From Publishers Weekly

Kash, a professor at the Wharton School of Business and an international business consultant, is a self-made millionaire. Starting out without any special connections or advantages, he has managed to make, lose and remake several fortunes. His principles for success are straightforward: take advantage of luck, talk to people even when you don't know who they are, be honest and help others. Kash recalls when he was in a difficult negotiating position with some Japanese investors. When the investors saw Kash stop to help a blind woman on the street, they immediately agreed to close the deal. The reason: they saw him as a helpful, generous man. While Kash is obviously an optimist, he's also realistic: "The first thing you have to realize about business is that rejection is a badge of honor. You don't go anywhere in the business world without taking risks, exposing yourself and your ideas to criticism, and then occasionally experiencing rejection for them. This takes courage." Written in a chatty, informal style, the book is full of anecdotes from Kash's own life, and the upbeat messages are tempered with a dose of humility and wit. Though some of his advice is familiar, Kash's warm, personal tone and emphasis on respect toward others makes this book more appealing than other tomes in this genre. Agent, Linda Roghaar.



Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.







Book Description

The missing link that business schools don?t teach

Without the benefit of an Ivy League education, independent wealth, or powerful connections, Peter Kash achieved outstanding success by recognizing what most businesspeople today do not understand: that success is based on trust and human interaction. With more than 100 examples and anecdotes from his own experience and the experiences of highly successful individuals including Richard Branson and Arnold Schwartzenegger, Kash shows readers how to use this knowledge to recognize opportunities that others have missed and derive maximum value from them. This inspiring book also offers a list of the twenty keys to success, as well as a description and analysis of a business deal from the moment the opportunity presents itself to its successful closing.



Helping new graduates and business people at any stage of their careers identify and adopt the behaviors that lead to success, Make Your Own Luck teaches the overlooked lessons essential to business prosperity.





Kash has a unique perspective on success, and in Make Your Own Luck teaches the overlooked lessons essential to business prosperity:



* Your work life and personal life are intertwined. The first step toward success is to understand what you need from you work and career. The second is to understand what you must do to achieve those goals. Kash draws a roadmap to the kind of destiny you want. * No one can give you the ?perfect? job; you must create it. Opportunities usually show up as coincidences, you must recognize them and ?seize the day.? Kash shows you how to create the kind of career you truly want. * Your values show. And values determine behavior and how you behave affects the opportunities people offer you.



Make Your Own Luck is inspiring as well as practical, and Kash?s analysis of a business deal from the moment the opportunity presents itself through to its successful closing is an eye opener.



About the authors :

Peter Kash, Senior Managing Director and Co-founder, Paramount Capital, Inc., has raised more than $500 million in venture capital and has helped start more than a dozen successful companies. He teaches at the Wharton School of Business, is a visiting professor at a number of institutions, including Nihon University, Japan?s largest, and serves on the Hedge Fund Association Board of Directors.



Tom Monte has been a co-author or ghostwriter on many best-selling books, including Robert Pritikin?s Weight Loss Breakthrough.



(Source : amazon.com)