BookSmarts: What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School
As much as we love to dive headfirst into the latest TV series, music videos, and albums to grab influence and inspiration, we also love the complicated simplicity of words.
Hanging on our creative agency office walls’ in New York City is incredible artwork that we take daily inspiration from, and sitting comfortably on our shelves is a collection of books we use as bibles and motivational speakers.
The more we read here at RIOT, the more we write. You’ll find us heavily typing away through the night and vigorously flipping through pages and pages of a diverse range of reading material.
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.”
— Stephen King
What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School
Our latest page-turner is by a man dubbed as “the most powerful man in sport”, and the founder of IMG (International Management Group) with a simple handshake.
Mark McCormack’s book ‘What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School’ is his twist on an autobiography.
His masterful approach to solving peoples’ problems in business, also relates to this informative and inspirational book that essentially tells you his 25 years of experience in a way that’s interesting, and more educational than a book about his whole life.
We love thinking outside the box, and Mark McCormack’s business mind was way ahead of its time, with him openly admitting that his approach probably wouldn’t work today, at least would be nowhere near as successful.
Putting in the hours
Our work ethic follows suit with Mark too, as we thrive on consistently working hard for long hours, which is something that many business books tend to steer away from, with promises of less work resulting in more success. It’s refreshing and motivating to read a business book that contains honest information from someone that’s so successful and worked damn hard to get there.
He states that successful businessmen are the ones who work all hours of the day and work hard to reach their goals. This proves once again that hard work does pay off, even if it’s not immediate. There seems to be a growing culture of people thinking they can do little work, and achieve big things. From our experience, it’s simply consistent hard work and passion for what you’re doing.
Inspired by old and new
Not every chapter is relatable, and many things within ‘What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School’ will probably be on your radar already, but for us, knowledge, information, and inspiration new-and-old is key to setting our alarms after three hours sleep and getting a project completed way ahead of schedule, at a completely new level of quality.
You’ll find that you’ll consistently refer back to many different pages of the book time and time again, injecting information and inspiration into your veins, and re-igniting your fire for your mission, no matter what it may be.
What’s beautiful is Mark McCormack can prove his success. He’s been there, done that, and is now sharing information that isn’t false, or a waste of time learning.
You have to put in the work
With so many books giving false dreams of quickfire success, ‘What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School’ is a reality check that you’re going to have to work hard at what you’re doing to be successful. It’s a fantastic motivational business bible that we’ll be going back to again and again.
