Everything I Know About Business I Learned from My Mama

Everything I Know About Business I Learned from My Mama by Tim Knox is nominally a business book. However, it is certainly not your typical business book. The author doesn't tell you what corporate structure (e.g., LLC vs. S-Corp) is best, how to keep the books, or how to manage a Fortune 500 company. Rather, this is a bigger picture view of going into business for yourself. Tim Knox is all about entrepreneurship.

Although this book isn't really a how-to manual with lots of nuts-and-bolts details. It would be a really good book for someone who is thinking of going into business for himself. It even begins with a bunch of reasons why someone shouldn't go into business. If after reading the book, someone still wanted to go into business, he should probably read a few more books before jumping in. (The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It is next on my list to read.)

The book is pretty short and humorous, and the chapters are nice little bite-sized chunks. Here's an attempt as his sense of humor: this would be a great book to keep next to the toilet - each chapter is about one visit long. (I have a special place in my heart for books like that.) I suspect the book was easy for Tim to write since he's been writing newspaper articles for some time. I can easily imagine that many of the chapters are extensions of articles he wrote for the paper, bless his heart.

One minor nit I could pick with the title is that there isn't all that much mention of stuff his mama told him. Rather, there's a fair amount of common sense that one's mother might impart.

I bought this book because I've been listening to Tim on Dan Miller's radio show - see www.48days.com. Dan is a career coach and wrote the book 48 Days to the Work You Love. The two of them spend a lot of time telling people to quit jobs they hate and move towards work they love. The radio show recently ended, and they've switched to an Internet format. The radio shows and the new Internet shows are available as podcasts.

enjoy,
Charles.