Do You like book If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons On Your Pigtails: And Other Lessons I Learned From My Mom (2003)?
For some reason I thought this was a book about finances. I don't really know why. Judging it by its cover you wouldn't be misled, but I was given this book together with a different personal finance book just after a discussion about finances. For some reason I put the "Use What You've Got" title into a financial framework, so I decided it would be good to read it, since I always think I have to buy something new to make any kind of progress.I'm glad I was under that impression, because I'm not sure I would have read it otherwise, and I would have missed out. I never really figured out it wasn't about personal finances because I was hooked on it from the first chapter.It's a great book, but it's kind of hard to classify. It's a business book, but it doesn't follow enough of a format to really give a business person a usable framework to follow. And it's a book on sales, but again, without anything concrete enough to put to use. Mostly, though, I guess it's just an inspirational read about how a very successful woman tied her successes into lessons she learned from the day-to-day experiences living along with a hard-working, dedicated, and very wise mother.But that doesn't adequately describe it, either, because she does provide golden nuggets of hard-earned experience that those of us just starting out in business can put to good use, if only we can figure out how to do so. Maybe it's time to read a book on salesmanship next.
—Chad
I just adored this book. I didn't really know what I was getting into, like I didn't know that the author is one of the best known women in NYC real estate or that she's on TV's Shark Tank, I just thought I was reading a pithy memoir.The book alternates between childhood anecdotes ending with a lesson from her mother (sometimes unexpected ones) and chapters showing how she used that wisdom in building a billion dollar real estate firm and weathering downturns and disappointments. It can be a little jarring, being in the middle of one of the parts of the books that talks about her real estate career and then suddenly be back in her poor childhood, but I think, overall, it was handled well. For people building businesses and for entrepreneurs looking for inspiration laced with integrity and loyalty paired with business smarts, this is required reading.
—Linda Pressman
