He Gained Confidence and Got a Big Raise
My wife’s nephew, raised by a drug-addicted and alcoholic mother, had a really tough upbringing and never learned how to succeed. Ultimately he moved from Arizona to California and has been working hard to get his life together and be a good husband and father to their two children. I’m proud of his motivation. He’s a security guard and a hard worker. Earlier this year we became re-acquainted and I sent him a gift copy of my book. The result was a text he sent me that read, “Took some advice from your book, got me $36,000 more a year for my contract. Thanks for sending it to me.”
“I was thrilled that my book empowered him and know that it can empower others,” that is extremely gratifying,” said Stroum.
Writer’s Digest Review
This book places itself well in a specific niche for those of the entrepreneurial spirit and mindset. The lessons Stroum shares from his life and his business processes will be relatable and valuable to folks with a similar mind frame and who are looking to create their own opportunities. He tells these experiences well and thoroughly. I found this book to feel instructive while remaining open and honest about what life actually looks like for someone, like him, who has chosen not to follow the more conventional path for themselves and to instead make their own work and their own way in life. That will connect well with readers. Folks in business book clubs or on their own entrepreneurial adventures would enjoy this read and benefit from Stroum’s experiences.
This book is exemplary in its voice and writing style. It has a unique voice, and the writing style is consistent throughout. The style and tone are also consistent with or will appeal to readers of the intended genre.
— Writer’s Digest
Thinking about your own business in 2026?
If you’re aspiring to become an entrepreneur or leaving your corporate job to start your own business, this book is for you. It is a business memoir that explains how I got started many years ago and gives you lots of personal development advice and helpful business tips too.
“Success and Self-Discovery” can inspire you to make 2026 your best year ever!!
Nothing Happens Unless You Make a Sale.
Many years ago when my photographer visited my office, he was discussing his services with me and was really not that effective. However, I saw through it. He was a fantastic photographer and we began discussing his future. He told me that he wanted to be in business and create images for clients. When I asked him about his marketing program he had a deer in the headlights look on his face. “What marketing program,” he asked.
I explained to him that if he is going to be in the photography business then he has to understand that he is a businessman first who provides photography services. As a businessman he has to create a marketing plan, lead generation activities, make sales calls and the like. These are things I teach thoroughly in my book.
How to create an effective sales presentation and learning how to execute properly is critical to your success as a small businessperson, regardless of what products or services you provide. Why? Because nothing happens unless you make a sale!
This is Why
Get in the game.
This plaque is at Bud ‘n Mary’s fishing marina in Islamorada, Florida. I’ve been able to enjoy bonefishing there for the past 45 years because of entrepreneurship. Read these words from Theodore Roosevelt and think about it. Think hard. How do you want to live your life? Success and Self-Discovery is my story and I took control of my life. You can too!
Freedom and Free-Enterprise
Abraham Lincoln Got It. I opened one of my favorite books, The Forbes Scrapbook of Thoughts on the Business of Life and found three quotations from Abraham Lincoln that are apropos for the new year, especially if you’re thinking about starting your own business in 2024
1. “You can’t escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
– Abraham Lincoln
2. “Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; it is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that other may become rich and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus, by example, assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”
– Abraham Lincoln
3. “The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages for a while, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just, and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, give hope to all, and consequently energy, and progress, and improvement of conditions to all.”
– Abraham Lincoln
President Lincoln explained simply why free-enterprise was essential to freedom and to improving the quality of life for everyone. Republicans lead more effectively on this philosophical argument… Abraham Lincoln got it!