The Courage to Fail: Art Mortell's Secrets for Business Success

Book Description

Both practical and inspirational, The Courage to Fail breaks new ground by showing business readers that failure and rejection are problems only if they're allowed to produce debilitating anxieties. To forestall this chain reaction, Mortell helps readers gauge their attitudes toward failure, and outlines strategies for converting potentially paralyzing anxiety into added energy that assures creative results. Readers will discover: How to be amused by rejection and employ humor to defuse the effects of failure; How to eliminate the 10 negative addictions people use to cope with failure; How to use 4 positive addictions to increase energy and sharpen creativity; How to excel without risking career burn-out; How to recover swiftly from an array of professional setbacks. Entertaining and instructive, The Courage to Fail is the perfect prescription for thriving under pressure and using failure and rejection as stepping stones to success.

Customer Reviews:

Highly Recommended !.......2000-07-10

As founder of "Traderscoach.com" I thought this book provided the reader with a realistic view of taking risks in life and how you should view failure as nothing more than a stepping stone to eventual success.

I saw Art Mortell speak live when I was at Prudential Securities, Inc. seminar in La Jolla, California. He was outstanding and very motivating.

Basically you are not a failure until you give up and that sums it up as far as I am concerned.

Whether you apply this approach to selling or trading the financial markets, you will learn alot about what is necessary to be a consistant winner.

Fell FREE to visit our Web-site "Traderscoach.com" which deals with Trading Psycology as well as other material realted to trading. We currently recommend his book.

Mortell is the definative source for business motivation..........1999-07-24

Art Mortell spoke before my training class a couple of years ago...I found his motivational system, contained in his book "Courage to Fail", to be not only highly interesting and unique in his field, but also his system is extremely well described and highly useful to anyone who wishes to succeed in business. While there are many similar books offered on this subject, Art Mortell's system should be regarded the definative source for business motivation...

Excellent business energizer for all business cultures.......1999-05-14

The kind of stories that "Art" tells about in his book, makes me remember that whenever in trouble, specially in business, there's always someone, somewhere, sometime, that has overcome much worst difficulties. There is always a solution for every / anything in life, except for death. We all choose our attitude when facing different situations.

Othón León, México City, México.

A must read book.......1998-04-22

This is a book to be read by all those who want to achieve more in life but fear stands in the way, Arts easy to read style makes the book hard to put down, After years of reading self help books I found one in 'The courage to fail' that has helped me unlock the doors to my fears, so I now know that the road to success is paved with failure, which is good, cause its the way we learn and grow. AWESOME book

The Courage To Fail - Art Mortell*s Secrets For Business Success

Average customer rating:

The Courage To Fail - Art Mortell*s Secrets For Business Success
Art Mortell
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OFZPG0

Book Description

The distinctive character of corporate business enterprise in the United States - large firms guided by powerful, centralized managers, historically deferential directors, and distant shareholders - is usually thought to be the inevitable result of economic and technological forces. In this major reinterpretation of the origins and evolution of corporate structure, Mark Roe shows that the nature of the American corporation derives not only from these forces but also from political decisions that made alternative forms of organization costly or illegal. Drawing upon work in economics, history, law, and political science, Roe argues that the role of politicians in mediating the interaction between firms and financiers is a critical, but neglected, part of the explanation why certain forms rather than others prevailed. In their classic 1932 study, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means argued that the separation of ownership and control was the consequence of industrial technologies requiring large-scale production, which in turn led to highly dispersed stockholding. Roe demonstrates, however, that the ownership structure of the American corporation represents just one of several possible outcomes, and that other organizational forms arose abroad (in Germany and Japan, for example) under the influence of different political conditions. At a number of critical junctures, political choices were made about how savings were to be channeled to industry that sharply restricted the power of financial institutions to shape the growth of large firms. These decisions, which pre-dated the New Deal, going as far back in some cases as the nineteenth century,reflected the American public's enduring dislike of concentrated financial power. Once these rules for the governance of financial institutions were in place - but not before - the Berle-Means corporation became inevitable. In recent years, new technological and competitive cha

Download Description

In this major reinterpretation of the evolution of the American corporation, Mark Roe convincingly demonstrates that the ownership structure of large U.S. firms owes its distinctive character as much to politics as to economics and technology. His provocative examination addresses essential issues facing American businesses today as they compete in the new international marketplace.

