Another business book done. I finished up Fearless by Tim Kintz a few days ago but since finishing it fell on a Thursday I didn’t have a chance to write anything and don’t feel like doing so on a Friday evening. I may enjoy writing these book reviews but not enough to use my Friday evening to do it.
Another demotivating factor was that Fearless wasn’t the best book I’ve read. It wasn’t the worst either but it didn’t really touch upon anything I felt was helpful in any way for a brand audience. The description was written in a way that made it sound like it was written with examples for car sales and direct sales audiences but it felt like it was very specific to car sales only.
If that wasn’t enough there were a few too many references to sports and coaches in sports. I’m not a big sports person so those aren’t helpful and don’t help me relate to anything in reality. I guess the expectation is that everyone loves sports, and we’re supposed to understand them.
I don’t.
That’s not to say the book didn’t have any good qualities. It was short enough to where it’s not a huge time investment. That’s good because it wasn’t a poorly written book and was at least interesting enough to keep reading. There have been books where I had to put them down during the sample. This wasn’t one of those.
And I think in all the irrelevant material to me there were some gems of information. One such quote that I enjoyed is this one…
Effective leadership is what happens when you’re not there.
From Fearless by Tim Kintz
I like that quote because I think it does say a lot about how someone leads. If they’re a good leader then things keep going, success happens, etc. Too many people feel way too attached to their work these days and I feel many have the sense that they’re way more important than they really are.
If they can’t go on PTO for a week without things falling apart then they haven’t been successful in their role. That also means if they’re a leader then they haven’t been a good leader. I’m not so much a leader but I do feel that if I left for a week then nothing bad would happen. Though I’m not sure that’s because I’ve been successful for I’m so replaceable that nobody would miss me 🙂
I am glad I read Fearless because if anything I now know even more of the car sales tricks. It’s a shady business and the more I know about it the more disgusted I am in sales and car sales specifically. The “lost key close?” If a sales person pulled that on me I think I might puke on them.
As you can see I’m not a fan of sales at all. If a company has to rely on sales then it’s likely they aren’t that great to begin with. I don’t think any great company has a sales-based culture, people just come to them and that’s the way it should be.
Overall Fearless by Tim Kintz is a well-written book I’m just not sure it’s useful for a broad audience. It’s short enough, though, that you’re not likely going to waste more than a few days time reading it.
So, if you have a few days the go for it, read the book.
Next Book, Fun Book
I’ve been reading my next book for two solid days now and I must say it’s a great book. I chose The Forgotten Home Child by Genevieve Graham next and I’ve reached where the children are in Toronto after their long journey across the Atlantic Ocean from London.
So far it’s a story of an older lady whose sister recently died and her kids want to know more about them both. She lived an interesting life and I’m looking forward to learning more about how England was at it again up to no good. Oh, and the main character from the book is from Ireland. That seems to be a theme lately in all the books I’ve read.