Entrepreneurship

A hard-line path to successful entrepreneurship for beginners. In the latest book, prolific self-development author Tracy (The Science of Influence, 2019, etc.) offers prospective entrepreneurs methods for reaching one's financial goals. His tone is inspiring ("In entrepreneurship today, you can start with nothing") and his prose highly readable, but more importantly, his advice is no-nonsense--which is where the book diverges from many other entrepreneurship guides. His tips, however, aren't framed as optional, because Tracy learned his lessons the hard way; he lacked a high school diploma and worked as a laborer before becoming a successful entrepreneur. The fifth chapter of his book, in particular, is a treasure trove of tough love, stressing self-sufficiency over entitlement ("Nobody owes you anything....You cannot imagine a successful person who blames all their problems on someone else"). Tracy's "1,000 percent formula" also promises practical magic: It asserts that "if you increase your income by 25 percent per year, then you will, by compounding, increase your income ten times in ten years," and one can do this, he says, by steadily increasing one's productivity. Many of his clients did so in six or seven years, he writes; the author did so in five. Tracy effectively breaks his process down into manageable steps, starting by increasing one's productivity by 2% per month by starting one's day earlier, working harder, staying later, planning every day in advance, and not wasting any time. Chapters incorporate questions that will help readers formulate action plans that cover all the bases, including creating a "realistic" business plan, developing a marketing strategy, and making hiring and firing decisions. Regarding the latter, for instance, Tracy notes that many organizations tend to hire people slowly and fire them quickly ("There is a basic rule that says that the best time to fire a person is the first time it crosses your mind"). Aspiring entrepreneurs will benefit from Tracy's straightforward strategies.

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