Customer Reviews:

A provocative look at US corporate governance........2000-06-02

In their 1932 classic, THE MODERN CORPORATION AND PRIVATE PROPERTY, Berle and Means brought to popular attention the separation of ownership and control in U.S. corporations: shareholders exercised virtually no control over either day to day operations or long-term policy; instead, control was vested in the hands of professional managers. Separation of ownership and control occurred, according to Berle and Means, because important technological changes during the 1800s, especially the development of modern mass production techniques, gave great advantages to firms large enough to achieve economics of scale, which in turn gave rise to giant industrial corporations. These firms could be financed only by aggregating many small investments. Modern corporate governance scholars refer to the consequences of separating ownership and control as agency costs, but Berle and Means had identified the basic problem over forty years before the current terminology was invented: "The separation of ownership from control produces a condition where the interests of owner and of ultimate manager may, and often do, diverge ...."

In STRONG MANAGERS, WEAK OWNERS, Mark Roe strikes out in a new direction, by attacking the origins of the agency cost problem. The question Roe poses is the foundational one of whether Berle and Means were correct in assuming that the separation of ownership and control is an inherent aspect of large public corporations. Roe contends that dispersed ownership was not the inevitable consequence of impersonal economic forces, but rather the result of a series of political decisions motivated by a fear of concentrated economic power. Investments could have been channeled to industrial enterprises through large financial intermediaries, such as banks, insurance companies, and mutual and pension funds. Put another way, while it was necessary to aggregate and tap the savings of large numbers of individual investors in order to fund major industrial corporations, such aggregation could have taken place in financial institutions specifically designed to provide savings opportunities. In turn, it would have been those institutions that invested in industrial corporations. American corporate governance did not evolve along these lines because the law created a series of obstacles to financial intermediaries. If those obstacles had not existed, ownership might not have fragmented and thus might not have separated from control. The implication of this thesis, of course, is that while economic forces shaped modern corporate governance, they did so within the parameters set by law. As such, the governance structure of U.S. public corporations may not be optimal in an absolute sense, but only relative to the set of possibilities defined by our legal system.

Roe focuses on legal rules preventing institutional investors from acting as financial intermediaries between the investing public and the management of public corporations. The first third of STRONG MANAGERS is devoted to a historical review of the rules that preclude institutions from playing a significant role in corporate governance. In the second third, he reviews recent developments, which perpetuated the legal obstacles to governance activism by institutions. In the final part, he addresses the essential policy implication of his analysis: should the legal system encourage institutions to take a more active governance role?

One can quibble with portions of Roe's historical argument. There is, for example, good evidence that ownership and control separated long before most of the rules Roe blames for the separation went on the books. At the very latest, ownership and control of large corporations had separated by the middle of the nineteenth century. In contrast, the rules with which Roe is concerned mostly came into existence only after 1900. Granted, banks fragmented in the first third of the 18th century, but a number of critical restrictions did not come into play until the New Deal. Insurers were largely unregulated until after 1906. Mutual funds, albeit long of little importance, likewise were essentially unregulated until the New Deal. Given this free market environment, why did these or other financial intermediaries not step into the economic niche opened when ownership and control separated during in the early and mid-1800s?

In other words, Roe has not proven that the Berle-Means corporation would not have evolved in the absence of the constraints on financial intermediaries he describes. But, at a minimum, Roe does demonstrate that politics did nothing to impede the development of the Berle-Means corporation, perhaps facilitated its evolution, and certainly helped sustain it by preventing financial intermediaries from taking active governance roles. In and of itself, that showing is a formidable accomplishment and a valuable contribution to the literature.

Although the first two sections of STRONG MANAGERS are notable in their own right, the book takes on importance mainly because of the significance of the policy questions to which the final section is addressed. Space does not permit one to do full justice to Roe's argument, which is nuanced and well-crafted. Suffice it to say that relatively little has changed since STRONG MANAGERS was published. Despite increased activism in recent years, institutions still are mostly passive. Even the most active institutional investors spend only trifling amounts on corporate governance activism. Institutions devote little effort to monitoring management, rarely conduct proxy solicitations, do not to try to elect directors, and rarely coordinate their activities. And, perhaps, this is a good thing. As Roe concedes, there is good evidence that bank-dominated finance has harmed that Japanese and German economies by impeding venture capital. Moreover, institutional investors may well abuse control by self-dealing. Even if institutional investors are entirely self-less, greater control on their part would still be undesirable if the separation of ownership and control mandated by U.S. law has substantial efficiency benefits. Here is where Roe and I part company-I suspect the Berle-Means corporation has significant economic advantages over its alternatives; he is skeptical. Perhaps only time will tell, as competition in increasingly global markets puts various systems of economic organization to the test. In the meanwhile, Roe's book belongs in the library of anyone interested in corporate law or governance.

