himself when it comes to entrepreneurship. The foreword is by Ken Blanchard, another heavy hitter in these circles. Inside are 55 other endorsements. A bit of overkill, if you ask me. This book does have some good information but is also a sales pitch for Gerber’s latest venture, The Dreaming Room. For a mere $5,000, you, too, can work for two and a half days with Gerber, then form your own Dreaming Group with six people you want to help you achieve your dream. And each of them will have to come to the Dreaming Room. After all this has taken place, you will purportedly have the support of an international Dream network. You can also revisit the Dreaming Room at any time, providing you bring another dreamer with you. It sounds like an awful lot of cash going into Gerber’s pocket to me.
Gerber breaks the entrepreneurial personality into the Dreamer, the Thinker, the Storyteller, and the Leader. But his examples show these traits as occurring in partnership rather than in an individual.
Nearly half the book discusses in depth another company that Gerber is creating, or maybe is just imagining in order to illustrate his ideas.
The most valuable insight I got was that entrepreneurship is not about the one who creates. It is about the one who consumes. You can dream all you want but if nobody is buying you won’t succeed.

Labels: business, dreaming, entrepreneurship, Michael E. Gerber

I am a sucker for these "One Minute" books. They are easy to read and pack in so much good info. This one follows the life cycle of a business and shows the pitfalls that can easily occur at various stages. I really like the idea of keeping a notebook full of nuggets of good advice. I only wish I were lucky enough to have such dynamos as mentors.

Labels: blanchard, entrepreneurship, mentors, self help

I was familiar with Amy Sutherland since I had read her earlier book about cooking contests. When I got her later book, What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers, I was equally impressed. She spent a year interacting with professional animal trainers and then began applying what she observed in dealing with her husband, friends, family--even people behind her in line at the bank. She gives all the basics of behavioral psychology in a very easy-to-read manner. Her use of examples from her own life shows that the techniques really do work quite successfully on husbands and other two legged animals.

Labels: behavioral psychology, husbands, love, marriage