Review

Rating: 7

“You can do anything you want to do; you can be anything you want to be; you can climb the highest mountains and swim the deepest rivers. All you need is a dream, a plan, and the get-up-and-go to pry your backside off the couch and make it happen.”

I’ve been traveling a lot lately, and it’s given me a lot of airplane time. Although this is not a lot of fun (as you road warriors will attest), it does give me time to read a few good books.

I’ve read 5 very good books in the past few weeks and it was hard to choose the one to share with you this month. So, I picked the one I just finished. It’s called, “Everything I Know About Business I Learned From My Mama” by Tim Knox.

I have to admit, this book is getting a lot of buzz, and I hadn’t heard of Tim before (even though he’s a well-known writer and Internet Marketer). I’m glad my plane got delayed last week and I found this book in a Dallas airport bookstore.

Tim’s approach in this book reflects his background and personality - down-home, common sense, honest rags-to-riches business advice. Clearly, you will see in this book that Tim did not achieve success because of his education or pedigree. In fact, when you read about Tim’s father throughout the book, you wonder how the heck he became a successful entrepreneur.

What this proves to me is that it’s not one’s education, nor their upbringing, nor blind luck that one becomes a successful entrepreneur and business owner. No, it’s something that the Creator endows in us and we take that amazing skill set to create businesses from scratch. You can’t explain it fully to anyone except another entrepreneur. In fact, when I try to explain how I am wired to someone “that doesn’t get it”, I get validation that the world made up of a few that want to employ and many that want to be employed. That’s just how it is. That’s probably why I found this book to captivating and was able to read it in about 2 hours. I relate to Tim.

As business books go, Tim’s book is way more entertaining than most. He weaves his southern sense of humor into nearly every page. I especially enjoyed the biographical narrative where I learned about his childhood and early business activities. As you move through the book, Tim delivers a mini-MBA in creating and launching a business that is a can’t miss for new business owners.

I took two valuable lessons from this book. First, in order to achieve a dream, you need to create a plan and get off your backside. Doing is the hard part of dreaming. Secondly, Tim has some great advice on how to deal with customers. Certainly, how to treat them right, but how not get abused by them. Business owners would be smart to pay attention to how Tim teaches you to “give a customer the boot”.

Do yourself a favor and pick up this book. Now, go do something!