Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Best Business Book

                                            

In the year the US elected its first Reality TV President, how can I not include Daymond John's The Power of Broke book in a list of 2017's best?  John extolls the virtues of building a business on a shoestring.  The "Shark Tank" star has accomplished much, and "his" show has done for the VC process what President Trump's show has done for him... well, not quite!!  My own experience cycling through two distinct entrepreneurial ideas in one year, very much underfunded, certainly invites admiration and suggests wisdom abounds with this approach.

The Subtle Art... by Mark Manson is one I probably should have read a few years ago.  For all the challenges of my marriage and last well paid "gig," in retrospect my family (and I) would be much better off if I had muddled along with an attitude of humor and gratitude (hadn't given a F*ck), rather than seizing the discomfort to quit these two things, engage a financially draining software start-up and write my second nonfiction title (Navies, Petrol and Chocolate: Why Ukraine Matters).  Believe the Trump administration is coming around to a workable policy in Ukraine, but am uncertain that my book had a role there.  It  was a huge sacrifice to write... sacrifices for more than myself.

So Good They Can't Ignore You (Cal Newport) has got to be a fundamental of life and business.  Yes, true passion emerges after hard work, which  invariably is given to you by others, driving  passion and more hard work.  I am excited where eWISE LLC is leading me, contemplating the cyber intrusion detection AND response policy threads. 

Let me end this blog with several caveats:  I have read more fiction this year than business books.  Although Navies ... is a nonfiction book, I also published my first novel (Ukraine Skies, Baltimore Lights) and spent time with some avant garde fiction for inspiration.  Thus, there was little time for reading business material and this review are really a  "to read" list, not a "have  read" list.