Capital Gaines: Smart Things I Learned Doing Stupid Stuff by Chip Gaines
I Like Being A Launching Pad For Others
In CAPITAL GAINES: SMART THINGS I LEARNED DOING STUPID STUFF, author and TV personality Chip Gaines describes the rocky path of his business career. If you are a big fan of his TV show, you will probably find the anecdotes a lot of fun to read.
Several themes stand out in this book. The first is COURAGE.
“The courage to take a chance is half the battle. The other half? Viewing failure as a teacher and not an enemy. . . Real and important changes begin with small, courageous acts. It’s never too late in your story to take a step away from fear.”
Chip describes the early failures of many folks, who later went on to achieve greatness. For example, Michael Jordan was “cut from his high school basketball team and still went on to become arguably the greatest basketball player of all time.” Chip recalls his desire to be a great baseball player, only to be cut from the team in his early years at college.
So, when you experience a sudden, unexpected decline, you can sit around and mope, or get to work using your skills to achieve something:
“Make yourself irreplaceable to your company, and you will have your choice of titles that can’t define you.”
Chip describes some really bone-headed ideas that they tried early-on, only to later realize they had made a big mistake. Wanting to be more ecologically sound, they bought a new machine:
“We invested in this amazing machine that converted used boxes into packing materials. What we didn’t consider was how much shipping would cost to ship with all of that heavy cardboard packing material.”
Perhaps the most valuable part of the book is the encouraging outlook, on learning from your mistakes:
“We turned just about every situation into a learning opportunity.
So all in all, I found CAPITAL GAINES to be an interesting read recounting his successes and failures, with some decent business tips thrown in. The author includes many stories just like the “packing material” machine mistake. I appreciate the author’s humility in sharing the mistakes he made. I found the book to be optimistic and encouraging.
