Shaking Us Out of our Dream Complacency

Crazy Is A Compliment: The Power of Zigging When Everyone Else Zags

Linda Rottenberg, Penguin Group, New York, 2014

I bought this book because some well-known business magazine recommended it as must-reading for our current ‘world of work’. They were right. What this book did for me was drive home with vivid examples and more realistically what so many of its predecessors only tried to teach. Bottom line, “Don’t be afraid to zig when everyone else is zagging even if they call you crazy; in fact, if they don’t, you aren’t zigging enough.”

Linda Rottenberg speaks from experience, both her own and also hundreds of her clients, as the Co-Founder and CEO of Endeavor, whose claim to fame is that they are leading the high-impact entrepreneurship movement around the world.  She also speaks (and writes) as a wife and mother of two young daughters whom she loves very much.

The book is divided into three main sections – Get Going, Go Big, and (not or) Go Home. Read between the lines on that one. Throughout it are sprinkled practical tactics and examples of their implementation and impact. There are also gems like the quote from Sam Walton, “If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.”

In its pages, you’ll discover the formula for ‘entrepreneur’.  Here’s a little hint: It’s a mathematical combination of heart, mind, and fear.

There were also some big surprises. For example, Rottenberg is not a big fan of ‘market research’ and ‘formal business plans’ if it means you aren’t ‘getting going’ and the data is there to back her up.

You’ll also learn about how some very famous name brands and multi-billion dollar businesses got started – in circumstances really not that different than yours and mine. Spanx, now sold worldwide in over 50 countries, is one such example. There are many others.

And if you’re counting on your friends and family – forget it, for the most part. They’ll only hold you back as they tried in Linda’s case.

And becoming successful does not count in Linda’s eyes if in the process you lose your family. Her advice in that area, near the end of the book, is well worth the purchase price. It’s of the same caliber as her advice throughout on how to be successful in pursuing your ‘entrepreneurial’ dream.  Go for it.

Afterthought: In the last few weeks, I have once again been made aware of friends, relatives, and clients that have lost their ‘job’. My advice remains the same. You can improve your chances against being let go 100% by working for yourself. Don’t wait until you’re forced to.  Don’t wait until you get the golden kick out the door.  Find the right dream, the right opportunity, the right timing, and start to work for yourself.  Rottenberg gives you some great “how-to” action steps in that regard. This is a book I would buy every close relative and friend that is in high school right now. The age when my grandfather, my father after him, and even I, never had a day of unemployment in our lives is over. The very educated, the very energetic, the very smart keeners still get laid off if the economy and the sector they’re working in require it. Just consider the oil industry in Canada recently. Get the book and give the book.

• You can read the book right here now: http://astore.amazon.com/accorconsu-20 

Ken B. Godevenos, Accord Resolution Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario. 16/01/24  

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