• Whether you dream of being an entrepreneur or not, we’re all free agents now. Business Brilliant offers insights from America’s top wealth creators that we all need to survive and thrive.

• Based on a survey of 800 household decision makers—half from high net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth households—Lewis sought the answer to this question: When the going gets tough, what do “the tough” (self-made Americans) do differently than the rest of us? The results of this extensive study are the foundation of Business Brilliant.

• Lewis Schiff regularly blogs on Inc.com and excerpts from Business Brilliant will appear in Inc. Magazine, both in print and online. 
 
 
 

For decades, the middle class has believed that the road to success meant working hard and playing by the rules. But as the 2008 economic crisis has made clear, the old rules no longer apply—that particular road to prosperity has become a road to nowhere. While household net worth has declined for most, self-made business leaders—entrepreneurially minded individuals born into the middle class who have accumulated significant wealth—have prospered. What makes these have-mores financially successful when others are struggling to keep up

In Business Brilliant, Lewis Schiff combines compelling storytelling with eye-opening, groundbreaking research and practical guidance to show the rest of us what America’s self-made rich already know. He explodes commonly held myths about wealth and explains how successful entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Suze Orman, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, and Cirque de Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, subscribe to a set of priorities completely different from those in the middle class. Schiff identifies the seven distinct principles practiced by individuals who may or may not be any smarter than the rest of the population but seem to understand instinctively how money is made. They are business brilliant. The book reveals how these self-made excel in areas of team building, risk management, and leadership development to accumulate their wealth.

Schiff argues that it is synergy, not serendipity that produces success. He offers a practical four-step program ordinary workers can follow to position themselves to succeed more often, from choosing a livelihood and pinpointing skills to focus on, to negotiating job terms and salary. Business Brilliant challenges readers to compare their own approach to the executives and entrepreneurs who have successfully navigated our rapidly changing economy. While Business Brilliant doesn’t promise to make you rich, it can help you can achieve better results in your career.