Sh!t Happens (Paperback) | Released: 11 Dec 2017

How would you characterize an event that results in losing your successful business, all your money, your health, your family, and still leaves you owing a million dollars? Although it happened to me when I was only thirty, I had acquired no lack of colorful expressions to describe my experience, the most innocent of which was "shit!" That very first serious crisis to a large extent shaped my life as a businessman and a person. I have become resolutely determined that such "shit" should never happen again, and if it is impossible to avoid, I must be prepared and deal with it without such huge losses. Continuing in business, I became convinced that crises happen again and again, whether I want them or not. They could be caused by external factors or my own managerial mistakes and miscalculations; they could affect the whole global economy, an individual country, one industry, or my company alone. All crises, regardless of their scale, reason, and circumstances, have enriched my experience as entrepreneur incredibly, for what I am grateful to them. However, now, fifteen years after my most hopeless "shit", I should admit that I have never developed an immunity to it - shit keeps happening to me and, in a sense, has become an inseparable part of the way I do business. Even now, working on this book, I am simultaneously reforming my company, terminating unprofitable projects, and exploring new growth points. The most important thing is that "shit" has stopped frightening me and ruining my life - I react to it in a calm and constructive way. I know that I am not alone - many Russian entrepreneurs also do business in "S" mode, constantly switching from dealing with one problem that threatens to ruin their company to solving another one, no less painful. I don't think it prevents us from considering ourselves successful. After all, as Winston Churchill said, "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." Challenges and failures help to keep us realistic, to retain our humility; they don't let us rest on our oars and lose our business acumen. This book is not so much my biography, as a learning aid. Many of my own failures were caused by simple ignorance. There was no sage around to help me, who had already experienced my problems and knew how to overcome them. So, when I became convinced that the experience that I have accumulated could be useful to other entrepreneurs, I started sharing it immediately. Twelve years ago, I founded Svoy Biznes [One's Own Business] magazine, then became an active member of the global Entrepreneur's Organization (EO), and in recent years, I have become a regular speaker at business seminars and conferences. Now I have tried to summarize my experience in a book, which, I hope, will help others learn how to handle challenging situations in business and private life.