Historias de grandes éxitos

by Alan Farnham

Este libro explica, no sólo el éxito de sus protagonistas, sino el éxito recogido en las victorias conseguidas después de una derrota.

Los protagonistas son famosos pero humildes. Todos fueron humillados por sus experiencias y el libro explica el precio que tuvieron que pagar para conseguir el éxito, no sólo para ganar, sino, una vez perdido, ganar de nuevo. Los obstáculos que superaron incluyen incendios, prisión, cáncer, prejuicios raciales, quiebra, y tal vez, el más difícil de todos, las consecuencias del éxito en sí, incluyendo la arrogancia y la complacencia. Los protagonistas de estas 8 historias no sólo tuvieron segundas oportunidades, sino que algunos de ellos disfrutaron de una tercera y cuarta oportunidad.

-Colección de la revista FORBES
-Casos reales y de estudio recomendados para empresas, emprendedores, profesionales y estudiantes de Administración de Empresas.

Genres: Business

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 28, 2000

Reviews

[Ahmed]

Literally all the stories were just

Oh NO *insert bad event* happened to this person

But they worked hard and persevered and everything worked out. Yipeeeee.

[Rafael Coello Gilbert]

Inspirational short stories of succesful people. Wish there were more books like this.

[Patrick]

A great book of inspirational stories about businessmen and women who literally lost what seemed like everything and clawed their way back to health, self-respect, and prosperity. All budding entrepreneurs will benefit from reading about how the twelve people profiled here built a great business or career, lost everything, and then came back. All entrepreneurs will need that kind of mental and emotional resilience if they too want to be successful.

There are some really funny stories in here. I particularly liked the ones about Bruton Smith, CEO of Charlotte Motor Speedway, selling stock shares in his venture out of the back of his car, Emma Chappel's creative efforts to get the funding to launch her minority-focused bank and then get approval from state and federal regulators, and Ron Popeil's early days of learning sales (Ron Popeil founded Ron-co, the company with with those "But, wait, there's more! funky commercials back in the 70's and early 80's...his chapter reads like a funny Will Ferrel movie).

There are some really tough situations in here as well. The creator of the Barbie Doll went to jail because she lost sight of the financial situation in her company, Mattel Toys, right after she had a mastectomy. Don King, the boxing promoter, went to jail for killing a man. Larry Ellison of Oracle basically destroyed half his body in a surfing accident and then nearly destroyed the rest of it while mountain biking during his recovery. Jim Stovall went completely blind at age 29 (but that give him the spark of insight his company is now based on). All of the stories are about setbacks of similar magnitude.

There are a ton of outstanding lessons all entrepreneurs should pay heed to, but the main theme I found in this was that you definitely do not need an MBA to start a successful multi-million dollar...you do need creativity and a never-give-up attitude.

While I love this book and will surely read it again for inspiration, as a non-fiction book it's pretty weak. The writing's OK, not great...sometimes it gets a little hyped up, like a magazine article. For some of the chapters it appears the author just read an authobiography of the subject, and then wrote a short summary. Other appear to have be expanded Forbes magazine articles. In some chapters the author makes a critical statement that really catches your attention but never elaborates...it's like he forgot to cover that matter when he was writing or something (For example, as I read the Don King chapter, the author seems to say that King went to jail twice for killing a man, or that he killed two men on separate occasions, but the section of the chapter dealing with that only mentions one jail term for one man killed). Some chapters include no footnotes for source material -- for most the author used one source for 90% of the material. As a result of reading this book, I'm interested in finding about more information on nearly every person covered here, but this book won't be much help for further research.

So anyway: great book of inspirational stores that all entrepreneurs should enjoy, but a pedestrian work of non-fiction.

Acquired at the Friends of the Library bookstore for the San Clemente, CA public library in Sept 2007.

[Cheree Moore]

I really enjoyed reading these stories of people that did really well in business, then had obstacles to overcome and then rose up again.

[Lori Grant]

A should-read book on entrepreneurial success stories for the knowledge worker or aspiring entrepreneur.

[Littlepudding]

This is filled with inspiration and uplifting stories of people who didn't give up when all odds appeared to be against them.

[Astudillo Karina]

Inspiradores historias

Buen libro, pero la traducción al español no es muy buena, preferiría haber comprado la edición en Inglés. Los relatos son muy interesantes e inspiradores sin embargo