In The Entrepreneurial Way, Jacob Busani takes readers on a month-long journey through the world of entrepreneurship. Each chapter must be read on a different day over thirty days, and each day is dedicated to a different topic relevant to being an entrepreneur. The book is intended for the busy person who may have only five to ten minutes a day to read, so each chapter is only a few pages long, but brings a topic to the forefront of the reader’s mind, offers inspiring quotes to back up the reading. topic and then a series of exercise questions so that the reader can act on the topic for that day.
The book begins with what may be the most important topic of all: mindset. Busani begins by quoting the famous saying of Henry Ford: “If you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.” Busani says Ford was absolutely correct in this statement. If we want to be entrepreneurs, we must take control of our minds. We have to believe that we can be entrepreneurs and we have to learn to be our own bosses.
Many other topics follow. For example, day 2 is about vision. In it, Busani describes the importance of communicating to customers why you do what you do in order to provide the best experience for your customers. Day 8: No guarantees analyze the importance of working because you are passionate about what you do and believe in your business. Busani reminds entrepreneurs that, especially in the beginning, 80 percent of what they do will not get paid, but those who only do what they pay never get rich. If you spend time building your business, you will eventually reap the rewards. One of the most important topics is Day 10: Focus. Here, Busani dismisses the myth of multitasking because it destroys focus and also makes tasks take longer. Instead, it tells us to focus on one task at a time if we want to make progress on our goals and manage our time correctly. Other daily themes include Day 13: Commitment, Day 15: Procrastination, and Day 25: Leadership, where Busani recommends: “Always say, ‘I want my people to earn more than I want them to earn for me.’ That’s valuable. There is a lot of ROI (return on investment) from seeing that your people are successful. Sometimes, it means that they leave the company to pursue their own passions. “
Some statements like the last one may come as surprising, but as a former call center manager and entrepreneur for a dozen years, I completely agree with Busani. The more you support your employees, the happier and more prosperous everyone will be. Therefore, I am grateful that throughout these pages, Busani offers practical and honest advice, based on experience, that will definitely benefit anyone who adopts them.
Adopting and applying the material is easy for readers because each day is followed by a short exercise. The exercises help readers reflect on what they have learned from that day’s lesson and take action to succeed as entrepreneurs. For example, Day 20: Finding the Right Mentor asks you to think about how a mentor could help you. He then asks you to list five mentors in your field and do a little research on each of them to see how they might help you. Day 26: Residual Income asks you to brainstorm ways you could generate residual income and then outline a plan for doing so. None of the exercises are too taxing on the brain, instead they put you into entrepreneurial thinking, and ultimately the result will be that thinking becomes habitual.
Finally, each chapter ends with several wonderful inspirational quotes. Yes, Busani quotes famous people like Thomas Jefferson, who said, “I find that the more I work, the luckier I seem to get” and Mark Twain: “Stay away from little people who try to belittle your ambitions. Little people always do that, but the really great makes you feel that you too can become great. ” But my two favorite quotes from the book are actually both from Anonymous: “You can’t have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic” and “No matter how busy you are or how busy you think you are, work will always be there tomorrow, but your friends may not be. ” Yes, work-life balance is also a topic of The Entrepreneurial Way and one of the most important for entrepreneurs who tend to be workaholics.
I encourage you to embark on the journey of The Entrepreneurial Way. Because reading this book and applying its concepts will only take you five to ten minutes a day, your investment will be minimal, but the return on that investment will likely be immeasurable.
