Tuesday 20 July 2010

No.352 Of Dragon's Den & Other Tales

I'm reading James Caan's "The Real Deal" at the moment. He's the Pakistani born, Indian looking, Eton sounding multimillionaire in Dragon's Den.

He tells a great story of how he left home at 16 and then made his way in recruitment learning and earning and partying as he went.

What's interesting about his meteoric rise to riches is that he never felt any loyalty to his employer at least not enough to keep him there if he felt he could progress more quickly elsewhere. If it was time to go he was off never to look back.
What's clear is that he learnt most of the skills that made him successful by watching others closely and where necessary copying them to the smallest detail.
Most autobiographies are nothing more than PR exercises or blatant attempts to cash in on temporary fame and it's often not what's in these sorts of publications but what has been left out that's really important. But I like this book. Caan comes across to me just as he does in the Den : honest, firm, straight but never gratuitously rude.

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