What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence by Stephen A. Schwarzman (Simon and Schuster, 2019), 394 pages
If you dream, dream big, because dreaming big and dreaming small take just about the same amount of time. If you try hard, try hard for something big, because trying for something big or for something small take roughly the same amount of effort. And don't let failure stop you. These are the main messages of Stephen A. Schwarzman's compelling and useful autobiographical look at best business practices and, more significantly, how to live a focused, fulfilling life, Wall Street style.
Schwarzman has lived by those words of advice, as a teenager, when he tried to persuade his father to go national with the family's linen business in Philadelphia (he failed), and when he wouldn't accept Harvard's rejection of him and pumped a pocketful of coins in a pay phone to get the university to reverse its decision (he failed). As a Lehman Brothers associate, he blundered more than once on big presentations. When beginning Blackstone. the giant equity asset management firm, his days of hustling for a first investor went to weeks and months. Yet his tenacity enabled him to achieve enough successes in between all these setbacks as a high school track athlete, a student activity coordinator at his alma mater Yale, and as an investment banker. These successes reinforced his confidence in an evolving decision-making system and in his commitment to principles that have always guided him through big moves, even in tough economic times, when his competitors failed.
Schwarzman's attention to the details of elite image-making is as striking as his legendary largess: $100 million to the New York Public Library, whose main branch on Fifth Avenue bears his name, $150 million to Oxford University, $150 million to Yale for a renovated student center, $25 million to Abington High School, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated, $40 million for a scholarship fund for children to attend New York Catholic schools, and $100 million to establish Schwarzman scholars in Tsinghua University, Beijing, not to mention the countless millions he raised as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He details how involved he was in executing these bequests, putting in no less effort than when opening new Blackstone offices globally, establishing new investment funds, and serving as an unofficial economic consultant to world leaders, including the present and past few presidents.
Schwarzman writes with candor, humor, and insight, gifts in their own right for readers interested in biography, business, and self-development. His 25 Rules for Work and Life at the end of What It Takes have grounded him throughout his life and make sense for the burgeoning entrepreneur to adopt.
If you dream, dream big, because dreaming big and dreaming small take just about the same amount of time. If you try hard, try hard for something big, because trying for something big or for something small take roughly the same amount of effort. And don't let failure stop you. These are the main messages of Stephen A. Schwarzman's compelling and useful autobiographical look at best business practices and, more significantly, how to live a focused, fulfilling life, Wall Street style.
Schwarzman has lived by those words of advice, as a teenager, when he tried to persuade his father to go national with the family's linen business in Philadelphia (he failed), and when he wouldn't accept Harvard's rejection of him and pumped a pocketful of coins in a pay phone to get the university to reverse its decision (he failed). As a Lehman Brothers associate, he blundered more than once on big presentations. When beginning Blackstone. the giant equity asset management firm, his days of hustling for a first investor went to weeks and months. Yet his tenacity enabled him to achieve enough successes in between all these setbacks as a high school track athlete, a student activity coordinator at his alma mater Yale, and as an investment banker. These successes reinforced his confidence in an evolving decision-making system and in his commitment to principles that have always guided him through big moves, even in tough economic times, when his competitors failed.
Schwarzman's attention to the details of elite image-making is as striking as his legendary largess: $100 million to the New York Public Library, whose main branch on Fifth Avenue bears his name, $150 million to Oxford University, $150 million to Yale for a renovated student center, $25 million to Abington High School, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated, $40 million for a scholarship fund for children to attend New York Catholic schools, and $100 million to establish Schwarzman scholars in Tsinghua University, Beijing, not to mention the countless millions he raised as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He details how involved he was in executing these bequests, putting in no less effort than when opening new Blackstone offices globally, establishing new investment funds, and serving as an unofficial economic consultant to world leaders, including the present and past few presidents.
Schwarzman writes with candor, humor, and insight, gifts in their own right for readers interested in biography, business, and self-development. His 25 Rules for Work and Life at the end of What It Takes have grounded him throughout his life and make sense for the burgeoning entrepreneur to adopt.