Average customer rating:
Strong Managers, Weak Owners: The Political Roots of American Corporate Finance. (book reviews): An article from: Journal of Economic Issues
Eric Hake
Manufacturer: Association for Evolutionary Economics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00093SPPA
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Economic Issues, published by Association for Evolutionary Economics on December 1, 1995. The length of the article is 690 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Strong Managers, Weak Owners: The Political Roots of American Corporate Finance. (book reviews)
Author: Eric Hake
Publication: Journal of Economic Issues (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 1995
Publisher: Association for Evolutionary Economics
Volume: v29 Issue: n4 Page: p1258(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Amazon.com

Virtually everyone agrees that the process of corporate litigation has spun out of control. Thomas Schweich, an attorney who focuses on the negotiation, mediation, and arbitration of commercial disputes, believes that all of us should therefore be working to lessen our companies' susceptibility to lawsuits--while simultaneously shoring up our own professional reputations--by avoiding the "eight big mistakes" and constructing the "four shields" that he says can ultimately make or break any firm. In Protect Yourself From Business Lawsuits (...and Lawyers Like Me), Schweich begins with his theories on the legal system's problems and their direct and indirect ramifications for business owners as well as employees. He then presents his detailed suggestions for lawsuit protection, starting with a list of the primary blunders to bypass, such as Bad Writing (not knowing when, and when not, to write information down), Speculating (discussing something that you're not qualified to discuss), Bad Research (doing business with the wrong people), and Getting Personal (letting emotions get in the way of common sense). He concludes with explicit details on a quartet of defensive tactics related to document protection, corporate definition, alternative dispute resolution, and the wise choice of business partners. --Howard Rothman

Book Description

Corporate litigation has spun out of control. Large companies can spend up to 10 percent of their quarterly earnings on legal costs. What can you -- as an employee, CEO, or entrepreneur -- do to protect your company and your career from business lawsuits? In this groundbreaking book, Thomas A. Schweich, himself a lawyer, offers novel and inexpensive advice about how companies and their employees can use commonsense business tactics to avoid potentially devastating litigation.

For too long, companies have entrusted outside counsel to resolve disputes through litigation -- often at great expense to their bottom line and to individual careers caught up in the ongoing lawsuits. Now, you can work to resolve these problems yourself by avoiding the Eight Big Mistakes that often result in litigation -- including bad writing, bad estimating, speculation, bad research, side deals, and others. These mistakes are made every day in every kind of company -- from huge conglomerates to one-person start-ups. And everyone from the receptionist to the CEO makes them. One mistake at any level of the company can result in tremendous disruption within the company and a very costly verdict. The author also describes the Four Shields that any company can construct using internal resources to protect itself from the litigation scourge.

Protect Yourself from Business Lawsuits is a must for everyone from the CEO of a major corporation to the average employee seeking to protect his or her career to the entrepreneur for whom a lawsuit could mean bankruptcy.

Customer Reviews:

(((( my studio )))) 4 shields of protection. What a concept!.......2003-05-21

As a private music teacher I have to regularly defend myself against non-committal parents, who are often looking for advantages in lesson time shifting. It is a very real and hard issue for a dedicated private teacher. Studio time is limited and therefore it is as precious as teacher's professional skills. It took me many years to structure flexible lesson pricing - yearly contract rate, non-committal rate, single lesson rate - and enforce them.

The Four Shields, clearly described by the book author Thomas A.Schweich, contributed to better understanding and improvement of my contractual agreement with studio parents. More importantly, it helped to bring teacher - parents relationships at my studio into more respectful level. Thank you, Mr.Schweich, for a generosity of your spirit.

A Must Read for All Businesses. . .small or large!.......1999-02-11

The book is very readable and it is not necessary to be a lawyer to understand the risks and how to prevent potential litigation. It is hard to believe that a lawyer wrote this book since the book was an easy read and can serve as a good reference tool for managers to share with employees. Great work!

