Tag: 2020Refocus

Book Review: The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau

“Fire Your Boss, Do What You Love And Work Better To Live More.”

Depending on where you are in your life and career, this book could be positive and inspiring or it could be insufferably ambitious. I found it to be a brew of both. Here’s how.

In a world where we are constantly discouraged by the arduous, harsh and dark journey starting and running a business is, it’s pleasant to read a book that simplifies it and makes it look achievable. The $100 Startup shows how you need three important ingredients to start – a service or product, willing payers and a way to get paid for it. It talks about how you don’t need a lot of money or exceptional training to start a business. Guillebeau advices that what you need is to merge passion and skill with something that people can use. He does, however, warn that not all passions are to be pursued as business because there are passions that people are not willing to pay for.

In the book you’ll find help to outline your business ideas quickly, helping you to solve the challenge of creating the elusive business plan that leaves many stuck. There are also steps to market testing as well as strategies to launching. Guillebeau uses case studies throughout the book; stories of people who quit their jobs and took the leap to start a business that ended up successful, and people who packed their bags to travel the world while making money.

The advice and stories are great but if you’ve already read a number of business or self-help books, this one can sound like a repetition of everything you’ve heard before. The emphasis on combining passion and skill with something people can use is at times dissatisfying and the many case studies are exhausting.

At times, a book has the pure intention of showing the reader all the possibilities out there by focusing on a lot of successful stories but that can make the book stale and create that too-ambitious element. Readers don’t want a book that says, “Sit your butt down, you will fail at this”, but they also don’t want a fairytale-esque self-help because it’s challenging for many people to square that kind of information with their realities.  

I’d recommend it for people with no baggage, no spouse or family to look after. You can’t just up and leave to globe-trot while running a business from your laptop and cafes when you have kids and a spouse with a steady job. Younger people who are still finding themselves and who can afford to make the shittiest mistakes while growing and learning their way to generating income, will probably appreciate it. Also, older people who want to finally do the things they had sacrificed to have a stable family, would appreciate it and take on this kind of journey.   

It can get you going at first but halfway through the book you can easily take a bow, put it down and say, “I get the gist, thank you.” However, the simplicity of how taking the leap and starting, making changes and learning as you go along are some of the gems you’ll walk away with.

⭐⭐

Title: The $100 Startup

Author: Chris Guillebeau

Published: 2012

Genre: Self-help

Our Favourite Quotes From ‘The Greatness Guide’ by Robin Sharma


– “As you live your days, so you craft your life.”

– “Reading is one of the best disciplines I know of to stay ‘on your game’ and at your highest.”

– “We are all flesh and bones. If they can get to greatness – so can you.”

– “Too many of us are afraid to be ourselves. So we give up our dreams to follow the crowd.”

– “Focus plus daily improvement plus time equals genius.”

– “How fully would you show up each day – at work and in life – if retreat just wasn’t an option?”

– “Try not to teach your fears to your kids. Introduce your children to what’s possible.”

– “Be outrageously energetic and madly alive.”

– “Learning or decaying.”

– “Life is short, and the world is small – but it’s really, really wide.”

Have a fantastic week 👊🏿
And don’t forget to read 📖

Review: The Art of War for Women by Chin-Ning Chu

“It’s About the Art, Not the War.”

After reading this book I had to admit that I had not understood Sun Tzu’s The Art of War at all. Could it be that the original text had been written for a male audience and I had failed to interpret it from a female point of view? Whatever the reason I’m happy to have read Chin-Ning Chu’s version.

Whether you want to move up the ladder, get that senior position you’ve been eyeing, break the glass ceiling, deal with a difficult colleague or boss, be a better parent or homemaker, or become a successful entrepreneur, this book will help address some of the things that are holding you back and help you with the way forward.

Before you think that this is some raging feminist book, stop. It’s certainly not anti-men and I think that men can also benefit from reading it. Chin-Ning Chu takes all the principles from ancient text and breathes contemporary life into it, and addresses it to women. Something we need more of.

This book is about effective strategies and how we women can see ourselves as leaders, which a lot of times we shy away from because throughout history we have been misrepresented in a lot ways – too emotional and not built for leadership. A good example of how Chin-Ning Chu applies Sun Tzu’s principles is how with regards to this misrepresentation of women she suggests the art of deception and how we can use this illusion of weakness to our advantage.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, all of it. There are many gems she shares about repackaging womankind and selling the world a new image of womanhood. This encourages you to change the way you see yourself, how you see the roles you play in your personal life and in business. After reading The Art of War for Women you will change the way you think, the way you act and the way you manage yourself, people and situations.

I’d recommend this book to women who have been losing on the battlefield of career and home because they’re women and because they have been fed the lie that they can’t win. The book will teach you about taking a holistic approach to winning. I would also recommend it to people who, like me, have read the original The Art of War by Sun Tzu but couldn’t grasp it or apply it anywhere.

Title: The Art of War for Women

Author: Chin-Ning Chu

Publisher: Broadway Books, New York. 2007

ISBN: 978-0-385-51843-7

Genre: Business & Economics