Monday, March 10, 2014

Book Review: Ten Steps Ahead

I'm always looking for new business books when I'm at the local used bookstore. I had struck out recently by reading a book from the early 2000's that was already out-of-date so I was glad to see Ten Steps Ahead (2011) in the clearance area. Erik Calonius presents some different attributes on business visionaries of both past and present.

He does a great job of incorporating already widely-known principles, such as emotional intelligence and visualization. The most interesting part for me was the part on luck. I consider myself very lucky in my personal and professional lives, but it's not what I would typically think of as pure luck. Pure luck doesn't really exist (the planets can never really align). It's not only hard work that goes into luck, as Calonius describes, but a positive attitude and calculated intuition.

In addition to the luck section, I also really enjoyed his personal interview anecdotes that brought a closeness to these past and present visionaries. Great, quick read.