Familiar wisdom that strengthened by the author’s own story.
Dawson offers insights into entrepreneurship and personal growth via the stories of two well-known figures.
The author, an information technology professional and doctor of education, channels Malcolm Gladwell in this business book. Dawson employs anecdotes from the lives of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and King David to inspire readers to meet present-day challenges. The author emphasizes the ways in which both men, one recent and one in biblical antiquity, found hidden opportunities amid obstacles. In the case of Jobs, Dawson recounts the CEO’s willingness to recalibrate his perspective on Microsoft. Rather than merely treating the Seattle-based software giant as a competitor, Jobs, and Apple, collaborated with their longtime rivals. In the case of David, Dawson focuses on the future king’s decision to fight Goliath at the proper time, pointing out that when David struck Goliath with a stone from his sling, he forewent conventional military means to defeat a rival who always fought within the standard dictates of battle. Avid readers of business books will note that this book follows a well-trodden path by using the lives of famous personages to frame advice. However, Dawson’s book is also a deeply personal account—a kind of bricolage of his own experiences, tips he’s received during his career, and reflections on two people whom he clearly admires. His own experiences drive home the book’s key lessons—emphasizing the necessity of working decisively in pursuit of one’s goals, rather than procrastinating and hoping for circumstances to change. He also writes of his own two-decade long odyssey to first complete a bachelor’s degree and then a doctorate, and he discusses how embracing one’s passions as an entrepreneur or creator can help to drive out self-doubt, which he sees as a silent, persistent enemy of progress.
Familiar wisdom that strengthened by the author’s own story.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.
In this debut memoir, Bahamian millionaire Bastian offers insight into building a business.
The author was a millionaire by the time he was 19, an impressive feat considering he began his working life filling stockpots and rolling napkins in his father’s Nassau restaurant, a locals’ hole-in-the-wall far from the city’s tourist hotels. “In many ways, I started ten steps behind the starting line in a world where opportunities felt few and far between,” writes Bastian in his introduction. A poor student with a gambler’s risk tolerance and a salesman’s eye for an unserved market, the author dropped out of college to launch his own satellite installation business—the first of its kind in the Bahamas—eventually expanding into prepaid phones and other electronics. With this book, Bastian uses his personal experiences to illustrate the steps aspiring entrepreneurs should consider when building their own empires. “My goal isn’t just to tell my story,” he explains; “it’s to provide you with a starting point, a strategy, and the encouragement you need to take your first step toward something bigger.” The book alternates between memoiristic chapters describing the author’s youth and career and instructional chapters outlining the best practices to “become a lion” (his preferred metaphor for a brave, risk-taking captain of industry). From evaluating one’s skill set and choosing a suitable goal to the practicalities of regulation and taxes, Bastian walks the reader through the complicated processes of starting and maintaining a successful enterprise. While much of the advice is of the boilerplate variety, the author offers it with clarity and candor, devoting an entire chapter, for example, on how to fail productively. It is the biographical material that lends his advice unusual weight—Bastian’s stories of flying back and forth between the Bahamas and Miami to personally import satellite dishes are fascinating enough to stand on their own. Readers may be unable to replicate his success, but there is no denying that his tale is inspiring.
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9798891882485
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Advantage Media Group
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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