There is a book out there that forced me to look at my business career and my life in an entirely new manner.  It’s called The Entrepreneur Equation: Evaluating the Realities, Risks, and Rewards of Having Your Own Business by Carol Roth.  People have always looked upon me as a little crazy, if not completely off my rocker.  All this time, I thought it was because I had some really stupid friends.  Not so fast, Skippy (speaking to myself, another reason that my friends…um, nevermind).

Growing up in Birmingham, AL, there weren’t a great deal of entrepreneurial role models (outside of prison) to follow.  Even some of Birmingham’s greatest entrepreneurs are currently serving prison time.  I got bit by the entrepreneurial “bug” when I was in the Navy (living in New England) and thought this was what I wanted to dedicate my life to.  That was 1989.  I thought “Entrepreneurship is easy!  Just get started and saunter to the bank laughing everyday!”  Since 1989, technology has made this a completely different world and entrepreneurship looks easier than ever.  There are many less responsible people that still get people into entrepreneurship today without looking at the downside risks or even mention a “risk/reward ratio.”  I didn’t even know what that phrase meant until I had lost everthing at least a couple of times.

The Entrepreneur Equation: Evaluating the Realities, Risks, and Rewards of Having Your Own Business does just as it’s title says it does.  I laughed several times as I realized that I had made some of the mistakes that Carol outlines in her book.  I also realized a lot of mistakes that I have been making over and over again without solving them (the classic, not to mention expensive, definition of “insanity”).  I realized that my business education (the books I read or should have been reading) was WAY behind the times.  In short, this book will defintiely make you re-think what you do as an entrepreneur and make you re-think IF you should become an entrepreneur in the first place.

This is an outstanding book with a lot of great advice, to your advantage if followed and to your financial detriment if ignored.  It even made me question what I’m doing and I am one stubborn S.O.B.