The Entrepreneur Mind: 100 Essential Beliefs, Characteristics, and Habits of Elite Entrepreneurs Paperback – January 22, 2013

Born in 1979, currently the CEO of Atlanta's Johnson Media Inc., which he founded, Kevin D. Johnson had already established several successful enterprises while still in his twenties. In his excellent book, Johnson offers the would-be entrepreneur 100 guidelines, complete with apt quotations, and enriched by his personal experience, expressed candidly.I liked his comment that going into business to make money is like getting married to get sex. To succeed, one needs more admirable motives. He's not big on "follow your passion" nor "become your own boss," either. Rather, become an entrepreneur if you want to provide goods and services that others value and if you get real pleasure out of doing so. The money will likely follow.He writes well-clearly, interestingly, with many supporting quotes and examples. Neither overly modest nor unwilling to share his failures, Johnson presents some hard truths, including that the entrepreneur has got to be willing to put his business ahead of his family. Talk about not being politically correct!Fortunately, he married a woman in synch with his goals and lifestyle. Surprisingly to me, they have a mortgage. Though it is a form of financial diversification, when you owe money, you are less secure than when you do not. You have to be willing to take risks, Johnson notes, and he has been rich and nearly broke within the last decade or so. It will be interesting to see whether he continues his well-earned winning streak or runs into circumstances that even diligence and talent cannot overcome.Johnson's success is at a scale that puts him within reach of many potential readers. He has multi-million-dollar success rather than mega-million-dollar triumphs, much less the billion-dollar riches of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg or of the founders of Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, etc. If his level is hard for us to reach, it is not out of sight. His advice is relevant to the would-be captain of industry during those early years when such captaincy is just a distant goal.Sub-titled "100 Essential Beliefs, Characteristics, and Habits of Elite Entrepreneurs," his book delivers as promised. The 100 topics are categorized within seven chapters: Strategy, Education, People, Finance, Marketing & Sales, Leadership, and Motivation.Some of my favorites from the 100 are: Think Big; Create New Markets; Build a Company That Is Systems-Dependent, Not People-Dependent; Ask for Help; Business Comes First, Family Second; Hire a Good Lawyer; The Business Plan is Overrated; Fire Your Worst Customers; Technology is an Opportunity, Not a Threat; Always Follow Up; Failure Doesn't Kill You; An Idea's Execution, Not Its Uniqueness, Yields Success; Don't Underestimate Your Competition; School Is Not Necessarily Education; Spend the Majority of Your Time with People Smarter than You; People Don't Only Work for Money; Get the Right Mentor; A Check in Hand Means Nothing; The Biggest Investment in Your Company Is Yours; Your Customer Is Your Boss; Networking Isn't All About You; Act in Spite of How You Feel; Make Difficult Sacrifices; You Are Excited When Monday Morning Arrives; You Are Disappointed When Friday Arrives; You Feel Unequaled Joy When Your Idea Becomes Reality.The book ends with some valuable contact information for Kevin D. Johnson: at Twitter, he is @BizWizKevin; his email is [email protected]; not surprisingly, his web site is TheEntrepreneurMind.com.Mr. Johnson knew he wanted to be a businessman from early on, once he found he was too vertically challenged to make it into the National Basketball Association, even as a point guard. He now has the NBA as one of his premier accounts. He convinced me, however, that his is a route I was glad I had not taken: too much work, too many trivial issues, more stress than I would want. Still, he has hobnobbed with interesting people and seems to have enjoyed his choices.The audience for this book should be those who want to understand successful businessmen and those who are entrepreneurs or are thinking of running their own businesses.

Kevin Johnson writes a very well-received analysis of his successin business and what he did to get there. And his writing is quiteclear and straightforward, which is probably part of what issuccessful about his book.In the spirit of Patrick Bet-David, this is a chronicle of success.And as he reflects on his success, the beliefs and habits andactions that were of use in obtaining that success are defined anddescribed. However, this isn’t five moves; this book is 100 moves.It is a compelling read. It’s not just a look at what you should do— it also discusses what you should not, or what might happen ifyou don’t follow the advice. Which is good because as they say,nothing teaches like a mistake.

Besides the classic advice 1) Think Big 7) Ask for Help 10) Hire a Good Lawyer 12) Require Criticism and Disagreement in Your Company 13) Fire Your Worst Customers 22) Always Follow Up, the author also offers 47) Don't Manage People, Manage Expectations, and other less often heard advice.My only issues were with rules 38) Spend the Majority of Your Time with People Smarter Than You and48) Get the Right Mentor.I read this advice all the time, however, hundreds of small business owners will probably concur that the "right mentors" don't grow on trees, thus may not be available. In connection with 38) and 48) I missed a mentioning of the Internet as a resource. Pete Cashmore, the founder of Mashable, thought up his business concept alone, using only the world wide web as a resource.The author's very best advice: "Don't waste your Time on People Who Can't Say Yes".Gisela Hausmann, author & blogger

I have to thank Kevin dearly for this book. It was this book that helped me get my start as an entrepreneur. This book was the seed that started me on the right path of success. Because of the knowledge I gathered from this book, it has led me towards further development of myself and the molding of my entrepreneur mind. This is something that you should get if you want to be an entrepreneur. Successful people always talk about the importance of copying the steps of other successful people in order for you make it too and potentially a lot quickly, because a lot of the trails and errors have already been done. This book has given me nothing, but gold. This is one of the most valuable books that I own, because it has given me my start and provided the mind priming that I needed. This book has the basics that you need to create your foundation for success. It's also great for advanced people too, because it has some great reminders for you and some things that you didn't even think about trying out. Heck, I might go back and read it again. Let's just say this, if you don't want to be successful, then don't buy this book.Achieving success starts with the right mindset. Before pursuing a life as an entrepreneur you need to first think like one. You need to understand what habits they practice, what morals they follow, and what systems they use. This book provides all of that for you. This book is way underpriced. It could potentially be worth millions to you, if you follow the proven steps that this great book has to offer. The only reason I gave it 5 stars was, because they didn't have 6 stars as an option. Long story short, buy this book today and start your year right.