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About the Book Life is a journey defined by detours. You wake up every morning and within a few hours you’re hit with a situation that demands a decision inevitably resulting in change. You’re also constantly faced with contradictions - one moment business is flourishing and your product is the hottest thing around. Next, some unexplainable force changes public opinion and you can’t give your stuff away on EBay.
Everyone has to face stressful and confusing situations in their life, but it’s how you deal with them that define who you are. That’s where this book can help you. By combining helpful tactics and strategies from the leading minds of business today along with the personal stories of successful entrepreneurs, Detours and Contradictions will help guide your steps as you come to any crossroads in your professional life. With chapters featuring Entrepreneurship, Cash Flow, Human Resources, Management, Customer Service, Innovation, 21st Century Marketing, and Franchising, you’ll get the tools you’ll need to become comfortable dealing with whatever circumstances life will throw your way.
Detours and Contradictions don’t have to stop you in your tracks. After reading this book, the bumps along the way will appear like road signs changing your direction - for the better.
Detours and Contradictions : The Challenges Of Being an Entrepreneur
About the Author Lawrence J. Spiegel is currently Chairman and President of Spiegel & Utrera, P.A., a law firm with seven offices across the country that has helped thousands of individuals passionate about starting their own business incorporate, draft their leases, secure their trademarks and copyrights and develop their marketing and business model to achieve their entrepreneurial goals.
Until 1993 he was also Co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Personnel One, Inc., at that time Florida’s largest privately owned temporary staffing service. He also served as either general or special counsel to companies such as the Financial Guaranty Corporation, AmeriProperties, Inc., AmeriFinancial, Inc., Mills Family Bakery of North Carolina, Inc., Mills Family Bakery of Alabama, Inc., Jay Lawrence Group, Inc. and thousands of other individuals and businesses.
SNIPPET
FROM THE BOOK, "DETOURS AND CONTRADITIONS"
Many people have the mistaken assumption that to be an entrepreneur you must come up with your own idea for a business and start it from scratch. However, Merriam-Webster says an entrepreneur is someone who organizes, manages, and assumes the risk of a business or enterprise. That could mean a start-up business, or it could mean buying a business or operating a franchise.
Besides, by definition, we’re all entrepreneurs. From the time you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night you make thousands of decisions which involve organizing your thoughts and managing your day. You assume the risks of your daily business, whether that involves dodging midtown traffic at lunch hour or ingesting too much caffeine. You are your own Enterprise, boldly going where you’ve never gone before.
Granted, the term entrepreneur commonly refers to one who starts a business in the economic sense. But the word originates from the French, entreprende, which means, “to undertake.” An entrepreneur is by definition an active participant in their own destiny, embarking on a voyage with no clear end in sight, susceptible to any and all detours and contradictions their journey may bring.
It makes sense that this type of endeavor terrifies people. The idea of leaving a steady job with solid prospects to pursue a new business seems crazy. However, this all depends on your definition of insanity. Many would argue staring at the same four walls sixty hours a week for the bulk of your life is loony, especially if you’re unhappy. If you’re miserable in your current, “safe” job, do you want to look back at your life when you’re seventy years old and tell your grandchildren how excited you were about your corner office?
Your stock options? Can you picture their eyes glazing over from boredom?
Fear causes people to label entrepreneurs as crazy or reckless, at least until their company starts making money, and then they’re touted as enviable geniuses. Money and fame can cloud people’s perceptions, but the entrepreneurs who follow their own vision are typically driven by two primary factors - they like creating their own future and they like being their own boss. Even if they do answer to a superior, they need a sense of creative autonomy to thrive.
This chapter (and indeed this book) is a tool for you to explore what it means to be an entrepreneur. If you’re serious about starting your own business, it’s time to break away the façade and fantasy surrounding entrepreneurship and get your feet wet. The third factor that all entrepreneurs share, and it may burst some bubbles to come to grips with this information, is a willingness to make their idea work at all costs. Everyone loves to watch Oprah and hear about Julie Aigner-Clark who created the “Baby Einstein” videos in her basement and is now a multimillionaire. People tend to shy away from the graphic description of how hard she worked to make her dream a reality. It’s also common to ignore the entrepreneurs who don’t strike it rich and wallow in debt and obscurity for years.
The point - don’t be blindsided by the romantic notion of starting your own business. Use this book and all your available resources to begin the challenging yet fulfilling journey of entrepreneurship. As we’ll see in this chapter, having a marketable idea is only the first step in a lengthy process. Along the way you’ll encounter numerous detours and contradictions, risks and rewards. The trick is to enjoy the ride rather than focus on your destination.
It’s very easy to dream about becoming rich and famous as an entrepreneur and put on blinders for ten years while you begrudgingly strive to be the next Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com. But if all you care about is money and status, how is that different from climbing the corporate ladder?
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