- Your Next Five Moves

It all starts with a winning aspiration. The proverbial fire in the belly, coupled with abundant courage and an American Dream. The rest, as they say is history. This book is about human Potential, Passion and Purpose. This is the story of an Iranian refugee in our generation who has made it big in the land of opportunities. This is his business story, with key lessons on entrepreneurship. The author says that there are three kinds of advisers. 1. Theory: Well-read individuals with degrees from prestigious universities, typically professors and consultants. 2. Witness: The advisers who have worked closely with entrepreneurs and CEOs. 3. Application: The people who can tell you what they have done, that has worked for them. The author does not (fortunately) have a formal college degree. But he has taken time to read over 1500 books on business. This book is his first-hand experience of Application. The Five Moves, compared to the dozen moves that grandmasters plan in the game of chess, follow a clear framework (Simon Sinek) – WHY (CLARITY on what you want and who you want to be), HOW (STRATEGY to help you reason in the war room and the board room. GROWTH TACTICS for good times and bad) and, WHAT (SKILLS for building the right team based on strong values. INSIGHT on power plays and the art of applying leverage.) Each of these five moves need to be thought out clearly and undergo iteration and constant course correction. While many of the concepts in the book can be found in leading business books, this book excels in giving deep, specific, actionable insights. As an example, the team members are categorised as - Stranger, Endorsed, Trusted, and Running mate. Running mates are those who can always be trusted fully for their competence, integrity, and high performance. They are the extended fuel of entrepreneurship that need no supervision and propel the firm to greater heights. Speed is key for growth. Be it Functional speed, Process speed, Expansion speed or Timing Speed, as explained with excellent examples. Success is not about Linear growth, which can be managed by Operating Systems coupled with Business Development. Exponential growth is fuelled by the twin engines of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. This is a paradigm shift in the mindset of great leaders who generate momentum for speed and growth. This book is equally relevant for Intrapreneurs (who think and work with an entrepreneurial mindset in established well run great companies). Most often, bureaucracy and hubris are the twin curses of big corporates, where titles and hence entitlement rule, especially at senior levels. (They work in their business, but not on their business. Physically present, but mentally retired, they enjoy comfortable corporate lifestyle, fat salaries and look forward to happy official retirement. Insecure leaders are surrounded by ‘yes’ men who are rewarded for being ‘highly aligned’.) This rot needs to be stopped, to arrest the decay and prevent the accelerated demise of the leviathan. This book is a wake-up call for top leadership, to reignite, reinvent, revive such organizations and to reward all stakeholders. Work as if it is a new company every day. God speed ahead.

It's a book that you can come back and read it again and again. I am Sai Prahlad K, Entrepreneur, International FIDE Rated Chess Player, and Coach to over 300+ Kids and adults. I have gifted this book to my core team, top performers at our academy, and to my important circles. I read the book cover to cover in under 16 hours. Writing this review after my first read. The book will give you clarity and understanding, it delivers what is promised. But what you gather will depend on where you are at in life. Some of the later portions of the book you can understand it, but won't feel it till you experience them. Hence I recommend multiple reads or pondering, Dyana (meditation). Patrick has written in such a way that it's not boastful or egotistic but takes the point across to the reader. The book is full of examples from Patrick's own life and many others. In this sense, it makes it kinda like an autobiography as well. I personally loved all of those areas, especially those were destiny was guiding Patrick. Example Edwin backstab, his dad's heart attack, Dotty, Personality audit, Cathy Larson on approach, Shut down by Katty on his ideas, Ray Apparel investment, The big competitor suing Patrick on day one, and few others. if you read the book you will understand these are key events that happened in Patrick's life. Though it wasn't beneficial in hindsight, on the deeper level it was destiny guiding him to where he is today. The book also has many tools and techniques that you can use when facing challenges, as well as what not to do in business and life. It's riddled with golden nuggets and tactical steps. For hiring, firing, approaching investors, bootstrap, knowing people's mindsets, due diligence, steps to overcome problems, creating a comp-plan, building a team, understanding oneself. Hence, requires more than one read, and to be on your arsenal when facing challenges. It's a no brainer, must have read, more so if you are an entrepreneur or someone who wants to succeed in life. The best thing money can buy! I would also recommend gifting this book to people above your circle. People in power appreciate books. My favorite part is the example of IBM founder's vision, plan, and execution. Patrick did a video on this on Youtube (check it out). I took that example that was on the book and changed from' Building a Great Company' to 'World Champion' and taught to my kids (students). it was a very powerful message. You should do it too. Use the book to teach. Thanks, Patrick for creating this amazing book. I would love to read your next book which may come in a few years/decades. Can't wait! If you are free would love to play a game of chess with you, show you how I combine chess, business and life. Cheers, Sai Prahlad K from India

It's a good quick book on motivating you to think through while trying to do well professionally. Writing is easy and impactful. Though nothing new to learn here but it's presented well by author who has been through the grind and came out successful.

