Life Entrepreneurs
Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
"An inspirational and practical guide for anyone who wants to incorporate the dynamic skills of entrepreneurs into their own lives and work.
A new generation of "life entrepreneurs" is emerging: people who apply their vision, talents, creativity, and energy not only to their work but to their entire lives, changing the world for themselves and those around them. In this book, successful entrepreneurs Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek draw on numerous interviews with fifty-five leading entrepreneurs worldwide as well as the wisdom of multiple thought leaders to provide vivid examples, moving vignettes, concrete frameworks, and practical strategies for revving up our work and play through entrepreneurial leadership. This book starts by providing strategies for integrating life, work, and purpose and ends by capturing the implications of the current entrepreneurial boom for our workplaces, learning institutions, communities, and families.
Christopher Gergen (Washington, D.C.) is a founding partner of New Mountain Ventures, co-founder and chairman of SMARTHINKING, Adjunct Professor and Director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Initiative at Duke University, and a life-long entrepreneur,
Gregg Vanourek (Thornton, CO) is a founding partner of New Mountain Ventures, former CEO of Vanourek Consulting Solutions, and former Senior Vice President of School Development for K12 Inc."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This well thought-out, inspirational book is designed to help people creatively construct their best lives "through opportunity, recognition, innovation and action." Experienced entrepreneurs with backgrounds in education, Gergen and Vanourek interviewed 55 individuals who have applied successful business lessons to their personal lives and extracted a number of hands-on lessons for their readers: if you discover your "core identity," learn to recognize opportunities, develop a "life vision" and set clear, purposeful, achievable-but challenging-goals, you too can have an extraordinary life, they claim. While the book's content is standard inspirational fare, the authors have given it a spin that effectively taps into modern day work trends and language and taken their thinking beyond the surface level of many books of this kind. They balance specific advice, such as stumbling blocks to avoid when setting goals, with big ideas concerning "untethering from traditional careers," authenticity and integration. Despite occasionally lapsing into a paternalistic tone, they sprinkle enough juicy first-person accounts throughout their chapters to keep their maxims alive.