Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain

May 30, 2011
Bad boy makes good in this energetically recounted rags-to-riches success story. Blair's placid middle-class family was abruptly disrupted when his father became hooked on drugs and abandoned the family. Blair got involved with a gang, and had multiple and violent run-ins with the law, but salvation came in the form of a successful and encouraging stepfather, who started him working and became his first real mentor. The survival instincts he earned in his scrappy adolescence became his greatest asset as he created his first company, and Blair tells the story of his rise to success in the hopes that readers might benefit from his philosophies, from the jail cell to the boardroom. His failures and successes, along with a little input from his gurus, coupled with his solid commonsense advice and entrepreneurial life lessons offer an inspiring and helpful story. Readers will find the "nothing-to-lose" mindset and his optimistic, do-anything attitude both charming and encouraging.

July 15, 2011

With veteran co-author Yaeger (with Rex Ryan: Play It Like You Mean It, 2011, etc.), millionaire entrepreneur Blair tells his compelling story: a troubled street kid overcomes a broken home and a drug-addled father to amass a vast fortune before the age of 30.

As tantalizing as that history is, however, the author never really digs into it here beyond referencing his time as a somewhat incongruous Southern California gang-banger. Readers hoping to learn exactly how a scrawny white kid from a formerly stable middle-class life transformed himself into a hard-edged hoodlum—only to renounce it all—will be somewhat disappointed. Rather, Blair provides a course in Entrepreneurism 101 with a rather vague and ill-defined human-interest back story for inspiration. Nonetheless, the author's experience growing small companies and then selling them to larger ones is insightful. In addition to outlining the intricate issues involved in creating a thriving business, he also provides thoughtful commentary on the psyche required by newly minted titans of industry. Could you fire a friend? How about carry a mountain of debt on your back without any clear means of repaying it? Blair asks some seriously tough questions while also illuminating would-be tycoons about the cutthroat nature of the environment they hope to conquer. His candid recounting of his own failures is easily the most enlightening and potentially beneficial part of the book.

Readers may never attain the author's heights, but his advice should help nascent entrepreneurs skirt at least some of the pitfalls ahead.

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