Protect Yourself from Business Lawsuits: and Lawyers Like Me.(Review): An article from: Mid-Atlantic Journal of Business

Average customer rating:

Protect Yourself from Business Lawsuits: and Lawyers Like Me.(Review): An article from: Mid-Atlantic Journal of Business
Richard J. Hunter
Manufacturer: Stillman School of Business
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00098LNBS
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Mid-Atlantic Journal of Business, published by Stillman School of Business on December 1, 1998. The length of the article is 865 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Protect Yourself from Business Lawsuits: and Lawyers Like Me.(Review)
Author: Richard J. Hunter
Publication: Mid-Atlantic Journal of Business (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 1998
Publisher: Stillman School of Business
Volume: 34 Issue: 3 Page: 298(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

You have seen the big ones in the fields, here are the toy versions. Over 1000 farm model and pedal tractors are illustrated with detailed information about their manufacturers and model changes for many countries of the world. The models are organized and numerically coded in groups by the makers of the full size tracors including John Deere, Ford, International, etc., and include vital information for each one, including their scale and model makers. An index guides you right to your reference.

Value Guide & Inventory to Accompany International Directory of Model Farm Tractors & Implements Featuring John Deere

Average customer rating:

Value Guide & Inventory to Accompany International Directory of Model Farm Tractors & Implements Featuring John Deere
Raymond E. Crilley Sr.
Manufacturer: International Farm Models Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000REIGZ0

Book Description

This landmark publication provides the first definitive account of how and why subtle influences on the fetus and during early life can have such profound consequences for adult health and diseases. Although the epidemiological evidence for this link has long proved compelling, it is only much more recently that the scientific and physiological basis has begun to be studied in depth and fully understood. The compilation, written by many of the world's leading experts in this exciting field, summarizes these scientific and clinical advances.

Disorders of the Developing Nervous System: Changing Views on Their Origins, Diagnoses, and Treatments (Albany Birth Defects Symposium)

Average customer rating:

Disorders of the Developing Nervous System: Changing Views on Their Origins, Diagnoses, and Treatments (Albany Birth Defects Symposium)
John W. Swann
Manufacturer: Wiley-Liss
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0471502685

Book Description

This introduction to mineralogy for undergraduate and graduate students in geology and materials science has been designed for a semester course. Covering all aspects of mineralogy in an integrated way, it links mineral properties with broader geological processes, and conveys their economic importance throughout the text. Handy reference tables and a glossary of terms make this study an indispensable guide for the next generation of mineralogy students.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent general introduction to mineralogy.......2006-02-28

Having been wowed by DK Publishing's gorgeous "Rock and Gem", I was looking for a more technical volume that would cover the basics of mineralogy. The intended audience for this book is likely 2nd and 3rd year undergraduates in an earth sciences program. I compared this book with several others, particularly Nesse's "Introduction to Mineralogy" and Klein's "Manual of Mineral Science", which are the two most commonly used mineralogy textbooks. This volume covers the same basic content as those two, but has a more concise, clear writing style and includes more material on the applied aspects of mineralogy (ore deposits, gems, minerals in human health, etc.). I was pleased with my choice - this book makes some difficult concepts and technical material (e.g. crystal symmetry) understandable for the layperson with a decent knowledge of basic math, chemistry, and physics. It is also excellent in its descriptions of the analytical tools that professional mineralogists use to study crystal structure and advance our understanding of mineralogy. Recommended.

Hans-Rudolf Wenk and Andrei Bulakh: Minerals - Their Constitution and Origin [A book review from: Chemie der Erde - Geochemistry - Interdisciplinary Journal for Chemical]

Average customer rating:

Hans-Rudolf Wenk and Andrei Bulakh: Minerals - Their Constitution and Origin [A book review from: Chemie der Erde - Geochemistry - Interdisciplinary Journal for Chemical]
K. Heide
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000PC092W

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Chemie der Erde - Geochemistry - Interdisciplinary Journal for Chemical, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:

Average customer rating:

Minerals: Their Constitution and Origin
Hans-Rudolf Wenk
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MHHUZ4

Book Description

Geared toward readers already acquainted with special relativity, this book transcends the view of theory as a working tool to answer natural questions: What is a frame of reference? What is a "law of nature"? What is the role of the "observer"? Extensive, nonscientific treatment. 1983 edition.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books