I’ve started and shut down more than one business over the last few years. Nothing catastrophic — they just slowly collapsed. Missed decisions, wrong hires, bad timing, lack of focus. The usual explanations…
Recently, a friend recommended me a book that wasn’t motivational at all. It didn’t talk about success stories or tactics. It just walked through recurring failure patterns — the kind that look reasonable while you’re making them.
What messed with me is that I could map my own decisions directly onto those patterns. Not “kind of similar,” but uncomfortably precise!
It made me realize I wasn’t failing because I didn’t work hard or didn’t know enough. I failed because I kept walking into the same traps without recognizing them as traps…
Now I’m trying to find more material like that.
Not startup porn. Not strategy theory.
More like field manuals that explain how smart people still screw things up.
If you’ve read anything in that category, I’d appreciate recommendations.
by retrovibesforever
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Art of the Deal.