BUSINESS BRILLIANT
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Business Brilliant: Surprising Lessons from the Greatest Self-Made Business Icons Hardcover
by Lewis Schiff (Author)
In Business Brilliant, Lewis Schiff combines compelling storytelling with ground-breaking research to show the rest of us what America’s self-made rich already know: It’s synergy, not serendipity that produces success.
He explodes common myths about wealth and explains how legendary entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Suze Orman, Steve Jobs, and Warren Buffet have subscribed to a set of priorities that’s completely different from those of the middle class.
Schiff identifies the seven distinct principles practiced by individuals who may or may not be any smarter than the rest of the population, but seem to understand instinctively how money is made. This guide also reveals how these business icons excel in areas of team building, risk management, and leadership development to accumulate their wealth.
He offers a practical four-step program, from choosing one’s livelihood and pinpointing skills to focus on, to negotiating job terms and salary, in order to bring upon greater success.
Business Brilliant by Lewis Schiff, coauthor of The Middle Class Millionaire: The Rise of the New Rich and How They are Changing America and The Armchair Millionaire, can help you can achieve better results in your business and in your career.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Having started Edible Arrangements, an international franchise with more than 1,000 stores, I know that the more “business brilliant” my franchise partners are, the more likely they are to build hugely successful stores. I wish I had read this book a decade ago.” (Tariq Farid, Founder and CEO, Edible Arrangements)
“Whether you are starting a new business or navigating your career, conventional wisdom doesn’t get you very far. Lewis Schiff clearly outlines the true characteristics of success I wish I had read Business Brilliant 25 years ago when we started The Brooklyn Brewery.” (Steve Hindy, Founder and President, Brooklyn Brewery and co-author of Beer School)
“An engaging look at ‘realigning our career-development practices with the world we live in today’… intriguing, different kind of take on the self-help moneymaking genre.” (Kirkus)
“Schiff builds his narrative on solid evidence, including research data comparing and contrasting the self-made person with the usual middle class.” (Booklist)
“…Schiff offers useful insights such as ‘people who are the most brilliant at business are also those who fail most often,’ and urges readers to understand that ‘failure can be good.’” (Publishers Weekly)
“Whether you are starting a new business or navigating your career, conventional wisdom doesn’t get you very far. Lewis Schiff clearly outlines the true characteristics of success I wish I had read Business Brilliant 25 years ago when we started The Brooklyn Brewery.” (Steve Hindy, Founder and President, Brooklyn Brewery and co-author of Beer School)
“An engaging look at ‘realigning our career-development practices with the world we live in today’… intriguing, different kind of take on the self-help moneymaking genre.” (Kirkus)
“Schiff builds his narrative on solid evidence, including research data comparing and contrasting the self-made person with the usual middle class.” (Booklist)
“…Schiff offers useful insights such as ‘people who are the most brilliant at business are also those who fail most often,’ and urges readers to understand that ‘failure can be good.’” (Publishers Weekly)
From the Back Cover
Ask a member of the middle class what it takes to become wealthy, and she'll tell you it takes a bold new idea. Tell that to a self-made millionaire, and he'll vehemently disagree. What explains the difference in mind-set between the self-made wealthy and the rest of us? It's not what you think, as journalist and entrepreneur Lewis Schiff convincingly illustrates through groundbreaking research and compelling storytelling.
For decades, the middle class has believed that the road to success meant working hard and playing by rules passed down from previous generations. But as the 2008 economic crisis has made clear, the old rules no longer apply. While household net worth has declined for most, self-made business leaders—entrepreneurially minded individuals born into the middle class who have accumulated significant wealth—have prospered. What makes these have-mores financially successful while the rest of us have never felt more uncertain about our professional and financial futures?
In Business Brilliant, Lewis Schiff reveals the eye-opening findings from a national survey of middle-class workers and self-made millionaires, offering practical guidance to show the rest of us what America's self-made rich already know. Through his research, he holds a mirror to our most commonly held beliefs about success and then reveals the truth about how wealth is really created by surveying the truly wealthy. In doing so, he explodes the conventional wisdom and identifies the distinct principles practiced by individuals who may or may not be any smarter than the rest of the population but seem to understand instinctively how money is made. They don't employ business-as-usual practices; they adopt a "Business Brilliant" mind-set. The book illustrates how these self-made millionaires choose their careers, negotiate to win, and leverage social networks to accumulate their wealth.
