SELF-MADE IN AMERICA: Plain Talk for Plain People About the Meaning of Success

An engaging and generally instructive guide to succeeding in business, which draws its object lessons mainly from the author's offbeat career. A New York City cop for three years, McCormack left the force to try his luck on Wall Street. While he soon amassed a small fortune trading stocks, he quickly lost it and more when the market turned against him. Down but not out, McCormack apprenticed himself to a series of immigrants who, by dint of their own efforts, had become millionaires in a variety of enterprises (catering, commercial washing machines, etc.). Having learned what he could from these bootstrap mentors (who also afforded him the chance to earn a six-figure income), the author and his wife (an industrious and accomplished hairdresser) left the Northeast for Houston. There, the ambitious couple launched Visible Changes, a chain of mall-based hair salons that has prospered mightily despite the woes of the Long Star State's energy-reliant economy. McCormack's exemplary prescriptions for getting ahead are largely tried-and-true, though his counsel on thrift (i.e., live on 20% of what you make and save the rest) may strike some would-be entrepreneurs as unduly rigorous. Otherwise, he commends diligence, discipline, the capacity to take a longer view, initiative, perseverance, self-improvement, and allied virtues. Motivating employees with monetary rewards, public recognition, and on-the-job training is also important in the author's canon. Although McCormack offers no particularly startling advisories or shortcuts for building a going concern, his anecdotal text brims with zeal and uncommonly sensible suggestions for paying the price required to capitalize on opportunity when it knocks. The bottom line: an ingratiating standout in a crowded field.