SPARE ROOM TYCOON
SUCCEEDING INDEPENDENTLY - THE SEVENTY LESSONS OF SANE SELF-EMPLOYMENT
JAMES CHAN
"Sections on starting up and sustaining a business provide wise and witty injunctions and observations, such as 'dress to bill' and 'other people's anxieties are what keep us in business.' This eye-opening work addresses personal and professional relationship issues, daily anxieties and catastrophes, which are the prices one must pay to gain the overarching satisfaction of creating a personal empire, be it large or small."
Publishers' Weekly, 15 May, 2000
Spare room tycoons, says author James Chan, rule their own domain. They have successfully invented independent careers and autonomous lives. "I am a captain of industry myself," Chan writes, "though my craft is more like a rowboat than an ocean liner. My empire is small, but I do rule it. And I would rather be captain of my dinghy than a junior officer on the Titanic."
Filled with real-life stories and real-world wisdom, Spare Room Tycoon offers a behind-the-scenes look at the unique and diverse lives of independents who are expressing their individuality through their own businesses.
All these voices of experience offer valuable perspective to anyone faced with the pressures and uncertainties of creating an independent career. Chan also provides SPARE, an original framework for tough-minded introspection. "You are your most important tool, your most valuable capital, your ultimate resource," he writes. "If you want your business to survive, you need to understand yourself."
In this friendly companion for anyone already living an independent life and for those who aspire to doing so, Chan draws on his own experience of nearly two decades as an independent and on the personal stories of dozens of other trailblazers to show how to take control of your life as well as your business. Spare Room Tycoon shows what it's really like by revealing how others deploy their talents, keep their sanity, and swim and prosper in the stormy seas of self-employment. No "how-to" balance sheets or business plans here. Only true life stories of how to find deliverance from office politics, the freedom to pursue a life's dream, and the secrets of what it takes to achieve personal satisfaction, autonomy, and a balance in work and in life.
Some of the Seventy Lessons of Sane Self-Employment
- Declare your independence
- Your most important client is yourself
- Be your own boss, not a slave-driver
- Charge enough to live. If you can't, you're not really in business
- Confidence is money
- Be authentic. Don't pretend to be something you're not but create a good package for all that you are.
- A new set of lenses for viewing the stock market
- Dress to bill
- Freedom is being able to let the phone ring
- Remember that other people's anxieties are what keep you in business
- Spare room tycoons want freedom and independence... building an ever-expanding empire is optional
James Chan, successful entrepreneur, speaker, and pioneer on the workplace frontier, runs his own business, Asia Marketing and Management. Living the life of a spare room tycoon for nearly two decades, he has helped more than 100 companies - including Nationwide Insurance, Lucent Technologies, and the Cross-Cultural Division of Berlitz - develop and manage their business in China and elsewhere in the Pacific Rim.
A contributing columnist to China Technology Market News, his work has also appeared in publications such as Publishers Weekly, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Export Today. Chan is a dynamic speaker and trainer, and has developed and taught courses throughout the U.S. on business skills for the China market for the American Management Association. He lives and works in Philadelphia.
Visit the book's website at http://www.www.SpareRoomTycoon.com.