Great content, exposures.

Just a quick note: I have both the audiobook and hardcover versions and they are both very good. Patrick is a great narrator and I enjoyed his other two audiobooks, especially "Doing The Impossible: The 25 Laws for Doing The Impossible," as well. This book is an excellent book to help those are uncertain about what they want out of life, how to start a business, maintain a business, and survive in a business environment. The book emphasizes self awareness, knowing what you ultimately want out of life and a job, and after that how to structure your career path around that if you are someone that want to run a company by giving the reader 5 moves to think about. The book is well thought out and recommendations are backed by life experience, but throughout the book the reader is told to use their own judgment and not to just take the recommendations as orders. The 5 moves are broken down as follows with some highlights I picked: 1. Know yourself: be self aware; know who you want to be, what you want in life. Do you want to be a CEO, intrapreneur (someone who is not necessarily a founder but a key member of building a company without being the CEO), an influencer, etc.? What drives you--job promotions, lifestyle, fame, helping others? My favorite part of the book is actually here, right at the beginning. Patrick talks about how a heart attack his father had helped guide him to removing distractions out of his life and to focus on bettering his life and his family's life. Although based on the "Know yourself and what drives you" theme, it is obvious we all have a desire to have a nice life, and we all will have different definitions for what that may be. It is important to realize we have competing desires with our one for a better life, no matter how seemingly innocent they may be, and that we need to remove these competing desires as barriers to do the work and make the sacrifices necessary to fulfill our desire for a better life. 2. Ability to reason: the book speaks about great processors of information and gives 8 traits for them, but the first two are the ones that I find most important--ask lots of questions and don't care about being right or wrong initially, just in reaching the truth. I appreciate the frankness here because many people, not all, try to act like they know everything and have to be correct, both in business and in life, and they end up hurting their relationships and prospects of success do this. If those people would focus on improving and not worrying about how not knowing everything appears to others they would succeed more. 3. Building the right team: understand your teams desires; talks about firing people, which as someone who may not be a CEO but has worked with coworkers who should have been fired, I am glad he does not shy away from doing what is necessary for the good of the team; communicate expectations--you'd be surprised how many people/bosses do not do this and act angry when something is not completed at the time or in the fashion of their desire. By communicating expectations, the level of urgency and detail required for the task is conveyed and the employee knows exactly how to prioritize their work--for some bosses I've had, if they said to do something in an open ended fashion, they wanted progress to be done on it, but for the day to day tasks to take priority; others wanted it done and handed over to them with a quick turn around regardless of other tasks. People are not mind readers and clear communication can help avoid unnecessary friction. 4. Strategy to scale--raising capital; accountability; building systems for measurement and making things systematic to easily train the next wave of talent. My favorite parts were the respect shown for predictive analytics and recommendation of codifying your business methods to more easily train the next wave of talent in your company. If more company's took this approach, they'd save tons of time and grief (I have been on the receiving end of the grief due to poor training). 5. Power plays: beat the dominant entities of your industry and control your narrative and brand. This one has quite a few points to get into, but one thing I will like to point out is the point of not prostituting your brand. Patrick lives this. He does not talk about the company he runs, PHP, much on his Valutainment YouTube channel. He uses it when he draws on his life experiences, yes, but he does not promote it. This built my trust in him and I will vouch that he seems like an honest person that knows how to respect his viewers/readers/customers time and will not jerk them around. He will make mention in the book to use your own judgement and not necessarily just go by what he says. He does not try to come across as a know it all, but as someone who has gone through many different situations, learned many things, come up with strategies for putting a situation in his favor, and being highly curious and willing to evolve and change his thinking. If you are looking for guidance on figuring out how you be self aware, aware of coworkers/employees desires, how to build a company, maintain it, and grow it, this will be a solid and perhaps even indispensable source of knowledge for you.

Dinâmico e com muitos bons exemplos, traz através de linguagem simples e interessante situações e casos que nos ajudam a melhor entender o conteúdo e ir avançando de forma rápida e objetiva.

This is a really great book, and I highly recommend it to everyone.

I have been following Patrick Bet-David for about 3 years since I found Valuetainment, from that moment his advise was not only based on theoretical knowledge but based on his own experiences. the book is an improved extension of the Youtube channel. While many business book authors use examples to explain specific methods or theories, Patrick goes beyond and explains from his own experiences the relationship between the theoretical knowledge he acquired and how he put it in practice, the result is a not a business book only, but a life guide. Patrick guide us in a step-by-step path to know us better in order to be able to provide the best for other people, either through entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship. As he mentions in the book, knowing ourselves is the main challenge to being to improve our lives and other people's lives and moreover our own families. Another great difference between classic business or personal improvement books, is the gifts Patrick gave us after each chapter, making the full circle of knowledge, theory, practice and experiment. I am sure I will not read the book once but it will become my personal guide for years to come. Thank you David for sharing your knowledge with us, really appreciate it.