Schiff argues that it is the synergy behind seven uncommon practices, not serendipity or luck, that produces success. He offers a practical four-step program anyone can follow to position themselves to succeed more often and a roadmap to compare your own Business Brilliance to the executives and entrepreneurs who have successfully navigated our rapidly changing economy. While Business Brilliantdoesn't promise to make you rich, it can help you achieve better results in your career and accumulate wealth faster.
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7 Traits That Distinguish Super Successful People From Ordinary Ones
BY LEWIS SCHIFF
How'd Richard Branson, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett do so well? They lived according to these seven strategic, wealth-building principles.
My new book Business Brilliant is based on survey research that found seven key principles of work and wealth-building that super-successful people practice but ordinary people avoid.
Here are stories of seven of the most successful--and wealthiest--people in the world to illustrate each of those seven principles.
1. Guy Laliberte, Cirque du Soleil Founder: Do What You Love, But Follow the Money
Guy Laliberte was a high-school-educated circus clown from Quebec when he led a collective of performers to start Cirque du Soleil. Despite government subsidies, indulgent sponsors, and Laliberte's hard work, the circus barely survived for years while evolving its distinctive style. Laliberte's master stroke was to switch Cirque's status from non-profit to for-profit (with himself as one-third owner). Today he's worth $1.8 billion. Even clowning can be a smart career move, as long you're the owner.
2. Suze Orman, Financial Advisor: Save Less, Earn More
Suze Orman has made a fortune telling people to grow their wealth through frugality, despite having no personal experience in the matter. When Suze was in her mid-30s, she lived high, but was mired in debt. She didn't cut back on luxuries; instead she worked her way out. She did what she loved, followed financial opportunity, and today she is in a situation to spend $300,000 a year traveling the world on private jets. In the end, your time is much better spent seizing opportunities than pinching pennies.
3. Bill Gates, Microsoft Founder: Imitate, Don't Innovate
Bill Gates built one of the world's largest fortunes--$67 billion, according to Forbes--by licensing operating system software to IBM. In actuality, that software was wholly adapted from someone else's code. Gates' Microsoft lacked the innovative capacity to write it from scratch, so it dressed up some code from another company's software, which Microsoft had bought for $25,000. When Gates delivered the second-hand software to IBM, it was on time, but it was so buggy that IBM engineers had to rewrite it completely. Thirty-three years later, no one remembers or cares. Innovation is seldom as important as timely execution of an adequate imitation.
4. Warren Buffett, Investor: Know-How Is Good, Know-Who Is Better
Warren Buffett arrived at his savvy investment philosophy when he was very young, but his know-how was nearly worthless because he personally lacked enough capital to make large market moves. Buffett didn't get rich until he overcame his shyness, recruited members for his investment partnerships, and led those partners in squeezing stock performance out of corporate managers. Case in point: No one gets rich alone.
5. Adam McKay, Hollywood Producer/Director: Win-Win Is a Sure Way to Lose
Adam McKay is one of the most successful producer/directors in Hollywood. He's teamed up with Will Ferrell on Talledega Nights, Step Brothers, The Other Guys, and Anchorman. But his movie-making career might never have happened if he hadn't negotiated a sweetheart deal to produce film shorts while on the writing staff at Saturday Night Live. The secret to landing the deal? He didn't try to play a so-called win-win negotiating game. Instead, he told SNL'stop dog Lorne Michaels that having his own film crew was his price for staying with the show, and he was ready to walk away without it. Michaels paid happily.
6. Richard Branson, Virgin Founder: Spread the Work, Spread the Wealth
Sir Richard Branson suffers from severe dyslexia, but he's come to regard it as his greatest strength. Branson runs his Virgin Group as a venture capital fund that places bets on entrepreneurs with bright ideas that fit the Virgin brand strategy. He's never tempted to micro-manage any of the dozens of Virgin companies because he can't. "If I could read a balance sheet," he once said, "I wouldn't have done anything in life." In sum, work your strengths and get others to work theirs.
7. Steve Jobs, Apple Founder: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Steve Jobs had a vision, back in the 1980s, for a three-dimensional imaging computer that would revolutionize the defense, oil, and medical industries. He was wrong about it, and he lost millions of his own dollars before shutting down production of the $125,000 Pixar Imaging Computer in 1991. At the time, Pixar's only profitable unit was a tiny team of animators using Pixar software to make computer-generated TV commercials--a team that would later form the Pixar movie studio that made Toy Story. And when Jobs died in 2011, more than 70 percent of his $8.3 billion fortune came from his stake in Pixar Studios, in an industry he never had any intention of entering.
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