A
few months ago, I had the opportunity to meet longtime entrepreneur and author
Barry Moltz in our shared hometown of Chicago. Barry has founded and run small businesses
for more than 15 years, and he’s a nationally recognized expert on
entrepreneurship who has given hundreds of speeches to audiences ranging from
20 to 20,000. Not surprisingly, he was
recently elected to the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame.
When
Barry sent me a copy of his new book, Bounce, I wasn’t sure what to
expect. I’d heard it was good, but I’ve
read dozens of good books on entrepreneurship and leadership. But Bounce was particularly entertaining and
memorable. It did two things for me that
few books have done – it made me feel better about my personal experiences with
achievement and failure and gave me hope for whatever may happen in my future.
Barry
uses accounts from his personal journey as well as interviews with dozens of
business executives and real-world analogies from one-hit wonders and comic
book heroes to space missions and indigenous peoples to demonstrate practical
points about the natural ebb and flow of all business careers. In his description of widely accepted
archetypes of success (making something from nothing, the rich get richer, and
the extraordinary comeback), Barry eschews the notion that the path to success
is predictable and repeatable. And by
advocating that your overall process matters much more than any one outcome and
teaching entrepreneurs and business leaders to develop resiliency, Bounce
provides a framework for moving forward from just about any negative event.
Barry’s prescription for building business confidence includes advice on the
following:
·
Humility: We all screw up, and
randomness and luck play a large role in success, so “right size” your ego.
·
Fear of Failure: It’s okay to be afraid, but make the nervous
butterflies act in formation. If you can
handle the potential outcome, act.
Experience builds confidence.
·
Risk Taking: Know if the reward will
be worth the risk. Enlist others to help
you in making that decision.
·
Measurement: Money does not buy happiness. For you, what does?
If you’re an ambitious soul working in the business world, you’ll be better off for having read Bounce. I am.
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