Silver Lining SUCCESS STORIES OF PEOPLE WHO CREATED THEIR OWN BUSINESS ...AND A LIFE THEY LOVE by Jennifer A. Slater So, what do YOU want to be when you grow up? Silver Lining has been written to inspire people who have lost their job - or maybe just don't like their job - and don't realize just how close they are to living a life of their dreams. How many of us have grown up believing that the people who have it all must have started out with an edge that we don't have -- money, connections, luck. You'll be surprised to learn that many of the entrepreneurs in this book started without a dime to their name, but through hard work and creativity developed a company they love - a company that defines who they are - and have surpassed their dreams when it comes to happiness, personal satisfaction and financial abundance. A young girl who lost her job in a college bookstore had to turn to selling her own belongings just to pay the rent, having no idea that an idea she came up with would be so successful that within the next couple years she would have 19 franchise stores across the Midwest and eventually see over two hundred Play It Again Sports franchise operations in the nation. (Go Martha!) Did you know that only six years before Best Buy acquired The Geek Squad, Robert Stephens was sitting in his dorm room fixing a friend's computer because he didn't have the money to buy a car to get a real job? Robert Stephens, founder of The Geek Squad, knew what he was good at and what people needed. Bringing a proposal to one of the world's largest electronics giants wasn't the first ingenious idea he thought of, and he shares his thoughts and advice for other entrepreneurs who are just getting started. Who would have guessed that Jessi Walter's love for spending weekends teaching her nieces and nephews how to cook would turn into a company that inspires young chefs from New York to the Hamptons after unexpectedly losing her job on Wall Street? After deciding she had enough of corporate America, Jessi gave herself one year to see if she could make it on her own, and her dedication to her new business and her incredibly creative ideas for marketing enabled her company to skyrocket. Did you ever feel that if you could come up with a simple idea and have it patented it could change your life? Jim Chelossi, owner of a coffee shop in a small town in California, shares how he came to develop the coffee sleeve (no, it wasn't Patrick Dempsey...) which is now sold in stores like Starbucks and other entities around the world, a simple invention that changed his life. And how learning the ropes of patenting an idea can enable you to continue pursuing other inventions and the steps it takes to be a success. Read how these brilliant business owners, along with Jordan Zweigoron, mastermind behind Psycho Donuts, Glen Halloway and Jeff Leighton, creators of Kids Crooked House, JK Rowlings, author of the Harry Potter series, and many others found the silver lining in an otherwise difficult situation, and how the solutions to their biggest challenges can help you create a business and a dream of your own. If you could do anything you wanted and knew you couldn't fail, what would it be? Go for it. The first step in reaching any dream is inspiration -- and the stories in this book will make you realize just how possible it is to set an outrageous goal and then start taking the steps you need to make it happen. What are you waiting for? By this same time next week you could have your goal in place and be waking up every morning ready to do whatever you can to reach that next step. When's the best time to start? Five years ago! What should you do? Start now. Seriously - don't waste another day. What's your silver lining? YOU'RE NOT YOUR PAST - YOU ARE YOUR POTENTIAL |