Inventing Joy by Joy Mangano

Inventing articles you need because no one else has thought about it is something very few of us have the follow through to accomplish.

Gutsy women with a plan for business can’t be stopped.

This is the feeling I got as I read this book. Joy Mangano always was one person who saw something and said, “there has to be a better way.” She has a mind that could see the possibilities and the ability to conceptualize what it would look like.

She rarely took no for the final answer. She fought back limitations that men put on her because she was female. Some of her items brought to market was the Miracle Mop (the patent for which she fought to regain when some shifty business people treated her poorly and tried to claim ownership of the product.)

The business gave her backbone as she developed her brand.

Some suggestions she shares are: speak directly to the customer, Also, be honest, don’t forget the customer always decides what is a success.

Joy shares her low points as well as the high points of being an entrepreneur.

This is not a how to book but a story of one gutsy female, as I have said earlier.

No business is a one-person enterprise. You need workers and you need good working conditions. Joy was able to get a good group behind her once she reestablished her right to her inventions.

This book is not a how-to so much as a delightful story of a dreamer who put shoe leather to the dream. And this is what needs to be done. You need more than a dream to succeed. you need the muscle applied to the dream to make it a reality.

 It is important that one sits down and does the work of defining what success means to them. Don’t let others define it for you    Success as defined by Joy is doing what you like and enjoying it. Or another way to define success to stay focused on the product—the core of who you are.

She has said “I see objects that aren’t here. I solve problems no one asked me to solve. I’m an inventor, and I make things.” Product is King in her world.

This book should be read by all dreamers.

It is published by Simon and Schuster and costs $26.00 retail.

Soar ! by T.D. Jakes

“If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you are what you know”, is the way T. D. Jake puts it.

If you have within you the dream or entrepreneurship you need something that can help you attain that goal. This book offers you that help. You need to realize you mustn’t give up if the business doesn't take off on day one.

Jake uses the illustration of an airplane to represent the entrepreneur spirit of starting and maintaining a business idea. “Whatever your business may be, it will never work if you can’t get it off the ground and into the air”

When it comes to certain authors there is an expectation. I was surprised to pick up this book and find it a guide book of encouragement for people who have a dream but lack the  pep talk needed to get started.

Jake handles the need for motivation needed to get started. And once you do that, he points out, there is a need to plan the flight and the landing. That is, what do you see as the outcome of your venture? Most of all it is good if you can plain backwards.

In planning backwards, you put down your goal and work back to what is needed to reach that goal. It takes work and time to be a good entrepreneur. Jake does a good job providing that needed guideline to follow to get your plan in the air.

He suggests wings to your plans.  Inspiration is one wing and innovation is the second. And then you are to practice.

This book is a good needed ‘kick’ for those who dream and wish to venture out.

I would recommend this as a starter business book. I don’t feel it will be much help to one who needs help in the middle years of the venture. But it does light the fire under the dreamer future entrepreneur.

It is published by Hachette Book Group under the imprint FaithWords. It retails at $25.00.